Ukraine fires 400 drones towards Moscow as Zelenskyy grapples with protests

Russian forces struck Ukrainian targets earlier (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Ukrainehas fired more than 400 drones toward Moscow in its latest major attack on the Russian capital, the city’s mayor said.

The attack came hours after Russia bombarded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles in a relentless cycle of tit-for-tat strikes that make a settlement to end Moscow’s more than four-year-old all-out invasion appear a distant possibility.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said he would hold “key talks” on Monday as he tries to defuse a domestic political crisis, after last week’s government reshuffle exposed a deep split between the military’s old guard and young innovators over how to fight the war.

A settlement in the war seems like a distant prospect (AP)

Mr Zelenskyy needs to reassure Ukrainians that sacrificing 35-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister and keeping faith with 60-year-old Soviet-trained Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi as armed forces chief will not derail the fight against Russia.

Days of street protests in favour of Mr Fedorov and against Gen Syrskyi followed Mr Zelenskyy’s decision.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that over 400 Ukrainian drones were sent toward the Russian capital from late Sunday until early on Monday. He said most were downed far from the capital and 85 were intercepted near Moscow.

Andrei Vorobyov, the head of the region around Moscow, said that 10 people were wounded by Ukrainian drones. He said that several residential buildings and civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged.

The attack started a fire at the Yuzhnye Vrata industrial park, about 18 miles south of Moscow, according to Yevgeniya Khrustaleva, the head of the Domodedovo area of the Moscow region.

The Astra news outlet reported that the assault also caused a fire at an oil depot in Podolsk, about 12 miles south of Moscow but there was no official confirmation of the strike.

A Russian air guided bomb hit Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine (AP)

Ukrainian forces struck logistics facilities and an oil depot in the Moscow region, more than 250 miles from Ukraine’s border, Mr Zelenskyy said.

He also said Ukrainian forces hit two vessels belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet transporting sanctioned oil and four dry cargo ships in the Black Sea.

It was not possible to independently verify either side’s claims.

Ukraine’s long-range drone technology has swiftly evolved during the war, posing a problem for Russia, whose huge land mass is hard to fully protect. Kyiv’s forces have aimed especially at Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages and embarrassing Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In May, the Russian defence ministry said air defences downed 1,054 Ukrainian drones in a 24-hour period.

As Kyiv pleads with foreign partners to supply it with sophisticated interceptors that can counter Russian ballistic missiles, which are much harder to stop than drones or cruise missiles, Moscow’s forces have sought to take advantage of weaknesses in Ukraine’s air defences.

Ballistic missiles fly faster than the speed of sound and can reach Kyiv in minutes, giving air defences little time to react and civilians to reach shelter.

Russia has in recent weeks stepped up its use of ballistic missiles, and on Sunday used them in a bombardment that Ukrainian officials said killed at least six people and wounded dozens more.

A Russian strike on Pavlohrad in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region injured 13 people, military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha said. Eleven people were taken to hospital, including a 13-year-old girl, he said.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces struck fuel tanks in the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa overnight.