Missile fragments fell on a northern suburb of Kyiv on Sunday, damaging balconies on a multi-storey apartment building, officials said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said two female residents were being treated for severe stress at the site in the city’s Obolon district.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said missile fragments had struck the building and sparked a fire.

A picture posted on the administration’s Telegram channel showed a balcony ablaze at least six floors from the ground. At least two other balconies were blackened.

Klitschko said the fire had been brought under control. Balconies were damaged on two floors and another could still sustain damage. Emergency crews were at the site and conducting checks to all apartments.

Moscow:

A “swarm” of Ukrainian drones targeted Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel’s facility in a raid in the early hours of Sunday, but it sustained no serious damage, a company spokesperson said.

The attack achieved no results other than causing extra welding work, the spokesperson said. Igor Artamonov, the governor of the Lipetsk region in western Russia where the steel mill is located, said in a separate statement that nine drones had been downed over the steel mill.

Kyiv does not officially confirm or deny such attacks, but says the facilities being hit are supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine and are thus legitimate military targets.

NLMK denies cooperating with the defence ministry, saying that its Russian operations are not capable of producing military-grade heavy steels and it does not supply the military.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier that air defence systems had destroyed 36 drones launched by Ukraine overnight targeting several regions in Russia’s southwest, including Lipetsk.

The ministry also said that Russian forces had taken over the villages of Spirne and Novooleksandrivka, which are in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Russian news agency RIA reported, the latest in a string of such incremental territorial claims.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Firefighters work at a site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on May 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russian forces began a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, killing and injuring several people and forcing more than 1,700 civilians to evacuate from the Kharkiv region, officials said on May 11.

Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, leaving at least three people dead and five others injured, said Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the Kharkiv region on May 10 to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, authorities said.

Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on May 11 night, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said, with air defense systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

Another strike set ablaze an oil depot in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, killing three people and injuring eight more, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-installed leader said on the messaging app Telegram on May 11.

Russian forces stepped up their bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in late March. May 10’s attack signaled a tactical switch in the war by Moscow that Ukrainian officials had been expecting for weeks.

Russian military bloggers said the assault could mark the start of a Russian attempt to carve out a “buffer zone” that President Vladimir Putin vowed to create earlier this year to halt frequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on May 10 evening that Russian forces were expanding their operations. He also called on the country’s Western allies to ensure that promised deliveries of military aid would swiftly reach the front lines.

“It is critical that partners support our warriors and Ukrainian resilience with timely deliveries. Truly timely ones,” he said in a video statement on X. “A package that truly helps is the actual delivery of weapons to Ukraine, rather than just the announcement of a package.”

The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly sought to exploit Ukraine’s shortages of ammunition and personnel as the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv has tapered off in recent months, with promised new support still yet to arrive.

Ukraine previously said it was aware that Russia was assembling thousands of troops along the northeastern border, close to the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. Intelligence officials also said they had expected an attack there though Russia’s most recent ground offensive had been focused on parts of eastern Ukraine farther south.

While Russia’s gains in the region have so far been limited, analysts at the U.S. think tank Institute of the Study of War described them Friday as “tactically significant.”

They said Russia had only “committed relatively limited manpower to their initial assaults” but that the offensive in Kharkiv “is meant to … (draw) Ukrainian manpower and materiel from other critical sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine.”

The Russian military could also try to cut key supply routes and try to blockade Kharkiv, home to roughly 1.1 million people and only about 30 km south of the border.

In the war’s early days, Russia made a botched attempt to quickly storm Kharkiv but retreated from its outskirts after about a month. In the fall of 2022, seven months later, Ukraine’s army pushed them out of Kharkiv. The bold counterattack helped persuade Western countries that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield and merited military support.

Kyiv, Ukraine:

Ukraine’s top commander said on Sunday Kyiv’s outnumbered troops had fallen back to new positions west of three villages on the eastern front where Russia has concentrated significant forces in several locations.

The statement by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi reflected Ukraine’s deteriorating position in the east that Kyiv hopes it can stabilise once it takes delivery of U.S. weapons under a $61 billion aid package approved this week.

“The situation at the front has worsened,” Syrskyi wrote on the Telegram app, describing the “most difficult” areas as west of occupied Maryinka and northwest of Avdiivka, the town captured by Russian forces in February.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a fresh plea to international partners to speed arms deliveries so Kyiv could maintain its positions and disrupt Russian plans.

He said he spoke on Sunday with U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and “underscored that Patriot systems are needed, and as soon as possible.”

Syrskyi said Kyiv’s troops had taken up new positions west of the villages of Berdychi and Semenivka, both north of Avdiivka, and Novomykhailivka, further south near the town of Maryinka.

“In general, the enemy achieved certain tactical successes in these areas, but could not gain operational advantages,” he said, adding that Russia had committed four brigades to the assault.

Freshly rested Ukrainian brigades were being rotated in those areas to replace units that had suffered losses, he said.

His statement did not mention the status of Novobakhmutivka, another village near Berdychi, that Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces had captured.

Moscow’s troops have been slowly advancing since capturing the bastion town of Avdiivka, taking advantage of Ukrainian shortages of artillery shells and manpower.

Online battlefield maps produced by open-source intelligence analysts suggest they have advanced more than 15 km (9.5 miles)in the direction of the village of Ocheretyne since capturing Avdiivka.

Further up the front, the Kyiv-held town of Chasiv Yar is a key emerging battleground because of its position on elevated ground that could serve as a gateway to the cities of Kostiantynivka, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Syrskyi described Chasiv Yar and the village of Ivanivske to its northeast as the “hottest spots” on that part of the front. Russia’s defence ministry said it had repelled Ukrainian counter-attacks near Chasiv Yar.

Kharkiv Buildup

In what could prove a worrying development for Ukraine, Syrskyi said his forces were closely monitoring an increase in the number of Russian troops in the area of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

The northeastern city of 1.3 million just 30 km from the Russian border has been hammered by airstrikes in recent months in what Kyiv has said is a deliberate effort by Moscow to make Kharkiv uninhabitable.

Syrskyi said there were so signs that Russia was directly preparing for an offensive in the north of the country.

“In the most threatening directions, our troops have been reinforced by artillery and tank units,” he said.

Ukraine is currently expecting a long-awaited a shipment of U.S. military aid which officials say is critical to holding off Russia’s two-year-old invasion. Zelenskiy said Ukrainian and U.S. teams were working on a “specific text” of a 10-year security agreement that would include weapons and other support.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters this week that Russia was conducting airstrikes on Ukrainian rail lines to disrupt the delivery of U.S. weapons to the front and to complicate military logistics.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Ukrainian forces face a “difficult” situation around the eastern city of Chasiv Yar as Russia focuses its offensive there, a Ukrainian army official said Monday.

Moscow has made a number of gains on the frontline in recent months, pressing their advantage as Kyiv struggles with shortages of vital munitions from its Western allies.

“The situation with regard to Chasiv Yar has been difficult and tense, not for the first day,” said Oleg Kalashnikov, press officer for Ukraine’s 26th Artillery Brigade.

“Today it is the main focus for the enemy in its assault operations. It is trying to push through our defenses in order to reach Chasiv Yar,” he said.

He also said Russia had increased its use of powerful guided bombs in the area, and was “dropping them on populated areas and on our fortified positions.”

Ukraine has been forced onto the defensive in the past few months as it struggles with ammunition shortages and a hold up to a $60 billion aid package from Washington.

Its ground forces commander warned last week Russia was building a group of over 100,000 soldiers in advance of what may be a major offensive this summer.

Moscow:

Moscow said Thursday that it had captured another village in east Ukraine, around 10 kilometres (six miles) from the city of Avdiivka, which fell to Russian forces last month. 

It was the second village west of Avdiivka that Moscow claimed to have seized this week, with Russia seeing some recent successes on the battlefield as Kyiv suffers from a shortage of ammunition. 

“The Russian armed forces liberated the village of Tonenke,” Russia’s defence ministry said in its daily briefing, naming a small village along a river with several streets. 

Russia seized Avdiivka last month after one of the bloodiest battles in the two-year conflict, which Moscow touted as a turning point. 

The claim came as Russia launched a large-scale missile attack on Kyiv early Thursday, with Ukraine saying Moscow had sent more than 30 missiles on its capital.   

Russia’s defence ministry said it had used “high-precision weapons” including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles on “command centres” of the Ukrainian armed forces. 

The attack came after President Vladimir Putin vowed that Moscow would respond to an escalation in Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s border regions. 

The defence ministry said Russian units “continue to carry out measures to prevent the penetration of sabotage and reconnaissance groups” into the border region of Belgorod. 

Russia’s border regions have been hit by increased Ukrainian shelling in recent days as well as incursions by anti-Kremlin fighters on Kyiv’s side. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A demonstrator holds a placard calling on the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to supply Ukraine with Taurus air-to-surface cruise missiles, during a rally in support of Ukraine to mark the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin on February 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A German military officer used an unsecured phone line at a Singapore hotel to join a conference call that was hacked by Russians and leaked to the public, Germany’s Defense Minister said on March 5.

The fallout from the leaked audio tape, which features four high-ranking German air force officers discussing hypothetically how Taurus long-range cruise missiles could be used by Kyiv against invading Russian forces, has embarrassed the German government and further increased tensions between the two countries.

Timeline | Two years of Russia-Ukraine war

“Not all participants adhered to the secure dialing procedure as intended,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said as he briefed reporters in Berlin on the initial results of an ongoing investigation.

The Minister said that the officer in question, whose name he did not give, had participated in the Singapore Air Show, which was attended by high-ranking military officers from across Europe, and then dialled into the WebEx call using either his mobile phone or the hotel’s Wi-Fi but not a secured line as is considered mandatory for such calls.

“For the Russian secret services, it was a real find. … Targeted hacking took place in the hotels used across the board,” Mr. Pistorius said. “It must therefore be assumed that the access to this (phone) conference was a chance hit as part of a broad, scattered approach.”

Mr. Pistorius said the investigation was ongoing, overall security had been increased and preliminary disciplinary proceedings were being considered, but that severe personal consequences were unlikely.

“I will not sacrifice any of my best officers to Putin’s games, to put it very clearly,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The 38-minute audio leak was posted by Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of the Russian state-funded television channel RT, on social media on Friday, the same day that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony. The recording also surfaced just weeks before Russia’s presidential election.

While German authorities have not questioned the authenticity of the recording, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week that delivering those weapons to Ukraine was not an option — and that he does not want Germany to be drawn into the war directly.

Also Read | Is the Ukraine war changing world order?

However, Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday threatened Germany with “dire consequences” in connection with the leak. It did not elaborate.

Relations between the two countries have steadily eroded since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago.

In the leaked audio, four officers, including the head of Germany’s air force, Ingo Gerhartz, can be heard discussing deployment scenarios for Taurus missiles in Ukraine before a meeting with Mr. Pistorius.

The officers said that early delivery and rapid deployment of Taurus missiles would only be possible with the participation of German soldiers. The officers said training Ukrainian soldiers to deploy the Taurus on their own would be possible, but it would take months.

The recording also shows the German government has not given its OK for the delivery of the cruise missiles sought by Ukraine.

Mr. Pistorius said Tuesday that while the damage caused by the leak was severe, “the mistake is still being worked through and we must now turn our attention back to more important tasks,” such as how Germany and its allies can continue to help Ukraine fight Russia.

There had been a monthslong debate in Germany about whether to supply the Taurus missiles to Ukraine as Kyiv faces battlefield setbacks until Mr. Scholz said last week Germany wouldn’t deliver the missiles. With military aid from the United States held up in Congress, Germany is now the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the U.S., and it is further stepping up its support this year.

Mr. Pistorius pointed out that while the damage done by the actual content of the leaked audio was “manageable,” Russia’s real success was that with the leak it set the agenda for what is being discussed in Germany, and “that’s exactly what Putin wants to achieve.”

A Russian warplane crashed on Tuesday during a training mission in southern Russia, the military said, without specifying what happened to its crew of two.

The Defence Ministry said that the Su-24 bomber went down in an unpopulated area in the Volgograd region and rescue helicopters were deployed to the site.

The ministry said that the aircraft wasn’t carrying any weapons. It didn’t say what might have caused the crash that caused no casualties or damage on the ground.

The Su-24 is a twin-engine supersonic bomber that has been in service with the Soviet and Russian air forces since 1970s. It has been used extensively by both Russian and Ukrainian forces during the fighting in Ukraine.

The Russian air force has suffered a string of crashes that some observers have attributed to a higher number of flights amid the fighting in Ukraine.