Ukraine-Russia war latest: Mass drone attack kills one in Odesa as EU and UK increase sanctions on Putin – UK Times

Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed Russia launched over 300 drones and 30 missiles at Ukraine overnight.

The Ukrainian president said target elimination remains ongoing as drones remain in the air.

Rescue operations are underway in areas affected which include the Donetsk, Kirovohrad, Dnipro, Sumy, Kherson, Volyn, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Zhytomyr regions.

“In Sumy, critical infrastructure was damaged, leaving several thousand families without electricity. Shostka was hit with combined strikes,” he wrote on X.

“In Odesa, an apartment building was damaged — six people were injured, including a child. Sadly, one person was killed.”

The European Union’s 18th sanctions package against Russia over its war in Ukraine targets Moscow’s energy and financial sectors to limit its ability to fund war in Ukraine.

Key measures include a lower oil price cap, Nord Stream transaction ban, more shadow fleet sanctions, and a full ban on Russian bank deals.

“We are striking at the heart of Russia’s war machine,” EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X.

The measures are intended to ramp up pressure on Russia amid flagging peace negotiations, as well as targeting companies and countries that allow Moscow to evade existing sanctions.

Britain has hit more than a dozen Russian spies with a wave of sanctions, targeting those it accused of running a “sustained campaign” of malicious activity against the UK.

The Foreign Office named 18 officers from Russian spy agency the GRU, as well as hitting three of its units with measures aimed at cracking down on Vladimir Putin’s increasing aggression abroad.

It said the military intelligence officers targeted were “responsible for spreading chaos and disorder on Putin’s orders”, and included those who had targeted the family of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz yesterday cast doubt on the possibility of Ukraine joining the European Union by 2034, saying accession was unlikely to come at a point affecting the bloc’s medium-term finance plans, which run to 2034.

“For us, the absolute top priority is, first and foremost, to do everything possible to end this war,” Merz said after a meeting with Romanian president Nicușor Dan in Berlin.

“Then we’ll talk about the reconstruction of Ukraine… but that’s going to take a number of years … It will probably not even affect the EU’s current medium-term financial outlook,” the chancellor said.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in Kyiv in February that Ukraine could join the EU before 2030 if the country continues reforms at the current speed and quality.

EU leaders have also said accession to the EU would be the most important security guarantee for the future of Ukraine.

Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, said she believed last week was a “turning point” in the US and European stance towards Ukraine and Russia, which could potentially end the war.

Ms Rice said US president Donald Trump “is angry with Putin because he has, in effect, made the president look bad”.

Speaking at the annual Aspen Security Forum, Ms Rice added: “I think the best news that we could possibly give to the Ukrainian people is that the United States and Europe have finally aligned around the idea that Vladimir Putin will not be stopped with words. He will only be stopped if he believes that he can go no further, he can win no further.”

The UK has announced it would join the price cap move on Russian crude, saying it would deal a blow to Moscow’s oil revenues used to finance the ongoing conflict with Ukraine.

“The UK and its EU allies are turning the screw on the Kremlin’s war chest by stemming the most valuable funding stream of its illegal war in Ukraine even further,” British finance minister Rachel Reeves said at a G20 meeting in South Africa.

The EU yesterday agreed an 18th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, including measures aimed at dealing further blows to the Russian oil and energy industry.

The EU will set a moving price cap on Russian crude at 15 per cent below its average market price, EU diplomats said, aiming to improve on a largely ineffective $60 cap that the Group of Seven major economies have tried to impose since December 2022.

“The EU just approved one of its strongest sanctions packages against Russia to date,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X.

“We will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow.”

Russian air defences intercepted drones heading for Moscow in a series of attacks, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Mr Sobyanin said 13 drones had been downed or destroyed after midnight, but made no mention of casualties or damages. He said specialists were examining fragments where they had landed.

A tally of his posts showed 10 more drones were intercepted or destroyed in the previous 11 hours.

Russia’s defence ministry on Telegram said its air defence units had downed 87 Ukrainian drones in different areas across central, western and southern Russia in a period of nearly five hours. Forty-eight of the drones were downed in Bryansk region, on the Ukrainian border.

The acting governor of Rostov region, on Ukraine’s eastern border, said Ukrainian drones had triggered fires or knocked down power lines in a number of districts.