Ukraine-Russia war live: Kyiv bombards Russia with major drone attack as Ukraine celebrates Independence Day – UK Times

Norway’s government said on Sunday that it will contribute about $700m of air defence systems to Ukraine.

“Together with Germany, we are now ensuring that Ukraine receives powerful air defence systems,” Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store said in the statement.”

Germany and Norway are working very closely together to support Ukraine in its fight to defend the country and protect the civilian population against Russian air attacks.

“Norway and Germany are funding two Patriot systems including missiles. In addition Norway is contributing to the procurement of air defence radar from German manufacturer Hensoldt and air defence systems from Kongsberg.

Debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone caused a fire at Novatek’s Ust-Luga terminal early on Sunday, Alexander Drozdenko, governor of Russia’s Leningrad region where the Ust-Luga port is located, said.

“Firefighters and emergency services are currently working to extinguish the blaze,” Drozdenko said on the Telegram messaging app. “According to preliminary reports, there are no casualties.”

He added that about 10 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the port.

Russian air defences on Saturday downed a drone headed for Moscow and specialists were examining fragments on the ground, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.

Several airports in central Russia suspended operations because of concerns over safe airspace, Russia’s air transport agency Rosaviatsia said.

In a series of announcements over several hours, Rosaviatsia said operations had been suspended at airports in Izhevsk, Nizhniy Nolvgorod, Samara, Penza, Tambov and Ulyanovsk, east and southeast of Moscow.

Officials at the airport in Russia’s second-largest city, St Petersburg, were quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that dozens of flights had been delayed.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence units had intercepted and destroyed 32 drones in a three-hour period over a number of areas in the centre of the country.

Russian troops have taken control of two more settlements along the 1,000km frontline in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday.

The ministry on Friday announced the capture of three villages in its slow advance across the region.

Ukraine’s military did not acknowledge that any of the villages had changed hands. But it said its forces had recaptured from Russian troops a settlement further west on the edge of Dnipropetrovsk region.

Since an unsuccessful attempt to advance on the capital Kyiv in the early weeks of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s troops have focused on seizing the Donbas region in the east, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Russian announcement identified the last two villages to be captured as Kleban-Byk, northwest of the town of Toretsk, which has been under attack for months, and Seredne, closer to the administrative border of northeastern Kharkiv region.

Two of the villages described as captured on Friday – Katerynivka and Rusyn Yar – are located near another beleaguered city, Kostiantynivka.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military said only that Katerynivka was one of several localities that came under enemy attack.

A separate military statement said Ukrainian forces had retaken the village of Zelenyi Hai – adjacent to Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow says its forces have made inroads.

The statement said the village was being subjected to new Russian attacks.

As the US president leaves Russia and Ukraine to sort a ceasefire among themselves, Sean O’Grady asks if this is Trump’s famously short attention span at play – or whether he is merely reluctant to be associated with near-certain failure.

British military experts will continue to train Ukrainian soldiers until at least the end of 2026, with an extension to Operation Interflex.

Defence secretary John Healey said the UK was “ramping up” its support for Ukrainian forces, ahead of independence day celebrations in Kyiv.

More than 50,000 Ukrainian recruits have been trained on British soil, according to the government.

The Pentagon has been quietly blocking Ukraine from using US-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike targets inside Russia, limiting Kyiv’s ability to employ these weapons in its defense against Moscow’s invasion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing US officials.

The report could not be immediately verified.

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has final say over use of the long-range weapons, the WSJ reported.

The news came as US president Donald Trump has grown more frustrated publicly over the three-year-old war and his inability to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

After his summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin and a subsequent meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky failed to produce observable progress, Mr Trump said on Friday that he was again considering slapping Russia with economic sanctions or, alternatively, walking away from the peace process.

Ukrainian flags will appear above Downing Street and several Whitehall buildings to mark 34 years since Ukraine left the Soviet Union, the government has announced.

The prime minister’s official residence at No 10 Downing Street is among the buildings where a flag will fly on Sunday.

“We stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, including those who have made a second home here in the UK, in the face of continued Russian aggression,” a government spokesperson said.

“Our support for Ukraine’s independence will be clear for all to see, which is why the Prime Minister travelled to Washington DC this week to work with allies to secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.”

Russian troops have taken control of the settlements of Seredne and Kleban-Byk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

The Independent could not independently confirm the battlefield report.