Ukraine war: Putin ‘deploys new type of drone’ in fifth attack on Kyiv in two weeks

On 1 January this year, Latvia became the latest European country to reintroduce conscription, with all male citizens becoming eligible for the draft once they hit the age of 18 or – if still in higher education – once they graduate.

Seen most notably in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, it’s part of a wider trend of expanded mobilisation across the continent as a result of the increasingly aggressive actions of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Robert Hamilton, head of Eurasia research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, tells CNN that the West is “coming to the realisation that we may have to adjust the way we mobilize for war”.

“It is tragically true that here we are, in 2024, and we are grappling with the questions of how to mobilize millions of people to be thrown into a meatgrinder of a war potentially, but this is where Russia has put us,” he told the broadcaster.

General Wesley Clark, who is now retired but served as Nato’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told CNN: “So we’ve now got a war in Europe that we never thought we would see again. Whether this is a new Cold War or an emerging hot war is unclear,” he said, but “it’s a very imminent warning to Nato that we’ve got to rebuild our defenses.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed on Sunday that Russian MiG-29 and MiG-31 fighter jets prevented US strategic bombers from violating the state border over the Barents Sea.

“As the Russian fighter jets approached, the American strategic bombers adjusted their flight course… and subsequently turned away from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said in a statement.

Archie Mitchell and Tom Watling report:

Russia appears to have targeted Kyiv with a new type of drone that flew at a very low altitude, according to analysis of debris from the fallen weapon.

In aerial bombardments this weekend, the Russian military has launched not only missiles and kamikaze drones of the now-familiar Shahed-136 type but also deployed another new drone of an unknown type, according to the military analytical website Defence Express.

It said the drone flew at a low altitude of just 20-30 metres, analysing photographs of the weapon used in the attack.

The unidentified unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had “a possible wingspan of more than 4 metres, beam plumage, a push rotor, and a square fuselage,” it said.

The drone’s fragments are still being investigated, the website said.

Ukraine’s air defence systems repelled Russia’s fifth drone attack on Kyiv in two weeks, officials said, as Moscow targeted the capital with a new unidentified type of low-flying drone.

Russia has launched “systematic attacks” and rained missiles and drones across the capital region, looking for new tactics to make battlefield gains, Kyiv’s military head said.

No casualties or significant damage have been reported, Serhiy Popko, head of the Ukrainian capital’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

“These systematic attacks… with drones, once again prove that the invader is actively looking for an opportunity to strike Kyiv,” Mr Popko said. “They’re testing new tactics, looking for new approach routes to the capital, trying to expose the location of our air defence.”

Ukraine‘s air force said on Telegram that its air defence systems destroyed 35 of the 39 drones and two cruise missiles that Russia had launched overnight. The weapons, the air force said, targeted 10 of Ukraine‘s regions.

It was not immediately clear how many drones were launched at Kyiv.

Russia launched three Iskander ballistic missiles, Ukraine‘s air force said, without saying what happened to them.

This weekend 25,000 music lovers are gathering for Ukraine’s biggest music festival, an annual event that hasn’t been held since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Journalist Paul Niland shared a video on X of a large crowd watching the Ukrainian rock band BoomBox on stage. The billing this year will understandably mostly be made up of domestic talent, though the event has previously had headline acts from global stars like Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers and Liam Gallagher.

Speaking to the BBC, event organiser Vlad Yaremchuk explained how the festival is being conducted in a car park outside one of Kyiv’s biggest shopping malls – so if a Russian air attack does take place, “there will be more than enough space to get everyone evacuated quickly — and we’re talking minutes”. The mall has a capacity of 100,000, he says.

So far the festival, running from Friday to Sunday, is going smoothly. It already had to be pushed back one week after the major aerial assault on Kyiv that hit a children’s hospital.

“We didn’t even expect to have a chance to do a festival while the war is still happening.” Yaremchuk says.

“The reality showed us that cultural events are still possible in wartime.”

Residents outraged over frequent power cuts in southern Russia staged a rare public protest on Saturday as officials blamed blackouts on a heatwave.

Police arrested at least two people in the city of Krasnodar as protesters demanded relief from mass power outages in several regions.

The south of Russia has been affected by unusually hot weather and led to the shutdown of one of four power units at the Rostov nuclear power plant, the region’s largest, earlier this week.

The unit has been put back into operation since then.

“There has been abnormal heat in the Krasnodar region for a week now. The load on the energy system is colossal. I know and understand all the indignation of residents due to power outages,”

Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said on the Telegram messaging app. He said power capacities were not currently sufficient to meet peak demand during the hot summer months.

It marked one of the rare incidents of protest in Russia where authorities have clamped down on any form of demonstration, especially politically-laced dissent, since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022, and public assemblies are very rare given the risk of arrest.

Ukrainian officials also confirmed that the death toll following a Russian strike on Friday on the city of Mykolaiv, had risen to four.

A child was among the victims, said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Writing about the Mykolaiv strike on social media, Mr Zelensky said that a projectile had hit a playground next to an apartment block.

“Russia proves every day with its terror that ‘pressure’ is not enough,” he said.

“This destruction of life must be stopped. We need new solutions to support our defences. Russia must feel the power of the world.”

Ukraine‘s air force said Russia had launched four missiles and 17 drones overnight, of which 13 drones had been shot down.

The attacks have left thousands of people without power or running water in the Poltava region of central Ukraine, governor Filip Pronin said.

Ukraine’s air defence systems were engaged in repelling a Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday morning, Ukraine’s military said.

“Air defence systems are being activated on the approaches to Kyiv,” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Telegram.

Residents in the capital were ordered to stay in shelters until the air raid alarms were lifted.

Thousands of homes in central Ukraine were without power or running water after Russian strikes in the Poltava region amid Russia’s continuous attacks on Ukraine‘s energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, a pulverising Russian onslaught in recent months has forced Kyiv’s troops to withdraw from some towns and villages in the eastern Donetsk region.

The latest targets are the mining town of Toretsk and the city of Pokrovsk, where Russia is stepping up its assaults.

Ukrainian forces repelled 20 and 27 attacks on those areas respectively over 24 hours, Ukraine‘s General Staff said Friday. That was almost double the number of assaults recorded at other hot spots along the frontline, it said.