Ukraine war live: Drones wound Russian firefighters as G7 ministers pledge support

Ukraine drone strikes targeted Moscow and the Ya M Sverdlov State Owned Enterprise in Dzerzhinsk city, Nizhny Novgorod region overnight, regional officials and Russian Telegram channels reported on Sunday.

The explosive manufacturer plant in Dzerzhinsk is one of the largest used by Russian forces in the war in Ukraine, and is subject to sanctions by the United States and the European Union.

Russian air defence units downed 110 Ukrainian drones over Russia, including one over Moscow, said the defence ministry. It added that eight Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Nizhny Novgorod.

Four firefighters received minor shrapnel wounds from a drone attack on an industrial zone in Dzerzhinsk city, the regional governor said.

A video purporting to show dozens of North Korean recruits lining up to collect Russian military fatigues and gear aims to intimidate Ukrainian forces and marks a new chapter in the 2 1/2-year war with the introduction of another country into the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said.

Mr Zelensky made the claim, without offering further details, a day after US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said Washington and its allies were concerned by North Korea’s military support for Russia.

“From our intelligence, we’ve got information that North Korea sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky told reporters at the Nato headquarters in Brussels.

“They are preparing on their land 10,000 soldiers, but they didn’t move them already to Ukraine or to Russia.”

Mr Zelensky warned that any third country wading into the conflict, in this case North Korea, would be “the first step to a world war”.

Russia on Friday returned to Ukraine the bodies of 501 soldiers, Ukrainian authorities said, in what appeared to be the biggest repatriation of war dead since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Most of the soldiers were killed in action in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, mostly around the city of Avdiivka that Russian forces captured in February after a long and grueling battle, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.

Law enforcement agencies and forensic experts will identify the victims, who will then be handed to family members for burial, it said.

Four firefighters in an industrial zone in Dzerzhinsk in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region received minor shrapnel wounds from a Ukrainian drone attack, the region’s governor said on Sunday.

“They were given the necessary medical care, everyone was sent home,” Gleb Nikitin said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian RIA agency reported that Russian air defence systems destroyed 110 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, including eight over Nizhny Novgorod region, some 400 km east of Moscow.

French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot pledged his support for Ukraine’s plan for ending the 2 1/2-year war with Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Saturday that he will work with Ukrainian officials to secure other nations’ backing for the proposal.

Unveiled by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this week, Kyiv’s so-called “victory plan” hopes to compel Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine through negotiations.

The proposal is being considered by Ukraine’s Western partners, whose help is vital for Kyiv to resist its bigger neighbor. A key element would be a formal invitation into NATO, which Western backers have been reluctant to consider until after the war ends.

Defence ministers of the G7 countries have pledged “unwavering support” for Ukraine in a statement on Saturday.

“We underscore our intent to continue to provide assistance to Ukraine, including military assistance in the short and long term,” in its conflict with Russia, the ministers said after their meeting in Naples.

The statement added that they supported Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including Nato membership”.

Ukraine launched a series of drones targeting Moscow and western Russia, regional officials said on Sunday.

No injuries or significant damage was reported.

Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia’s air-defence units destroyed at least one drone flying towards the Russian capital, reported Reuters.

Some drone debris led to multiple short-lived fires in the Lipetsk region in southwestern Russia, the mayor reported on Telegram, adding that there were no injuries.

Ukraine’s accession to NATO would make a diplomatic and political resolution to the conflict impossible, Russia’s foreign ministry said according to the RIA state-owned news agency.

It would ultimately lead to an escalation in the war, the ministry said on Saturday morning.

Ukrainian president Zelensky has been pushing hard in recent months for the war-torn country’s accession to NATO to be guaranteed. He went on a whirlwind tour to present his ‘victory plan’ to allies in the West, including US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Keir Starmer, which puts NATO accession front-and-centre of any possible Ukrainian victory.