Ukraine-Russia live: Kyiv hit by one of largest drone attacks of war so far

An ammunition factory which Germany’s Rheinmetall has said it will build in Ukraine will become a “legitimate target” for the Russian military, Russian Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nastasin said.

The German defence company said earlier this month that it had received an order from the Ukrainian government for the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Navy carried out an attack on a weapons storage facility near the Russian city of Kursk, Kyiv army officials have said.

Kursk is located 62 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border and 435 miles from Odesa, where Ukraine’s Navy is headquartered.

The attack targeted “a warehouse for storing weapons and military equipment” near Kursk, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said.

“The work of enemy air defense and explosions at aiming points were observed.”

He added: “The information about the result of the damage is being clarified.”

Russian forces are using North Korean provided Bulsae-4 anti-tank guided missile, according to a Ukrainian battalion operating at the border.

American think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said if these reports are confirmed to could indicate North Korea are expanding the number of weapons has been providing to Russia.

“The increase in volume and variety of North Korean weapons provisions to Russia is likely a stipulation of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signed during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2024,” the ISW said.

A number of Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow’s war in Ukraine have disappeared from Russian prisons in recent days, in what rights activists say is a possible sign that a prisoner swap with the West may be close.

Although Russia does move prisoners to other incarceration facilities without informing their relatives and lawyers, the number of prisoners who have been moved elsewhere in recent days – at least seven – and the similarity of their profiles, is highly unusual.

Among those whose relatives and supporters say they are no longer in the same prison, but have, according to prison authorities, “departed” to another facility are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, prominent human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Danila Krinari, a man convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments.

Others to have gone missing include German-Russian citizen Kevin Lik who was convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko.

All of them are individuals that the Russian state has labelled, for different reasons, as dangerous extremists. In the West, they are seen by governments and activists as wrongly detained political prisoners.

“We all hope that these are good signs,” Ivan Pavlov, a prominent human rights activist who fled Russia and is now based in Prague, told Reuters.

“We hope that they (the authorities) have probably taken them all out of their prisons to gather them together in one place in preparation for an exchange.”

Pavlov, whom Russian authorities have designated “a foreign agent,” said the prisoners were most likely to have been taken to Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison.

President Vladimir Putin would then need to formally pardon them before they were put on a plane to a destination in Europe, which Pavlov said could be in Germany.

Pavlov, the rights lawyer, said the exchange would be carried out in an atmosphere of secrecy.

“The main thing is that they (the people detained in Russia) will get their freedom. They are hostages and political prisoners and the important thing is to get as many of them out as possible,” he said.

Ukrainians ahve urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 people.

Ukrainian air defence system destroyed 89 drones and one missile as Russian forces launched one of the largest strikes on the capital overnight.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said it was “one of the most massive attacks on Ukraine with attack drones during the entire war”.

Russian naval forces have deployed three cruise missile submarines in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian navy said, days after the last of Moscow’s warships was forced to leave their base in occupied Crimea.

The submarines are improved Kilo-class vessels. They have returned to the sea just weeks after the last remaining Black Sea Fleet patrol boat was forced out following a sustained Ukrainian onslaught.

Dmytro Pletenchuk, a Ukrainian navy spokesperson, said Russia has deployed three submarines carrying missiles at once for the first time.

He said the deployment was likely the main Russian threat in the Black Sea at the moment.