F-16s finally reach Ukraine as Zelensky says pilots have started flying jets – live

Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi welcomed the arrival of the country’s first F-16 fighter jets and thanked the president and other officials for working “24/7” to secure them. Their arrival, he said, would save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

“This means that more of the occupiers will be destroyed,” Syrskyi wrote on Facebook. “It means a greater number of downed missiles and aircraft used by the Russian criminals to attack Ukrainian cities.”

The arrival of the jets is a milestone for Ukraine, though it remains unclear how many are available and how much of an impact they will have in enhancing air defences and on the battlefield.

Russia has been targeting bases that may house them and vowed to shoot them down.

Built by Lockheed Martin, the F-16s had been on Ukraine’s wish list for a long time because of their destructive power and global availability. They are equipped with a 20mm cannon and can carry bombs, rockets and missiles.

Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed all 24 Russian attack drones launched overnight, Ukraine‘s Air Force chief said this morning.

“As a result of the anti-aircraft battle, all enemy drones were shot down…in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava and Dnipro regions,” the commander said.

This comes as Ukraine’s newly arrived F-16 fighter jets were put on display Sunday by president Volodymyr Zelensky, who said the planes will boost the country’s war effort against Russia.

Russia has been accused of carrying out spying operations in Ireland, police officials have said, confirming the arrest of several individuals accused of spying on behalf of Moscow.

Michael McElgunn, assistant commissioner of Ireland’s national police force, said these arrests have been made from Poland, Germany, Estonia and Austria.

“What we’re particularly concerned about is a handful of states who are engaged in spying activities on sovereign soil with malign intent,” Mr McElgunn told RTE Radio.

He added: “If we look at events in Europe and we look at the Russian Federation invasion of Ukraine, I don’t think too many viewers would be surprised if I were to say that Russia was one of these states.”

“Russia is one of the countries that we have an interest in in the general space,” he said, without directly calling the country a hostile state.

Ukrainian attacks injured 14 people, including several at a market, in the Russian-held town of Oleshky in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, a Russia-appointed official said yesterday.

In Luhansk, a Russian-held city in northeastern Ukraine, the Russia-appointed governor said Ukrainian forces fired 12 rockets at various targets, eight of which were intercepted. Governor Leonid Pasechnik said on Telegram the number of casualties was being clarified.

In Oleshky, the head of the local administration, Andrei Alekseyenko, said eight people were injured in the initial Ukrainian attack, the shelling of the town’s market.

Alekseyenko, writing on Telegram, said Ukrainian drones later attacked apartment buildings in the town, smashing windows and starting a fire that was extinguished by emergency services. Six people were injured, he said.

Russian forces seized control of the Kherson region in the early days after the February 2022 Russian invasion, but Ukrainian troops recaptured large swathes of the region later in the year.

Oleshky lies in a Russian-held area on the east side of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian officials say Russian forces still shell Ukrainian positions from Russian-held areas of the region.

Russian forces are advancing gradually towards the key strategic city of Pokrovsk in the eastern region of Donetsk, as Ukraine struggles with soldier shortages as delays in military aid from the West hold up the equipping of fresh brigades.

Pokrovsk, which serves as a key supply route for other Ukrainian outposts, has become the main focus of fighting in the last few weeks. Military analysts fear that Ukrainian equipment is insufficient to hold off the advance – although they expect the Russian offensive to slow down as it reaches more built-up areas.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed in the last few days it had taken control of Prohres and Yevhenivka – two villages to the east of Pokrovsk – with efforts now focussed on making a breakthrough closer to Pokrovsk.

Ukraine has sunk a Russian submarine and hit a Russian airfield over the weekend, as it keeps up its counteroffensive surge of long-range attacks against Russian targets, officials said. Russia said Ukrainian drones also hit an apartment building, killing one person.

Ukraine struck a Russian Kilo-class submarine and an S-400 anti aircraft missile complex in the Moscow-occupied Crimean peninsula, according to a statement from the General Staff on Saturday, confirming the attack.

The air defence system was established to protect the Kerch Strait Bridge, an important logistics and transport hub supplying Russian forces. Units of the missile forces, as well as the Navy damaged four launchers of the Triumph air defence system, while in the port of Sevastopol, the “Rostov-on-Don” — a submarine of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — was attacked and sank, the statement said.

The General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region after launching a massive drone barrage on Russia. Hits were recorded in warehouses with ammunition, where guided aerial bombs were stored. The operation was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of Intelligence and the Defence Ministry, the statement said.

The uptick in attacks since July come as Ukraine mounts pressure on allies to allow it to use long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia. Western allies, in particular the US, have so far resisted, fearing escalation from Moscow.

Analysts say such an intensification is needed if Ukraine is to degrade Russian capabilities.

Ukraine has previously relied on an ageing fleet of Soviet-era warplanes that are outgunned by Russia’s more advanced and far more numerous fleet.

Russia has used that edge to conduct regular long-range missile strikes on targets across Ukraine and also to pound Ukrainian front line positions with thousands of guided bombs, supporting its forces that are slowly advancing in the east.

“This is the new stage of development of the air force of Ukraine‘s armed forces,” Zelenskiy said.

“We did a lot for Ukrainian forces to transition to a new aviation standard, the Western combat aviation,” he added, citing hundreds of meetings and unrelenting diplomacy to obtain the F-16s.

“We often heard ‘it is impossible’ as an answer but we still made our ambition, our defensive need, possible,” he said.

Comments by a Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson have sparked a diplomatic row between Ukraine and Mali, with the African nation now saying it is immediately cutting ties with Kyiv.

The Ukrainian military wing GUR’s remarks were about fighting in Mali’s north that killed Malian soldiers and Wagner fighters in late July.

At least 84 Russian Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers were killed over days of fierce fighting in the north of the West African country, said Mali’s northern Tuareg rebels, in what appears to be Wagner’s heaviest defeat since it stepped in two years ago to help Mali’s military authorities fight insurgent groups.

GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov has not confirmed Kyiv’s involvement in the fighting, but in comments published on public broadcaster Suspilne’s website on Monday, 29 July, he said the Malian rebels had received the “necessary” information to conduct the attack.

“The rebels received all the necessary information they needed, and not just the information, which allowed (them) to conduct a successful military operation against Russian perpetrators of war crimes. We certainly won’t go into details now – you will see more of this in the future,” he said.

Mali said it had learned “with deep shock of the subversive remarks.”

It said Mr Yusov had “admitted Ukraine‘s involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups that resulted in the death of members of the Malian Defence and Security Forces.”

“The actions taken by the Ukrainian authorities violate the sovereignty of Mali, go beyond the scope of foreign interference, which is already condemnable in itself, and constitute a clear aggression by Mali and support for international terrorism,” the Malian government said.