Ukraine war: Russian vessels pulled from Sea of Azov as Putin launches drone attack

The North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two Chinese H-6 military bomber aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Wednesday.

The bomber planes were intercepted by a US F-16 jet and a F-35 fighter jet, as well as Canadian CF-18 fighter jets.

Support aircraft were also involved in the operation, according to CNN.

A Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter crashed in Kaluga Oblast in western Russia, Vladislav Shapsha, the governor, reported on Wednesday.

Preliminary evidence suggests that the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction. The Russian defence ministry has reported that the helicopter’s crew were killed in the crash.

The helicopter reportedly fell into a deserted area near the village of Klenki, which is around 60 miles east of the Ukrainian border. No damage on the ground was reported.

Ukrainian forces destroyed 25 Russian attack drones out of 38 launched overnight, Ukraine’s air force chief said this morning.

“Last night, the enemy used 38 Shahed-131/136 attack drones, attacking Ukrainian infrastructure in several areas, including the south of Odesa region and central Ukraine,” Mykola Oleshchiuk said.

The air force chief said that three other drones “were lost after crossing the state border with Romania”. He gave no more details.

Romanian territory is just a few hundred metres from the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail, in Odesa region, which was attacked by drones for the second night in a row.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said two people were wounded when drone debris hit a private house in Izmail district. Authorities in the capital Kyiv and in the Zhytomyr region said those regions had also been targeted.

Zhytomyr’s governor said that air defence systems hit most of the 10 aerial targets overnight, but drone debris damaged 10 private houses and one infrastructure facility.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said that drones attacked the capital from different directions, but all of them were destroyed by air defence forces on the approaches. There were no reports of damage or casualties in Kyiv.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi says Russia has significantly increased its manpower and materiel commitments to the war in Ukraine since February 2022 and suffered “significant manpower losses”.

Active fighting is ongoing along 977km of the 3,700-km-long frontline, General Syrskyi told The Guardian as he said Russia’s military command continues to pursue tactical gains regardless of the losses involved.

On the other side, Ukrainian forces are attempting to safeguard the lives of Ukrainian troops, he said.

The US-based think tank monitoring the war, the Institute for the Study of War, said the army chief’s statement is “not indicative of a sudden increase in the Russian military’s presence in Ukraine and is instead representative of the manpower and material disadvantage that Ukrainian forces have faced for over two years”.

It added: “Russia’s ability to continue gradually expanding the amount of manpower and materiel it has committed to Ukraine faces significant constraints in the medium to long term.”

Vladimir Putin’s forces have “extensively relied on refurbishing stocks of Soviet-era weapons and military equipment to sustain the tempo of its offensive operations in Ukraine in order to avoid fully mobilising the Russian economy and society to a war-time footing,” the ISW said.

“Ukrainian authorities have noted that Russia is currently not producing enough to cover its current equipment losses in Ukraine,” it said.

A Russian Mi-28 military helicopter crashed in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow this morning, killing its crew, the Interfax news agency said, citing Russia’s defence ministry.

The ministry said a technical malfunction was likely to blame. It did not say how many people were on board, but a Mi-28 typically has a crew of two people.

The chopper fell into a deserted area near the village of Klenki, around 100km (60 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Footage published by Russian state media showed what appeared to be a Toyota Land Cruiser with its left side completely torn off in the parking lot of a complex of high-rise buildings.

The officer in the GRU, Russia’s main intelligence directorate, is reportedly the deputy head of a military unit based in the Russian capital, and is in critical condition, according to preliminary accounts on the Telegram messenger app. It is also believed that his wife was in the car.