Closing summary
This blog will be closing shortly, below is a recap of today’s developments:
Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early on Saturday to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched airstrikes targeting western Ukraine near the border with Poland, armed forces of the Nato-member country said. “Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” the operational command said in a post on X.
Russia fired 40 missiles and about 580 drones at Ukraine in a “massive attack” that killed three and wounded dozens, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. “Every such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to terrorise civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said on social media, urging Kyiv’s allies to provide more air defence systems and hit Moscow with extra sanctions. He said attacks took place across nine regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.
Sergiy Lysak, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said Russia’s latest strikes killed one person and wounded 30, with one man in a serious condition. Vyacheslav Chaus from the regional administration in Chernigiv in northern Ukraine said a 62-year-old man died in a drone attack. About 20 residential buildings were damaged in the Khmelnytskyi region, local official Sergiy Tyurin said on Telegram, adding that one body was found “during the extinguishing of a fire in one of the houses.”
A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s south-western Samara region killed four people, the local governor said on Saturday as Kyiv said Ukraine had been targeted with hundreds of Russian drones overnight.
A cyber-attack at a service provider for check-in and boarding systems has disrupted operations at several major European airports including London’s Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin’s Brandenburg, causing flight delays and cancellations on Saturday. Collins Aerospace owner RTX said on Saturday that it had become aware of a cyber-related disruption to its MUSE software in selected airports, adding that it was “actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy will urge Donald Trump to impose sanctions on Russia when they meet next week at the United Nations in New York, and has called on Ukraine’s allies to “stop wasting time”. Zelenskyy said he expected further sanctions to be imposed if Vladimir Putin refuses to meet him for face-to-face talks or to agree to a ceasefire. “If the war continues and there are no moves towards peace we expect sanctions,” he said.
Three Russian MiG-31 fighters violated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland on Friday, Estonia said, triggering complaints of a dangerous new provocation from the EU and Nato. Italian F-35 fighters attached to Nato’s air defence support mission in the Baltic states were scrambled to intercept the Russian jets and warn them off, Estonian and Italian officials said, with alliance chief Mark Rutte praising the “quick and decisive response”.
Russia’s defence ministry on Friday denied that three of its MiG-31 fighter jets had illegally entered Estonian airspace. The ministry said the jets were on a “scheduled flight... in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed by objective monitoring”.
Zelenskyy on Friday condemned the move, calling the 12-minute incursion “outrageous” and accusing Moscow of deliberately expanding its “destabilising activity” three and a half years after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “These are not accidents. This is a systematic Russian campaign directed against Europe, against Nato, against the West. And it requires a systemic response,” Zelenskyy posted on X.
UK chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce plans to explore using frozen Russian assets to fund a “reparations loan” that could provide billions of pounds for Ukraine’s war effort. The chancellor is expected to make the announcement at a meeting with her European counterparts in Copenhagen on Saturday, saying it is “right to explore all options to support Ukraine”.
One or more large fires erupted early on Saturday at Russia’s Saratov oil refinery as it was hit heavily by Ukrainian drones that attacked the target deep inside Russian territory for at least the second time in a week. Videos vetted and posted by online analysts showed incoming UAVs followed by big explosions and flames rising from the site while air raid sirens blared. The major refinery is nearly 600km (370 miles) east of the frontline in Ukraine. The Russian governor in the area, Roman Busargin, confirmed an attack by UAVs.
Aviation data provider Cirium said 29 departures and arrivals had been cancelled so far at Heathrow, Berlin and Brussels airports as a result of a cyber-attack at a service provider for check-in and boarding systems, Reuters reports.
In total, 651 departures were scheduled from Heathrow, 228 from Brussels and 226 from Berlin on Saturday.
Germany’s federal office for information security, the BSI, said it was in touch with Berlin airport over “infrastructure disruptions” as a result of the outage.
United Airlines said the issue was “causing minor departure delays,” but it had not cancelled any flights.
