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At least four people were injured after Russia launched missiles and drones at the eastern Ukrainian city
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A busy Kharkiv market was engulfed in flames after Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on the region.
At least four people were injured after the Barabashovo was struck overnight, according to Kharkiv’s governor Oleg Synegubov.
The barrage included deadly Russian glide bombs and several drones, destroying houses, warehouses and a fire department.
It comes after Ukraine launched a massive drone attack against Moscow for the second night in a row as the Russian capital’s four airports were forced to close over safety concerns.
At least 19 Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow after 105 were launched across Russia overnight, the Russian defence ministry said.
Airports in a number of regional cities were also closed. It comes after four drones were launched at the Russian capital a day earlier.
On the war’s frontline, Ukrainian forces attacked a power substation in Russia‘s western Kursk region after launching an audacious second incursion into the region.
Last month, Russia‘s top general said that Ukrainian troops had been ejected from Kursk, ending the biggest incursion into Russian territory since the Second World War.
Vladimir Putin has given a rare tour of his home near the Kremlin, featuring gilded wood panelling, a white baby grand piano, and a home gym.
The corridor of the spacious apartment is lined with clothes racks filled with suits and shirts. “Everything is here,” the Russian president said, opening the gold-edged doors.
“As you can see, it’s not far away,” he says while bringing the camera crew into a sitting room, suggesting the apartment is close to the Kremlin.
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Moscow says Ukraine launched around 105 drones at Russia overnight. At least 19 of these were downed over Moscow, with the rest targeting other Russian regions.
Moscow’s four airports were forced to close, with others across Russia also shut, after the barrage.
In Ukraine, Russian drone attacks on Sumy and Odesa killed four people, according to Ukrainian officials.
A market in Kharkiv, north-eastern Ukraine, was engulfed in flames following a Russian barrage of drones and missiles. Four people were injured, according to Kharkiv’s governor.
Ukraine has detained a gang, including two border guard officers, suspected of charging men about $15,000 (£11,000) each to get them out of the country to dodge the military draft, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.
The group helped about 30 people leave Ukraine, which has imposed a ban on most men aged between 18 and 60 leaving the country following Russia’s invasion, by listing them as disabled, police said.
The scheme was started by a border guard officer and a businessman in Ukraine’s western Zakarpattia region, who then recruited a second border guard and other accomplices, the prosecutor general’s office said.
Ukraine has halted its offensive in Pokrovsk and “seized back the tactical initiative” in some areas, Kyiv’s military claimed.
Russian forces have been attacking the town for months and the area has seen some of the most intense fighting of the 38-month-long war.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, said: “We’ve been able to stabilise the situation in this zone of operations… and in some places have seized back the tactical initiative.”
The town is a logistics hub in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. It is surrounded on three sides by Russian forces, but is still held by Ukraine, despite months of intensive Russian attacks.
If Russia were to seize or encircle Pokrovsk, it would advance its aim of seizing the remaining part of Donetsk region that is not controlled by Moscow.
Late last year, some people living in Ukrainian-controlled parts of the region said they were considering leaving, anticipating that Moscow would take Pokrovsk.
However, since the start of this year there have been only incremental changes in the front line around Pokrovsk.
US President Donald Trump said Moscow and Kyiv want to settle the war in Ukraine and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was more inclined towards peace after the recent fall in the price of oil.
“I think Russia with the price of oil right now, oil has gone down, we are in a good position to settle, they want to settle. Ukraine wants to settle,” Mr Trump said.
The price of oil – which drives the Russian economy – has fallen around $15 a barrel since the start of the year.
“We’ve come a long way, and, it could be something will happen, but hopefully it will,” Mr Trump said.
Three civilians were killed and seven injured after Ukraine’s attack on Kursk, Russia claimed.
Ukraine’s military confirmed its forces were engaged in fighting inside the Russian region over the past 24 hours.
Kyiv’s troops took large swathes of Kursk, on the border with Ukraine, in August last year.
But Russian troops managed to retake most of the territory as US support dwindled under US president Donald Trump.
Russia has attacked the north-eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine with drones overnight.
The attack has caused a huge fire and widespread damage in the Barabashovo market.
Dismissing Vladimir Putin’s offer of a brief ceasefire in May as yet “another attempt at manipulation” is an understatement. The Russian president is – according to the former head of MI6 – intent on taking much more than just Ukraine.
Far from being worried by recent mini-threats from Donald Trump to increase sanctions or stung by the US president’s irritation at Russia’s stalling over a ceasefire, Putin is cupping his ears in a pantomime of attention and carrying on doing as he pleases.
Such behaviour chimes with the uncharacteristically stark message from ex-spy chief Sir Alex Younger who, after a lifetime in the shadows of espionage, has a simple message: “If you don’t stand up to him, he comes back for more – how many more times do we need to be told this?”
President Donald Trump greeted Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American ballerina and esthetician who was held in a Russian prison for over a year, at the White House.
Mr Trump met with Karelina, 34, in the Oval Office yesterday, shaking her hand and telling her it’s “an honour.” When the 34-year-old responded that it was her honor to meet him, Mr Trump, speaking to the people she had arrived with, said: “Now I know why you fought so hard to get her out of there.”
Ms Karelina was born in Russia and immigrated to the US more than 10 years ago, building a life in Los Angeles as an esthetician at a spa and obtaining citizenship in 2021. But Karelina was arrested in January 2024 while visiting her parents and sister in the southern Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
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Ukraine war live: Putin’s forces strike Kharkiv after Kyiv launches mass drone attack – The Independent
