Ukraine says its drones hit Russian airbase as Moscow claims battlefield gains

Ukraine said its drones struck at least 14 Russian military aircraft and killed or injured about 20 airbase personnel on Friday, and denied Moscow’s claims that its troops were in the outskirts of the eastern town of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian media quoted unnamed security service sources as saying at least six aircraft were destroyed and eight damaged at Russia’s Morozovsk airbase about 170km from its border with Ukraine. It is home to bombers that have inflicted heavy damage on Ukrainian cities, infrastructure and battlefield positions in recent weeks. “It was an important special operation that will significantly reduce the combat potential [of the enemy],” one of the sources told Ukraine’s New Voice news outlet.

The Ukrainska Pravda news site said drones had also hit three other Russian airbases.

The results of the attacks could not be verified, but Russia said it shot down more than 50 Ukrainian drones in the early hours of Friday, mostly over Rostov region. After stating that the attack caused no casualties and only minor damage to local electricity infrastructure, Rostov governor Vasily Golubev said that several hours later eight people had been hurt “not far from the airfield” at Morozovsk when an explosion occurred as they “conducted investigative work where the drones came down”.

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Ukraine said Russia fired 13 drones and five ballistic missiles early on Friday, and that all the drones were shot down. Ukrainian air defences struggle to intercept ballistic missiles due to their speed and trajectory and launch sites that are often near the border or in occupied territory, giving them a very short flight time to their targets.

At least two people were killed and six injured in a Russian missile strike on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, and aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said its office in the Kyiv-controlled eastern town of Pokrovsk was “bombed and completely destroyed”. The group’s staff were unhurt but five other civilians were injured.

Russian media quoted an adviser to Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-installed head of occupied parts of the eastern Donetsk region, as saying Moscow’s forces were now “in the suburbs” of Chasiv Yar.

The town was a logistical hub for Ukrainian units defending the city of Bakhmut, 15km to the east, which Russian forces bombarded for months and finally overran last May. The occupation of Chasiv Yar would be another setback for Ukraine, which lost the town of Avdiivka near the occupied city of Donetsk in February, but its army is believed to have prepared extensive defences in the area and denied Russia’s claims.

“The situation there is very difficult, the fighting continues, but they (Russian troops) are not there,” said Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Zadubinnyi.

Berlin said Russia was probably behind jamming of GPS signals near its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad that has reportedly affected hundreds of airliners in recent weeks. “The persistent disruptions...are very likely of Russian origin and are based on disruptions in the electromagnetic spectrum, including those originating in the Kaliningrad oblast [region],” the German defence ministry told Reuters.