🔴 Live: Kyiv targeted by ‘record number’ of Russian drones overnight

Issued on: 28/05/2023 – 08:12Modified: 28/05/2023 – 11:12

11:21am: Russia warns West ‘playing with fire’ over F-16 jets for Ukraine

Russia’s top diplomat warned Sunday that Western nations were “playing with fire” by agreeing to provide Ukraine with US-made F-16 fighter jets, calling it “an unacceptable escalation” of the conflict.

“It’s playing with fire, without a doubt,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an excerpt from a Russian TV interview posted on social media, denouncing an attempt to “weaken Russia” by “Washington, London and their satellites in the EU”.

9:18am: ‘Most important’ attack on Kyiv since invasion, say Ukrainian authorities

Russia carried out the “most important” drone attack on Kyiv overnight from Saturday to Sunday since the start of the invasion, military authorities said.

Forty of the 54 drones launched targeted the capital, killing two people and wounding three.

“In total a record number of explosive drones launched were counted: 54!” Ukraine’s air force said in a Telegram post on Sunday. “It’s the most important drone attack against the capital since the start of the invasion” in February 2022, the regional military administration said, also on Telegram. The attack “took place over several waves and the air raid alert lasted more than five hours!”

“According to preliminary reports more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed by air defence” systems over Kyiv, the administration added.

It was the 14th drone attack on the Ukraine capital by Russia this month, authorities said.

The 54 attack drones were launched “from the regions of Briansk and Krasnodar” in Russia, said the air force, adding that 52 were destroyed.

9:16am: Ukraine strikes Russia with drone attacks and shelling

Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the Druzhba pipeline, while shelling from Ukraine killed at least two, Russian officials and media said.

FRANCE 24 former Moscow correspondent Nick Holdsworth comments on the attacks:

6:55am: Russia thwarts drone attack on Krasnodar oil refinery, officials say

Russia’s air defence systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region near the Black Sea, local officials said on Sunday.

“Several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) tried to approach the territory of the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar Krai,” the region’s emergency officials said on the Telegram messaging channel.

“All of them were neutralised, the infrastructure of the plant was not damaged.

3:43am: More than 40 Russia-launched drones downed in Kyiv’s airspace, officials say

More than 40 drones launched by Russia overnight were downed in Kyiv’s airspace, the capital’s military administration officials said on Sunday on its Telegram messaging channel.

3:34am: ‘Massive’ Russian drone attack kills one in Kyiv

One civilian has died in Kyiv after a “massive” drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, the city’s mayor Vitaly Klitschko said Sunday.

“A 35-year-old woman was hospitalised, a 41-year-old man died,” the mayor and former boxer said on Telegram, reporting that drone wreckage had crashed near a petrol station.

He said Kyiv’s air defences had shot down “more than 20 drones” headed for the city, and implored city residents: “Stay in shelters. The attack is massive!”

A fire also broke out at a company premises in the Holosiivskyi district, he added

1:02am: Putin orders stronger Russian border security

President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered stronger border security to ensure “fast” Russian military and civilian movement into Ukrainian regions now under Moscow control.

Speaking in a congratulatory message to the border service, a branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), on their Border Guard Day holiday, Putin said their task was to “reliably cover” the lines in the vicinity of the combat zone.

Attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, chiefly with drone strikes on regions along the border but increasingly also deep into the country, including on an oil pipeline northwest of Moscow on Saturday.

Key developments from Saturday, May 28:

Hundreds of German civil servants working in the education and cultural sectors will need to leave Russia following a request by Moscow, a German government source told AFP Saturday. 

Shelling in Russian regions bordering Ukraine killed two people on Saturday, regional authorities said. The regional governor of Belgorod said there were fresh attacks, a day after dozens of strikes.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)