Russia targeted ammunition for Western F-16 jets in massive Ukraine onslaught

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Russia has claimed it destroyed weapons depots, including at least one containing ammunition for Western F-16 jets, in dozens of strikes across Ukraine.
The defence ministry in Moscow said Russia launched more than 100 missiles and 100 attack drones in the onslaught across half of Ukraine early on Monday.
“This morning, the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike with long-range air and sea-based precision weapons, and with operational and tactical aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles against critical energy infrastructure facilities supporting the work of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex,” the ministry said.
In an apparent reference to the F-16 jets supplied by the West, it said Russia had also hit storage facilities holding aircraft ammunition transferred to Kyiv by Western countries at two airfields.
“All designated targets were hit, resulting in disruption to the electricity supply and to the transport – by rail – of weapons and ammunition to the line of contact,” the statement added.
The attacks were launched as Ukraine pushes forward with its high-stakes cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, where troops have been fighting for almost three weeks.
Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, said 15 regions sustained damage from the missile and drone barrage. At least seven people were killed and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was crippled.
“It was one of the biggest combined strikes. More than a hundred missiles of various types and about a hundred Shahed drones,” Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president said on the Telegram messaging app. 
“And like most previous Russian strikes, this one is just as sneaky, targeting critical civilian infrastructure.”
Joe Biden, the US President, called the Russian attack on energy infrastructure “outrageous” and said he had “re-prioritised US air defence exports so they are sent to Ukraine first”. 
The US was “surging energy equipment to Ukraine to repair its systems and strengthen the resilience of Ukraine’s energy grid”, Mr Biden said.
Residents rushed to take shelter in metro stations in Kyiv as the sound of explosions rang out across the capital.
Local officials reported that at least seven people were confirmed dead, including a 69-year-old man in the Dnipropetrovsk region and a man in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The other fatalities occurred in the Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, and Volyn regions. At least 13 other people were seriously wounded. 
Energy facilities across the country were targeted, including the southern Odesa region, the wider Kyiv region and the region of Lviv in the west of the country, the authorities said.
“The energy infrastructure has once again become the target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in a number of regions,” said Mr Shmyhal.
Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence teams claimed some successes in shooting down Russian missiles, including at least one on the border between the western Zakarpattia and Lviv regions.
Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said the attack showed Kyiv needed permission from the West to strike “deep into the territory of Russia with Western weapons”.
On Saturday, a British safety adviser working in eastern Ukraine was killed in a missile strike on a hotel.
Ryan Evans, part of a six-person Reuters team covering the war in Ukraine, died and two Reuters journalists were injured in a strike on the Hotel Sapphire in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, the news agency said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russia claimed it had downed 20 drones launched by Ukraine overnight. Nine were destroyed over the Saratov region, three over the Kursk region and two each over the Belgorod, Bryansk and Tula regions, the ministry said on Telegram.
One Ukrainian drone hit a 38-storey residential tower block in the city of Saratov, damaging a number of apartments. 
 
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A Hydroelectric Power Plant in Kyiv was hit by a Russian strike on Monday.
Russia’s attacks on Monday crippled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to emergency power blackouts. 
“The energy infrastructure has once again become the target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in a number of regions,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
Sumy in the east, the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in the south, and the region of Rivne in the west, each reported blackouts, as well as damage to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings.
In Sumy, a province in the east that borders Russia, local administration said that 194 settlements were in a full power blackout, while 19 others had a partial blackout.
Ukraine’s private energy company, DTEK, introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians”. 
In the wake of the barrage and the power cuts, regional officials all across Ukraine were ordered to open “points of invincibility” – shelter-type places where people can charge their devices and get refreshments during energy blackouts.
France has claimed that there was no political motivation behind the arrest of Russian billionaire and Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
French President Macron said on Monday that he had read “false information here regarding France following the arrest of Pavel Durov,” adding France was deeply committed to free speech.
“The arrest of the Telegram president on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” Mr Macron wrote. “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”
Mr Macron’s statement on X was the first official confirmation of Durov’s arrest, nearly two days since he was detained at Le Bourget airport outside Paris.
The lack of official confirmation had led to speculation about the reasons behind his detention. 
“We do not yet know what exactly Durov is accused of,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing.
Tensions between France and Russia have been mounting for months, with French authorities accusing Russia of trying to destabilise it ahead of the Paris Olympics in response to its more hawkish stance on the Ukraine war – claims Russia denies.
Here are the latest photographs from Ukraine, showing the impact of heavy Russian attacks on Monday.
Poland has commented on the entry of a suspected drone into its airspace that we reported on earlier today. 
Army command spokesman Jacek Goryszewski said “it is highly likely that it could have been a Shahed-type drone” of Iranian design, used by the Russian army.
“But this has to be verified”, he told AFP, adding that it remains unclear whether the drone has already left Polish territory.
Mr Goryszewski added that there “was full readiness to neutralise this object”. 
According to reports, the army is conducting searches for the vehicle around 30 kilometres (18 miles) into Polish territory from the Ukrainian border.
“We are probably dealing with the entry of an object on Polish territory. The object was confirmed by at least three radiolocation stations,” Operational Commander of the Armed Forces General Maciej Klisz told reporters.
“It is clear from its characteristics that the object is not a missile, it is not a hypersonic, ballistic or guided missile,” Mr Klisz added.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced on Monday that 88 Russian athletes and eight Belarusians will compete under a neutral banner at the Paris Paralympics, which begin on Wednesday. 
The athletes were barred from competing under their national flags due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but have been allowed to participate after passing a rigorous vetting process. 
A third-party agency verified that they had no links to their countries’ militaries or support for the war. 
This approach was also used by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the recent Olympic Games, where 32 neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus competed.
This photo released by the governor of the Saratov region, Roman Busargin, on his official Telegram channel on Monday, shows municipal employees working at the side of a damaged building after a drone attack on the city of Saratov, Russia.
A mission to inspect the Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia will be led personally by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s Director General Rafael Grossi on Tuesday. 
“Given the serious situation, I’m personally leading tomorrow’s IAEA mission to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia,” Mr Grossi said in a post on X.
“I reiterate that the safety and security of nuclear facilities must, under no circumstances, be endangered.”
Moscow has claimed that a Ukrainian drone attempted to attack an oil refinery in a Russian city early Monday morning.
Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor of Yaroslavl, located north of Moscow, reported that there were no casualties and no damage from the incident.
This is the moment Ukrainian air defences shot down a Russian missile in front of a gun team.
Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed that it launched air and sea missiles on Monday, targeting electricity substations in nine Ukrainian regions and gas compressor stations in three regions.
“This morning the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike with long-range air- and sea-based precision weapons, and with operational and tactical aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles against critical energy infrastructure facilities supporting the work of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex,” the ministry said.
It added: “All designated targets were hit, resulting in disruption to the electricity supply and to the transport – by rail – of weapons and ammunition to the line of contact.”
A Ukraine foreign ministry official said that a Russian attack on Monday had targeted a hydropower plant in the Kyiv region.
“Today’s Russian attack … targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, including Kyiv HPP,” Andriy Sybiha said on X.
In this photograph, Ukrainian soldiers of the 3rd assault brigade fly a first-person view (FPV) exploding drone over Russian positions in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine.
Poland’s airspace was “violated”, on Monday, likely by a drone, the country’s army claimed.
“We are probably dealing with the entry of an object on Polish territory,” Operational Commander of the Armed Forces General Maciej Klisz told reporters.
“The object was confirmed by at least three radiolocation stations.”
He added that it was “probably an unmanned aerial vehicle”.
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group announced on Monday that it currently operates only in Africa and Belarus and that its fighters are no longer involved in the war in Ukraine.
“There are no company units within the Russian National Guard, the Russian Ministry of Defence, or anywhere else,” the group said in a rare statement.
Wagner also emphasised that it is not involved in the “Special Military Operation,” the Kremlin’s term for the war in Ukraine, at this time. Reuters could not independently verify this claim.
“If the situation changes, an announcement will be made,” Wagner added.
On Sunday, Ukraine urged Belarus to withdraw what it described as a substantial military presence along their shared border, which included Belarusian special forces and former Wagner mercenaries.
A building in Saratov, southwestern Russia, was struck in a Ukrainian attack.
Last week’s alert at a Nato base in Germany housing the Western alliance’s fleet of AWACS surveillance planes was due to a potential drone threat, a security source said on Monday.
Geilenkirchen air base in western Germany raised its security level to “Charlie” – the second highest of four – during most of Friday.
German news agency dpa, citing security sources, said there had been a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service about a possible Russian act of sabotage.
But the security source told Reuters no drones had been seen and could not confirm any evidence of a Russian role.
“The word Russia was never mentioned. We talked about a threat caused by drones,” added a Nato spokesperson at Geilenkirchen.
Russia downed 20 drones launched by Ukraine overnight, Moscow’s defence ministry has claimed. 
Nine of the drones were destroyed over the Saratov region, three over the Kursk region and two each over the Belgorod, Bryansk and Tula regions, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
It added that single drones were destroyed over the Oryol and Ryazan regions.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday urged European warplanes to help down drones and missiles over Ukraine as Russia stepped up its attacks on Monday morning. 
“In our various regions of Ukraine, we could do much more to protect lives if the aviation of our European neighbours worked together with our F-16s and together with our air defence,” he said on X.
Currently, across the country, efforts are underway to eliminate the consequences of the Russian strike. This was one of the largest attacks – a combined strike, involving over a hundred missiles of various types and around a hundred “Shaheds.” Like most Russian strikes before,… pic.twitter.com/0qNTGR98rR
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia used more than 100 missiles and about 100 drones in Monday’s strike on Ukraine.
“A lot of damage in the energy sector,” he said on Telegram.
Mr Zelensky called on allies to stick to agreements to supply air defence systems and missiles. He also said that Ukraine and its partners should make a joint air defence agreement to shoot down Russian drones and missiles.
Russia will respond to Ukraine’s Kursk invasion as ceasefire talks with Kyiv are no longer relevant, the Kremlin said on Monday. 
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that such hostile actions could not go without a response.
Mr Peskov said that Moscow and Kyiv had held no ceasefire talks as the topic of negotiations has “pretty much lost its relevance”.
Civilians were photographed taking shelter in metro stations during Russia’s attack across the country.
Almost 250 Russians have been captured by Russia since the Kursk invasion began on Aug 6. 
Many captured troops identified themselves as conscripts, according to footage obtained by the Washington Post. 
The report raises political issues for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as these men have often been promised non-combat roles and are young and untrained. 
In some videos, at least 40 soldiers at a time can be seen being led away, with a total of 247 captured. 
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a video of Russian soldiers surrendering en masse like that,” Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Washington Post. 
“Having conscripts in combat undermines the social contract between Russian families and the government that has held under Putin’s leadership since 1999,” Ms Massicot added.
Ukraine’s top presidential official called on Kyiv’s allies to allow long-range attacks on Russia with Western-supplied weapons after Moscow staged a massive strike on Ukraine on Monday morning.
“Such a decision will accelerate the end of Russian terror,” Andriy Yermak, the president’s chief of staff, said on Telegram messenger.