???? Live: Ukrainian air defence systems repel Russian missile attacks

Issued on: 01/05/2023 – 06:57

6:40am: Air defences shoot down 15 of 18 missiles launched at Ukraine in dead of night

Ukrainian air defence crews destroyed 15 out of 18 missiles launched by Russian forces in the early hours of Monday morning, the military said, as air raid sirens blared across the country for more than three hours.

“Around 2:30 am (1130 GMT), the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine from strategic aviation planes,” a post on the Telegram channel of Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, read. It added that 15 out of the 18 missiles launched had been destroyed.

Kyiv’s city officials wrote on the Telegram messaging app that all missiles directed at the capital were destroyed.

6:27am: Oil fire part of Ukraine’s preparation for counter-offensive, military says

Undermining Russia’s logistics is one of the elements of preparation for the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, a Ukrainian military spokeswoman said on Sunday, after a fire destroyed a large Russian fuel depot in Crimea.

While not directly admitting to striking the fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, Ukraine’s military command said that “a fire” destroyed 10 oil tanks with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes.

The city’s Moscow-installed governor blamed Ukraine and later said the fire had been put out before a disaster occurred.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, said the fire has cause a great deal of “anxiety” in the Russian military.

• Key developments from Sunday, April 30

Pope Francis on Sunday said that a secret peace “mission” in Russia’s war in Ukraine was under way, though he gave no details, and said the Vatican is willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war. “I’m available to do anything,” Francis said during an airborne press conference en route home from Hungary. “There’s a mission that’s not public that’s underway; when it’s public I’ll talk about it.”

French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke by phone on Sunday and discussed Ukraine’s military needs, both sides said.

Zelensky said he had a long and meaningful talk with Macron during which the two men co-ordinated their positions on the war and on how to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)