Russia, Ukraine exchange major drone attacks on invasion anniversary
Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Russia launched 185 attack drones into Ukraine in an overnight attack coinciding with the third anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, as allied leaders gathered in Kyiv to express their solidarity with Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said it tracked 185 Shahed attack drones of various types launched into the country from several directions. The air force said Ukrainian forces shot down 113 drones with 71 others lost in flight without causing any damage.
“As a result of the enemy attack, the Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Kyiv, and Khmelnytskyi regions suffered,” the air force said.
Sunday night’s attack follows a record-breaking drone barrage on Saturday night, with Russia launching 267 UAVs into Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X on Sunday, “Every day, our people stand against aerial terror.”
Ukraine continued its own long-range strike campaign into Russia on Sunday night. The Russian Defense Ministry reported the downing of 22 Ukrainian drones over four Russian regions.
Local authorities in Ryazan region — neighboring Moscow region to its southeast — reported a fire at an industrial site which they said was caused by falling drone debris.
Pavel Malkov, the head of the regional administration, said in a post to Telegram that air defenses shot down two drones over the area. “Due to the falling debris, a fire broke out on the territory of one enterprise,” Malkov said, adding that there were no casualties.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram that the Ryazan oil refinery was targeted. ABC News could not immediately verify the claim.
“The refinery has a processing capacity of 17.1 million tons of oil per year, making it one of the five largest refineries in the Russian Federation,” Kovalenko wrote. “It produces gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene, fuel oil and petrochemicals.”
“Aviation fuel plays a special role, which is critically important for the front-line aviation of the Russian army and strategic long-range aviation, which strikes Ukraine,” Kovalenko said. “This is the third attack on the plant since the beginning of the year.”
(LONDON) — One day after the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump blew up, the Ukrainian president was warmly welcomed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Zelenskyy was all smiles on Saturday as he was greeted by Starmer outside No. 10 Downing Street, and the pleasantries continued during their photo spray inside.
Starmer pledged the United Kingdom’s “unwaving” support for Ukraine.
“We stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take,” said the prime minister, who also visited Trump this week.
Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to Starmer.
“We are happy to have such partners and such friends,” he said.
Starmer will host a summit of European leaders on Sunday to discuss ideas to end the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy was slated to meet with King Charles III as well, the president’s spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov told ABC News.
Buckingham Palace had not confirmed the meeting as of Saturday afternoon.
The meeting followed Zelenskyy leaving the White House on Friday after Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance got into a fiery argument with the Ukrainian president.
Zelenskyy was supposed to sign a deal that would have given the United States access to his country’s critical minerals, but the deal-signing ceremony was canceled after the blowup.
After his meeting with Starmer, Zelenskyy posted on X that the U.K. had agreed to a loan agreement.
“This loan will enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities and will be repaid using revenues from frozen Russian assets,” he said. “The funds will be directed toward weapons production in Ukraine. This is true justice — the one who started the war must be the one to pay.”
(LONDON) — One of the four bodies handed over from Gaza to Israel on Thursday does not include a hostage, the Israel Defense Forces said, calling it a “very serious violation” by Hamas.
Thursday marked the latest return of deceased hostages as part of the group’s ceasefire deal with Israel. Israel and Hamas had confirmed the names of the four bodies returned to Israel Thursday as Oded Lifshitz, a journalist and peace activist, and Shiri Bibas and her two children — Ariel and Kfir Bibas.
After Israeli officials conducted forensic analysis to confirm the identities of the bodies, the IDF said the bodies of Lifshitz and Shiri Bibas’ two children were identified. But the fourth body was not Shiri Bibas — nor was it a match for another hostage, the IDF said.
“It is an anonymous body without identification,” the IDF said in a statement. “This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is required by the agreement to return four dead abductees. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our abductees.”
“We share the deep sorrow of the Bibas family at this difficult time,” the statement added.
Hamas has not responded to the IDF’s findings.
Red Cross officials took custody of four black coffins during a ceremony in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis earlier Thursday. A Red Cross official and a Hamas commander appeared on a stage to sign documents as part of the handover. The coffins were also brought onto the stage.
A banner on the stage declared in both Arabic and English: “The Return of War = The Return of Your Prisoners in Coffins.”
An Israeli security official confirmed to ABC News that an IDF-held ceremony took place in the IDF-controlled Gaza buffer zone before the coffins were brought across the border into Israel. The bodies were taken to Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv’s Abu Kabir neighborhood.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement confirming Israel’s receipt of the bodies earlier Thursday. “The families of the abductees have been informed and our hearts go out to them at this difficult time,” the statement said.
“The public is asked to respect the families’ privacy and refrain from spreading rumors and information that is not official and well-founded,” it added.
During the handover, Hamas released a statement that read in part, “To the families of Bibas and Lifshitz: We would have preferred your sons to return to you alive, but your army and government leaders chose to kill them instead of bringing them back.”
“They killed with them: 17,881 Palestinian children, in their criminal bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and we know that you know who is truly responsible for their departure,” the statement added. “You were the victim of a leadership that does not care about its children.”
Kfir Bibas was 8 1/2 months old when he was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 — the youngest of the 251 hostages taken on the day the group carried out its terror attack on Israel — the worst in the country’s history. In the ensuing war, more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
Ariel Bibas was 4 at the time of his death, the IDF said. Both children were determined to have been killed in captivity in November 2023, the IDF said Thursday.
Their father, Yarden Bibas, was also kidnapped and freed earlier this month, the IDF said.
Oded Lifshitz’s wife, Yocheved, was among the first few hostages released during the first ceasefire agreement in November 2023. Sixty-nine hostages remain in Gaza after Thursday’s release.
“At this difficult time, our hearts go out to the grieving families,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
The Hostage Families Forum called for the second stage of the three-stage ceasefire to proceed, saying there is “no time to waste.” In the second phase of the ceasefire agreement — which should last 42 days — Israel is to completely withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip. Hamas and Israel also agreed to a permanent cessation of all military operations and hostilities before all remaining Israeli hostages, civilians and soldiers are released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“We received the heart-shattering news that Shiri Bibas, her children Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz are no longer with us. This news cuts like a knife through our hearts, the families’ hearts and the hearts of people all over the world,” the families of the hostages said in a statement Wednesday.
“We grieve not only for them, but for the other precious lives lost, including four more deceased hostages who will be returned next week,” families of hostages said.
Six other hostages are expected to be released on Saturday and four more bodies will be returned to Israel next week. The hostages who will be released on Saturday have been identified as Eliya Cohen, 27; Tal Shoham, 40; Omer Shem Tov, 22; Omer Wenkrat, 23; Hisham Al-Sayed, 36; and Avera Mengistu, 39, according to Israeli officials and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Negotiations to set the terms for the second phase of the ceasefire have not started, but mediators are pushing to have talks begin as soon as possible to allow enough time for discussion before the second phase is expected to begin (the first phase is expected to last 42 days), Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Hamas has accused Israel of avoiding negotiations and says it’s ready to negotiate.
Last week, Hamas threatened to not release hostages over the weekend, saying Israel was not holding up its end of the ceasefire by delaying the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
Hamas later said the exchange would take place as planned and released three hostages this past Saturday.
ABC News’ Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Before the final votes in Germany’s election were even counted, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party, who is set to become the next chancellor, promised a major shift in relations with the U.S.
In a post-election debate, he promised to confront head-on a new reality — that the Trump administration looks to overturn about 80 years of policy and raises the prospect of abandoning security guarantees for Europe.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Merz said Sunday.
Merz added, “I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump’s statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
Merz’s conservative CDU party emerged as the largest party in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, with 28.6% of the vote. The SPD, the party of the incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, came in third place.
Trump and members of his both his administrations have called over the years for U.S. allies to invest more in NATO, and for Europe to take responsibility for its own security.
“However, we’ve also made it clear for years — decades, even — that it is unacceptable that the United States and the United States taxpayer continues to bear the burden not only of the cost of the war in Ukraine but of the defense of — of Europe,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, said last week.
He added, “We fully support our NATO Allies. We fully support the Article 5 commitment. But it’s time for our European allies to step up.”
Merz also talked about NATO, suggesting there may even be need to replace the military alliance with a new European security structure.
“I am very curious to see how we are heading toward the NATO summit at the end of June,” he said. “Whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly.” His remarks were made before the final votes were counted.
This month, Vice President JD Vance made a speech at the Munich Security Conference, telling European leaders the biggest threats they faced were from “within,” downplaying the security risks posed by China or Russia.
As Germany seeks to recalibrate its relationship with the U.S., the second party in the elections, the far-right Alternative for Germany, were jubilant at their strongest ever showing.
Notably backed by Elon Musk, the AFD’s strong showing, which doubled the level of support they received last time out, was hailed as a victory of its own.
It’s the strongest showing of a far-right party in Germany since World War II.
“We have achieved a historic result. We have never been stronger in the federal parliament,” Alice Weidel, the co-chair of the party, told a cheering crowd. “We have become the second strongest force as Alternative for Germany. And we have now firmly established ourselves as a people’s party.”
Musk on Monday said in a social media post that it was “only a matter of time” until AfD wins an election.
