Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv launches major attack on Crimea naval base using Western weapons (2024)

Robert Woodland, a US citizen who was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking in Russia, has appeared in a Moscow courtroom today.

Standing behind glass nearly five months after his arrest and with a shaved head, Mr Woodland was in court for a hearing.

Mr Woodland was detained in January, though it is unclear why he was in Russia at the time.

Russian media reports at the start of the year said his name matched that of a man who was interviewed by the daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2020.

The man said in the interview that he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991, and came to Russia to find his mother.

Russia has accused the US, NATO and others of escalating tensions with Ukraine and stoking a "senseless war".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today the West has "in recent days and weeks embarked on a new round of escalation".

He added: "They are doing this deliberately. We hear a lot of bellicose statements… They are encouraging Ukraine in every possible way to continue this senseless war.

"This will all, of course, inevitably have consequences and will ultimately be very damaging to the interests of those countries that have taken the path of escalation."

Meanwhile, foreign ministers from NATO countries are set to meet in Prague today amid pressure to allow Ukraine to strike targets inside of Russia (see 12.10pm post).

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, NATO countries have since provided military aid worth millions to Kyiv but with strict conditions on its use.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday it is "unfair" that Ukraine cannot strike inside Russia despite receiving long-range missiles from the West.

Russian missiles have struck the village of Mala Danylivka today, leaving many buildings in ruins.

The town, just on the outskirts of Kharkiv, was hit as part of Russia's northeastern offensive, which it launched this month.

Foreign ministers from NATO countries are set to meet in Prague later today - as calls to let Ukraine use supplied weapons in Russian territory grow.

Officials will meet for two days ahead of a NATO summit in July, where a new support package for Ukraine is expected to be announced.

Kyiv has been pressing Western supporters, particularly the US, to let it use long-range missiles to hit targets inside of Russia.

France and Germany said yesterday they support Ukraine striking military targets inside Russia, but Italy's foreign minister ruled it out.

In an interview earlier today, Antonio Tajani said "all the weapons leaving from Italy should be used within Ukraine" (see 8.50am post).

Ukraine launched a major attack against a Russian naval base in occupied Crimea early this morning.

At 1am today, the Ukrainian armed forces struck targets near the Kerch Bridge with precision guided missiles.

A Russian Mangust patrol boat was destroyed in the attack, a Ukrainian military source has told Sky News.

The source also confirmed that Western supplied weapons were used, adding they "proved extremely effective against this Russian military target despite high concentrations of Russian Air Defence Systems".

Nikolai Lukashenko, Crimea's Russian-installed transportation chief, claimed on Telegram that Ukraine's overnight attack damaged two transport ferries.

The Kerch Bridge, linking Russia and Crimea over the Kerch Strait, is regularly used by Moscow as a logistics hub to resupply its forces. It was built in 2018 after Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea four years earlier.

Ukraine has launched frequent attacks on the crossing since the war began: in July last year, Kyiv attacked it with two suicide sea drones, damaging a span of the road bridge.

The explosionskilled two civilians and injured one. Ukraine later formally admitted to launching the attack.

Our military analyst Sean Bell answered a reader's question on why Ukraine can't destroy the bridge earlier this month - click here to read more.

Ukraine's commander-in-chief says that although Russian forces are gathering near Kharkiv Oblast, they are "insufficient" to "break through" Kyiv's defences.

Oleksandr Syrskyi notes on Telegram that Russia is continuing to send additional regiments and brigades to bulk up its forces on two main lines of attack in the north of the Kharkiv region.

However, he says: "These forces are currently insufficient for a large-scale offensive and breakthrough of our defence."

He adds Ukraine is strengthening its defensive lines and has already repelled an attack near Starytsia today.

For context: The northeastern region of Kharkiv became a battlefield focus in the middle of this month when Moscow's forces launched a surprise incursion over the border after weeks of speculation.

It opened a second front, alongside the existing eastern front, and Russia has been building forces around the Kharkiv region throughout May, stretching Ukrainian defences with the aim of capturing the cities of Vovchansk and Lyptsi.

Russia should consider a "demonstrative" nuclear blast to stop the West allowing Ukraine to use weapons inside its territory, a Putin-backed thinktank has suggested.

The suggestion came from Dmitry Suslov,a senior member of the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, yesterday.

Writing in business magazine Profil, he said: "To confirm the seriousness of Russia's intentions and to convince our opponents of Moscow's readiness to escalate, it is worth considering a demonstrative nuclear explosion.

"The political and psychological effect of a nuclear mushroom cloud, which will be shown live on all TV channels around the world, will hopefully remind Western politicians of the one thing that has prevented wars between the great powers since 1945 and that they have now largely lost - fear of nuclear war."

Vladimir Putin has previously praised the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy and has taken part in policy discussions run by the thinktank.

Germany has finished its biggest military drill in eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War.

Exercise Grand Quadriga 2024 - a large-scale joint training event with German, Lithuanian and Dutch armies, as well as the Franco-German Brigade - ended yesterday.

It was held in Lithuania, which shares a border with Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast.

General Valdemaras Rupsys said: "This is the first time since the end of the Cold War that Germany has run such a large-scale, division-level, deployment into NATO's eastern flank, including Lithuania, operation."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said yesterday Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons to strike inside Russian territory.

Italy's foreign minister has said weapons it sends to Ukraine should not be used in Russian territory.

In a break from France and Germany - which said yesterday that Kyiv should be allowed to strike inside Russia with weapons supplied by the West in certain circ*mstances - Antonio Tajani also said Italy will never send troops to Ukraine.

"All the weapons leaving from Italy should be used within Ukraine," he told the Italian broadcaster RAI today.

For context: Italy supports Ukraine but has so far refused to support Kyiv using Western-supplied weapons to strike into Russia.

On Monday, Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini fiercely rejected calls from Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary general, to lift restrictions on weapons.

Matteo Salvini said at the time: "NATO cannot force us to kill in Russia, nor can anyone compel us to send Italian soldiers to fight or die in Ukraine.

"If they want to go and fight in Ukraine, let Stoltenberg, Emmanuel Macron and all the bombers who want war go there."

BySiobhan Robbins, Europe correspondent

In a dusty clearing in Lithuania, NATO is rolling out the big guns.

Leopard 2 tanks fire their rounds with a deafening thud, while Puma fighting vehicles add to the eerie chorus, accompanied by the buzz of helicopter blades.

The firepower on display is the crescendo of the alliance's biggest military training exercise since the Cold War, led by the Germans and taking place a few miles from the Lithuanian border with Belarus.

The aim is to show how NATO can defend Europe's eastern flank from invasion, offer reassurance to allies and a warning to President Putin.

"Today's exercise sends a clear message - a message of deterrence to Russia," said General Carsten Breuer, Germany's chief of defence.

Read the rest of Siobhan's eyewitness accounthere...