Russia-Ukraine war live: mass drone attack on Crimea reported by Russian-installed officials

Ukrainian military personnel are buried in cemetery No. 18 in Kharkiv on Saturday, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.

LIVE – Updated at 08:11

Unconfirmed reports and footage emerge of powerful explosions near Crimean port of Feodosia in the early hours of Sunday.

Opening summary

08:11

Hello and welcome to our ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Here is a summary of the latest developments to start with:

Ukraine launched a mass drone attack on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula early on Sunday, with unconfirmed reports of powerful explosions near the port of Feodosia.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine launched 38 drones and that its air defences destroyed all of them. It did not say whether any damage or casualties resulted from the attack in a statement on its Telegram channel.

Earlier, road traffic near Feodosia was significantly restricted, Russian-installed officials in Crimea said, with traffic on the bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia halted for hours before resuming.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on the west to rapidly deliver more air-defence systems as a wave of Russian missile, drone and artillery strikes killed at least 11 people. “Russia continues to hit civilians,” the Ukrainian president posted on social media on Saturday. Eight were confirmed dead, including a child and a baby, after an overnight drone strike on an apartment block in the southern port city of Odesa, a regional official said. Zelenskiy said in his post: “We need more air defences from our partners. We need to strengthen the Ukrainian air shield to add more protection for our people from Russian terror.”

About 10 people were still unaccounted for after the Odesa strike on the nine-storey building, the interior minister, Igor Klymenko, said on Telegram. Almost 100 rescuers were set to continue a search and rescue operation overnight. Ukraine’s armed forces said the Odesa region was attacked by eight drones, of which seven were shot down.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has promised a full investigation after a purported recording of confidential army talks on the Ukraine war was circulated on Russian social media, in a huge embarrassment for Berlin. A German defence ministry believed a conversation in the air force division was “intercepted”, a ministry spokesperson said. The recording apparently showed German officials discussing striking Crimea and delivery of long-range missiles to Kyiv.

Shelling attacks on the frontline Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions killed another three people, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine downed a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber on Saturday, the Ukrainian air force commander said on Telegram. Mykola Oleshchuk’s claim could not be independently verified.

A drone crashed into an apartment building in St Petersburg, Russia’s state news agency said. A report by RIA Novosti said six people received medical help after an explosion on Saturday morning in the north-western Russian city

Russian artillery shelling reportedly killed a 53-year-old man in the partly occupied Kherson region on Saturday.

The mother and mother-in-law of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were among mourners who brought flowers to his grave in Moscow on Saturday, a day after thousands turned his funeral into one of the largest recent displays of dissent in Russia.

More than 20 settlements in Ukraine’s eastern province of Kharkiv have reportedly sustained Russian artillery and mortar attacks. As well, high-rise buildings in Kharkiv city were damaged by a drone attack, the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, was reported as saying.