Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s drones rain down on Kyiv as aid workers killed over weekend

Two aid workers have been killed in a missile attack in Ukraine, authorities have confirmed.

A Spanish aid worker was killed when a missile hit the vehicle she was travelling in, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Sunday.

"Unfortunately, I can confirm a missile hit a vehicle in which this Spanish worker was travelling who was working for a humanitarian NGO in Ukraine. We have verbal confirmation of her death," Albares told reporters in India where he attended the G20 meeting.

A Canadian aid worker also died in the attack on Saturday in Chasiv Yar, in the region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, authorities said.

Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv early on Sunday, with blasts ringing out across the Ukrainian capital and its region for almost two hours and drone debris falling on several of the city's central districts, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine's Land Forces said that the country's air defence systems destroyed 25 out of 32 Russia-launched Iran-made Shahed drones, most of which targeted Kyiv and the Kyiv region.

Reuters witnesses heard at least five blasts across Kyiv, and Ukrainian media footage showed a number of cars damaged.

"Drones came onto the capital in groups and from different directions," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person was injured in the historic Podil neighbourhood and a fire broke out near one of the city's parks.

Debris from downed drones fell on the Darnytskyi, Solomianskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Podil districts, Klitschko and the city's military administration said.

In the Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris sparked a fire in an apartment, which was quickly extinguished. There were no immediate reports of injuries, Popko said on the Telegram messaging app.

There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks. Moscow has been conducting near-nightly assaults on Ukraine's territory. A Russian attack killed 17 on Wednesday in the eastern city of Kostiantynivka, according to Ukrainian officials.

Local elections kicked off in Russia this weekend in 79 regions, with voters are casting their ballots for governors, regional legislatures, city and municipal councils.

Russian authorities are also holding local elections in the four regions of Ukraine that Moscow annexed illegally last year — the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia provinces. Voting for federal and local legislators is also underway on the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014. Balloting in the occupied areas of Ukraine has been denounced by Kyiv and the West as a sham and a violation of international law.

In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s seat is up for grabs, although he is running for re-election again and is unlikely to lose a race in which all contenders come from Kremlin-backed parties. Sobyanin was appointed mayor in 2010 and has since won mayoral elections twice: in 2013, despite now-imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny running against him, and 2018. Governors in 20 other Russian regions are also vying for office this year.

Local elections are taking place this weekend in 79 regions of Russia

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Sunday the country will provide an additional $2 billion in aid to Ukraine starting in 2025 over the longer term, in addition to the $300 million previously pledged for next year, Yonhap news reported.

Yoon made the comment at a session of the G20 summit held in New Delhi, India, Yonhap said.

Russia’s military arsenal has been depleted enough for it to turn to isolated North Korea amid its now year-and-a-half-long invasion of Ukraine.

The country is set to host a regional summit on Sunday that could see the participation of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un who, reports said, could reach the country by armoured train.

The visit is significant as Russia faces depleted reserves due to its invasion. And estimates cited by The Associated Press have revealed that North Korea has tens of millions of artillery shells and rockets that could give a huge boost to the Russian army.

US officials have said they expected Mr Kim to seal a deal to transfer munitions to Russia in the coming days, in a marked reversal from the 1950s during the Korean war, when it was the Soviet Union that supplied weaponry to the North.

“We know that Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited recently for artillery shells predominantly, and most likely that will be discussed between Putin and Kim Jong-un,” Alexander Gabuev, head of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

Elon Musk has admitted that his refusal to grant Ukraine permission to use his Starlink satellite network was an attempt to prevent a drone attack on a Russian naval fleet – with one Ukrainian official saying that his country is paying “the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego”.

The Starlink satellite internet service, which is run by the technology billionaire’s SpaceX company, has been a digital lifeline both for Ukraine’s military and for civilians in areas where Russia’s invasion has left infrastructure devastated or jammed.

An extract of a new biography of Musk, published by CNN on Thursday, said that the drones – packed with explosives – “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly” during the thwarted assault last year, after Musk ordered his engineers to turn off the network.

Musk is said to have feared that a strike on the ports of Russian-occupied Crimea would amount to a “mini Pearl Harbor”.

Having apparently spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States – who is reported to have told him that an attack on Crimea would trigger a nuclear response – Musk is then said to have ordered his engineers to turn off Starlink coverage “within 100km of the Crimean coast”.

SpaceX founder says his refusal to allow Kyiv to use his satellite network was an attempt to avoid complicity in an ‘act of war’

The Myanmar junta government has received its first shipment of Russian Su-30 fighter jets, the country’s trade minister told Russian state-run media.

Russia and Myanmar had signed a contract last year for the delivery of six Su-30SME fighter jets, according to Russian state-run RIA.

“Two aircraft have already been delivered,” Charlie Than, Myanmar’s trade minister, told the state-run news agency.

The minister was speaking on the sidelines of a Russian economic summit in Vladivostok. He also said a number of bilateral agreements will be signed at the East Economic Forum, including on developing tourism between the two countries.

Myanmar has seen the junta increase its grip on the country ever since it launched a military coup in 2021.

At least 25 of the 32 drones launched by Vladimir Putin’s forces early on Sunday have been drowned, Ukraine’s land forces said.

The announcement comes as Kyiv was subjected to aerial attacks overnight, with witnesses hearing as many as five blasts, reported Reuters. The scale of the attack has not yet been ascertained.

India has defied expectations to produce a New Delhi Declaration backed by all countries at this weekend’s G20 summit at the expense of any meaningful condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced “the good news” shortly before 1600 local time [1000 GMT] on the first day of the G20 leaders’ summit in Delhi – much to the surprise of many observers and analysts, who felt that the Ukraine issue would stand in the way of a consensus on any joint statement at all, much less an early one.

Ukraine rejected the joint statement, saying “the G20 has nothing to be proud of in the part about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”.

Ukraine does feature in the full 37-page declaration released by the Indian foreign ministry on Saturday, which says leaders “highlighted the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine” without directly mentioning Russia.

“There were different views and assessments of the situation,” it adds, in something of an understatement.

Declaration after just one day of talks with G20 leaders – including Russia and China – agrees ‘use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible’

The depleted uranium anti-tank rounds soon to be in Ukraine’s military stockpiles have kicked up a debate over its use in the continuing Russian invasion.

Britain has already promised armour-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium to Ukraine in March. Prime minister Rishi Sunak had backed drawing out the rounds from the UK military’s stockpiles ultimately “to degrade and deter – primarily – Russian aggression”.

But what are these depleted uranium munitions?

When fired, depleted uranium becomes ‘essentially an exotic metal dart fired at extraordinarily high speed’