Ukraine-Russia war live: Putin’s forces launch major drone attack as they claim key hill town of Vuhledar

The Ukrainian military has said it had used ATACMS ballistic missiles to strike a Russian radar station to reduce Moscow’s ability “to detect, track and intercept aerodynamic and ballistic targets”.

The military did not say when the strike had taken place or give the venue of the ‘Nebo-M’ radar station in its statement on the Telegram messaging app.

“The destruction of the Nebo-M radar will create a favourable ‘air corridor’ for the effective use of Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG cruise missiles,” it said.

The Ukrainian military said it believed Russia had 10 such operational systems left, each estimated to be worth more than $100 million.

The United States sent long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine this spring and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine had committed at the time to only using the weapons inside its own territory. Russian forces currently occupy about 18% of Ukraine’s territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles, including long-range US ATACMS and Britain’s Storm Shadow, deep into Russia.

A major Russian drone attack overnight on 15 Ukrainian regions has caused damage to commercial, residential buildings and kindergarten schools, local authorities said this morning. No immediate casualties have been reported so far.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 78 out of 105 Russian drones during the assault, with 23 more likely impacted by active electronic jamming.

The air force shot down 16 drones in the Cherkasy region and debris caused a forest fire which has since been put out, local authorities said.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv said the air force had downed around 15 drones over the city and its surroundings during an air alert that lasted more than five hours. Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the drone debris had fallen in the Desnianskyi district but said they had caused no fires.

However, the overnight attack caused fires in three other districts of the Kyiv region which have since been extinguished, regional authorities said.

An attack on the southern region of Odesa damaged power lines, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. Workers restored power to more than 3,000 consumers, though a further 2,000 people remained without power in one of the districts, he said.

Dozens of Russian drones also targeted the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, damaging six commercial buildings and shattering windows in a residential building and a kindergarten, governor Filip Pronin said on Telegram.

Another attack, on the central region of Kirovohrad, also damaged windows in a residential apartment and neighbouring garages, governor Andriy Raykovych said.

Russia suffered heavy losses in its bid to capture the frontline town of Vuhledar, a think-tank has said, citing military reports.

Vladimir Putin’s forces claimed the key town in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops were forced to withdraw from the area yesterday after years of fighting.

“Ukraine’s Khortytsia Group of Forces reported on 2 October that Russian forces suffered significant losses during their efforts to seize Vuhledar and that the Ukrainian high command gave Ukrainian forces permission to withdraw from Vuhledar to preserve personnel and combat equipment,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment.

It added that official Ukrainian military sources acknowledged that Russian forces have seized Vuhledar (southwest of Donetsk City) amid further Russian advances northwest of the town.

The ISW said geolocated footage published on 1 October indicates that Russian forces recently marginally advanced along the Pavlivka-Bohoyavlenka road northwest of Vuhledar.

Russia must prepare for a long confrontation with the United States and has sent repeated warnings to Washington over the crisis in relations, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned.

The Ukraine war has triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The conflict is entering what Russian officials say is the most dangerous phase to date. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been urging Kyiv’s allies for months to let Ukraine fire longer-range Western missiles deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

Mr Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and relations with Washington, said Moscow had no illusions about relations, given the “bipartisan anti-Russian consensus” in the United States.

“We must prepare for a long-term confrontation with this country. We are ready for this in every sense,” Mr Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.

Ukraine said it had launched an investigation into what it said was an apparent shooting of 16 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian soldiers.

The soldiers who were allegedly killed had surrendered on the eastern Ukrainian frontline.

“This is the largest reported case of the execution of Ukrainian POWs on the front line and yet another indication that the killing and torture of prisoners of war are not isolated incidents,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said on X.

“This is a deliberate policy of the Russian military and political leadership.”

Moscow did not immediately comment on the accusations. The Kremlin denies that Russia commits war crimes in Ukraine.

The Ukraine prosecutor general office said on the Telegram messaging app that it was looking into a video shared on social media showing the alleged killing.

A video with grainy drone footage purported to show a group of more than ten people leaving a trench. They are lined up and then fall down after being fired upon by other, indistinct figures.

Mr Kostin said the incident took place on the Pokrovsk front, an area of intensified Russian assaults.

The Ukrainian air force shot down 78 out of 105 Russian drones during an overnight attack on the country, it said on Telegram.

“As a result of anti-aircraft combat, 78 enemy attack UAVs of the ‘Shahed’ type were shot down in Kyiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kherson, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Rivne, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions,” it said.

These drones were fired from Kursk and Crimea among other Russian territories, the air force said.

It is not immediately clear if the 27 drones that were not intercepted caused any damage in Ukraine.

The airport in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan is temporarily closed for flights today, the RIA news agency cited the aviation watchdog as saying.

Russia typically announces airspace closures when there are an ongoing or expected Ukrainian drone attacks.

Officials at the Russian defence ministry have not confirmed drones heading towards Moscow or Kazan.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have claimed a key town in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops were forced to withdraw from the area after years of fighting.

The Russian Army said it had seized Vuhledar, Donetsk, on Wednesday, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kyiv’s eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops.

The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era apartment buildings smashed apart and scarred.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov praised China’s approach to the war in Ukraine and said both countries wanted to eliminate the problems that Moscow says lie behind the conflict.

Mr Lavrov wrote about Sino-Russia ties in an essay published in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, marking the 75th anniversary of Russia’s diplomatic relations with communist China.

He praised China’s “balanced and consistent” approach to the war in Ukraine and said its initiatives rightly called for the elimination of its root causes, including Nato’s eastward expansion and the creation of an “anti-Russian military bridgehead in Ukraine”.