Latest Developments:
- Russian drones destroyed a fuel depot in Ukraine's western Rivne region on Thursday, Governor Vitaly Koval wrote on the Telegram messaging app. There were no casualties from the attack, he said.
- Britain’s Defense Ministry says Russian authorities have likely increased their efforts to disrupt Russian citizens’ access to virtual private networks. Reports suggest many of the most popular VPNs have become unusable in some regions of Russia.
- Dozens of ships are backed up around critical Danube arteries close to Ukraine's river gateways days after Russian drone attacks on the country's ports, shipping data show. The river and its mouth are Ukraine's last remaining waterborne grain export route.
Russia says it has downed 11 Ukrainian drones headed for Crimea and two headed for Moscow.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that the two drones targeting Moscow were shot down, as were two near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast. The statement said nine drones “were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea.”
Wednesday Russian authorities said its air defenses shot down two Ukrainian drones aimed at Moscow.
Moscow Mayor Sergie Sobyanin said one of the aerial drones was shot down in the Domodedovo region south of the capital, which is home to one of Moscow’s busiest airports, while the other was downed near the Minsk highway west of the city.
Sobyanin said there were no injuries or damages from the incident, which the Defense Ministry described as an attempted "terrorist attack."
Moscow has been the target of suspected Ukrainian drone attacks since May, when a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin. Moscow has also blamed Kyiv for a series of naval drone attacks on Russian civilian and military targets in the Black Sea.
Ukraine usually neither confirms nor denies such attacks.
Wednesday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that a Russian attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least three people.
He said "an ordinary building was hit, a church and a residential building were damaged."
Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs more air defense systems than it has. He added “I have no doubt that F-16s will be in our skies.”
Ukrainian officials have sought ammunition and more advanced weapons, including air defense systems and fighter jets, in order to match Russia’s military capabilities.
Zelenskyy has said that having the F-16 fighter jets is not about gaining an aerial advantage, but rather "being equal" to Russia’s forces.
Denmark said in late June that training for Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s had begun.
Some information for this article came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
