WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine F-16 pilot killed in large-scale Russian attack, Zelenskiy calls for US help
A Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilot died in a crash while repelling a Russian air attack that involved hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, authorities said on Sunday, as Moscow intensifies night-time air barrages in the fourth year of war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the pilot, Maksym Ustymenko, and bestowed upon him posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine, the country's highest decoration.
He also called for more support from Washington and Western allies to bolster Ukraine's air defences after the attack, which damaged homes and infrastructure across the country and injured at least 12 people, according to local authorities.
In Kyiv, families huddled in metro stations for shelter after air raid sirens rung out. Machine-gun fire and explosions were heard across the capital and in the western city of Lviv, where such attacks are less common.
The governor of the Lviv region, bordering Poland, said the raid targeted critical infrastructure.
Ukraine has now lost three F-16s since it began operating the U.S.-made jets last year. Kyiv has not revealed the size of its F-16 fleet, but they have become a central and heavily used part of Ukraine's defences.
The pilot flew the damaged jet away from a settlement but had no time to eject before it crashed, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
"The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While shooting down the last one, his aircraft was damaged and began to lose altitude," the Air Force said on Telegram.
Ukrainian military expert Roman Svitan, speaking earlier this month, said the F-16 was not ideally suited to all tasks in the war, particularly repelling drones which swarm Ukrainian cities, as it is better used against higher-speed targets.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ustymenko had been flying missions since the time of a campaign that began in 2014 against Russian-financed separatists who had seized parts of eastern Ukraine.
"He mastered four types of aircraft and had important results to his name in defending Ukraine," he said. "It is painful to lose such people."
The Ukrainian military said in total Russia launched 477 drones and 60 missiles of various types to Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian forces destroyed 211 of the drones and 38 missiles, it said, while 225 more drones were either lost due to electronic warfare or were decoys that carried no explosives.
Writing earlier on X, Zelenskiy said: "Moscow will not stop as long as it has the capability to launch massive strikes." He said Russia had launched around 114 missiles, 1,270 drones, and 1,100 glide bombs just in the past week.
Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency said one person was killed by a Ukrainian drone in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Luhansk region. Both Ukraine and Russia say they do not attack civilian targets.
POLITICAL WILL
Ukraine says recent attacks highlight the need for further support from Washington, which under President Donald Trump has not committed to new military aid for Ukraine.
Trump said he was considering a Ukrainian request for more Patriot missilebatteries after he met Zelenskiy at a NATO summit last Wednesday.
"This war must be brought to an end - pressure on the aggressor is needed, and so is protection," Zelenskiy said in his X post. "Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defence - the thing that best protects lives."
He said Ukraine was ready to buy the American air defence systems and it counts on "leadership, political will, and the support of the United States, Europe, and all our partners."
Russia has launched large-scale strikes on Ukrainian cities every few days in recent weeks, causing widespread damage, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more.
During the latest barrage, explosions were heard in Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and the Ivano-Frankivsk regions, witnesses and regional governors said. The Ukrainian military said air strikes were recorded in six locations.
Eleven people, including two children, were injured in the central Cherkasy region, the regional governor said on Telegram. Three multi-storey buildings and a college were damaged. One woman was injured in western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Rescuers evacuated residents from apartment blocks in Cherkasy that had charred walls and broken windows.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russia launches ‘massive’ strike on Ukrainian defense industry – MOD
Russian forces carried out a large-scale overnight strike on Ukrainian industrial facilities involving long-range weapons and drones, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Sunday. The Ukrainian authorities and media confirmed the attack, with some suggesting it was one of the largest since the escalation of the conflict in 2022.
In a statement reporting the operation, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces had “conducted a massive strike, involving high-precision long-range air-, sea- and land-based weapons, including the aeroballistic hypersonic Kinzhal missile system, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles, targeting Ukraine’s military-industrial and oil-processing facilities.”
The ministry didn’t provide any further details, but stated that the “strike goals were achieved. All designated targets were hit.”
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the attack in a post on Telegram, claiming that it involved 477 Russian explosives-laden drones and 60 missiles of various types. He used the occasion to once again call on Kiev’s Western backers to provide it with more air defense systems.
Zelensky also revealed that Kiev lost a Western-supplied F-16 fighter jet while attempting to fend off the attack. The pilot perished in the incident.
Meanwhile, in a post on X, Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuglaya accused the country’s military leadership of “murdering” fighter pilots by allegedly failing to develop effective anti-drone protocols.
According to the Ukrainian military’s tally, more than 20 incoming rockets and 40 UAVs made it through the country’s air defenses during the strike.
In a post on Facebook, Stepan Kulinyak, the head of the military administration in the city of Drohobych in Lviv Region in Western Ukraine, said that “as a result of the air attack, a fire broke out at an industrial infrastructure facility.” Officials in the region stated that the strikes did not cause any casualties but that critical infrastructure was hit.
In Poltava Region, an industrial site in the city of Kremenchuk reportedly came under attack.
While Ukrainian officials have not provided any details about the type of facilities hit and the extent of the damage inflicted, some local media outlets have pointed out that there are oil-processing plants in both Drohobych and Kremenchuk, and that they were likely the targets of the strikes.
Social media users have been posting videos purportedly depicting the Russian strikes and their aftermath in several Ukrainian regions.
Reuters/RT