Ukraine updates: Air defense repel another Russian attack

Ukraine's military said a US-made F-16 combat jet crashed and its pilot died while defending against a Russian missile strike on Monday. 

"Four enemy missiles were shot down by airborne weapons," the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement. "Connection with one of the aircraft was lost while it was approaching the next target. As it turned out later, the plane crashed, the pilot died."

Russia launched what Ukraine called its most "massive" aerial attack in months against various parts of the country on Monday of this week.

Ukraine's military did not on Thursday identify the pilot, but its Western air command had reported a pilot fatality on Monday.

It said that Oleksiy Mes had "destroyed three cruise missiles and one attack drone" in defensive operations, "Ultimately, at the cost of his own life."

The arrival of the first F-16 jets in Ukraine was only announced by Kyiv's allies in early August. 

Soon after, they were on show on the ground and flying over Kyiv to punctuate a speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Ukraine's Armed Forces' Day. 

Ukraine's Air Force, like many in Eastern Europe, was still comprised almost entirely of Soviet-era planes like MiGs prior to Russia's invasion. 

Kyiv appealed fairly early in the conflict for more advanced US-built planes, but at first its allies prioritized sending more MiGs, which Ukraine's pilots could already fly.

A gradual procurement process has been accompanied in recent months by efforts to offer Ukrainian pilots accelerated training programs elsewhere in Europe. 

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky spoke to DW's Teri Schultz about Prague's proposal to remove the Schengen free-travel rights from accredited Russian diplomats in EU member states. 

At present, diplomats have the same rights of free movement within the EU's open border Schengen area as anyone else. 

Lipavsky said European diplomats enjoyed no such comparable benefit if posted to Russia. He also said that the right to free movement constituted a security risk given the Russian diplomatic corp's alleged involvement in espionage activities.

"There is no obligation for any European country to provide the Schengen privilege to those Russian diplomats. Russia is not offering us anything similar [of] the kind. This is the one country," he said.

But Lipavsky said that as consensus on the proposal had not been reached yet, Prague and several other supporters of the idea would continue to try to persuade their EU colleagues. 

You can read Teri Schultz's full story on the issue here. 

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told DW that his country's project to purchase artillery ammunition for Ukraine from outside the EU was "fulfilling its promise."

In an interview with Teri Schultz in Brussels, ahead of an informal EU foreign ministers' meeting, Lipavsky said the initiative "will deliver half a million rounds by the end of the year." 

That would include shipments of around 100,000 rounds in the months of July and August, he said.

Lipavsky said the Czech government was "proud to play this role," trying to find an alternative means of sourcing artillery rounds for Ukraine's forces amid strains on NATO stockpiles. The plans were launched earlier this year.

Ukraine's government has often lamented the pace of weapons deliveries, particularly in areas like air defense and for artillery. This has coincided with more intense Russian air attacks against Ukraine in recent days.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said ahead of the Brussels meeting that not all pledges on weapons deliveries were being kept. 

Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, also told reporters on arrival that, "no new ammunition packages have been delivered since June." But it wasn't entirely clear what type of ammunition he was referring to or whether he meant there had been no deliveries of any kind. 

Russia is not ready for peace talks with Ukraine because it continues to demand that Ukraine give up large parts of its territory, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said. 

"Russia continues to demand Ukraine's capitulation, and as long as that is the case, Ukraine will not accept it," Sikorski told the PAP news agency. 

He was responding to an announcement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he would present a new peace plan before the US elections in November.

Since Ukrainian troops entered the Russian region of Kursk, Russian officials have described talks as completely impossible. But Poland's foreign minister is more optimistic about the Ukrainian offensive than other Western governments.

"Ukraine has done something unexpected for Putin, it has occupied part of Russia. Now there is a basis for talks and for the demand for both countries to withdraw to an internationally recognized border," Sikorski said.

Poland is one of Ukraine's biggest supporters in resisting Russia's full-scale invasion.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of preparing a new "Cold War" against Ukraine. 

In recent weeks and months, Ukraine's heating and water supply infrastructure has been deliberately attacked "with the aim of causing people to freeze to death in winter," the minister said during consultations with her counterparts in Brussels. 

According to Baerbock, Putin is aiming for an even more massive Cold War than in previous years, so the EU's response should be a new "protective shield" for Ukraine.

She noted that Germany intends to deliver four more IRIS-T air defense systems and additional Gepard anti-aircraft gun tanks by the end of the year. "Air defense is still the most important thing to protect human lives on the ground in Ukraine," Baerbock said.

Russia claims it has captured two more eastern Ukrainian villages as its forces continue to advance deeper into the country. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops took the village of Mykolaivka, about 15 kilometers (just over nine miles) from the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, as well as the settlement of Stelmakhivka in the neighboring Luhansk region.

Ukraine has not confirmed the capture of the villages. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, said Wednesday that the situation around the eastern city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region, was now "extremely difficult."

Russia's drone and missile attack on Monday forced Ukraine to take four nuclear power units off the grid, posing a risk to the nuclear power sector, the Ukrainian mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

"The Russian Federation continues to deliberately target Ukraine's energy infrastructure, intending to disrupt the operation of the country's nuclear power plants, which provide most of Ukraine's electricity," the mission said in a note.

"Russian attacks pose a significant risk to the stable operation of nuclear facilities in Ukraine and the safety of millions of people," it added.

Ukraine has not said that Russia directly attacked nuclear power plants, but hits on transmission and distribution systems have forced the grid operator to reduce production at nuclear power plants or even shut down nuclear units. 

Ukrainian officials have said the country has lost about half of its generating capacity so far in the war. Now most of its electricity needs are met by electricity produced by three Ukrainian nuclear power plants. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, said he would urge allies to make good on promises of air defense missile systems for Ukraine.

"Some Patriot systems were announced and not delivered yet," Kuleba said. "I will urge all partners who have made their pledges to finally deliver these systems."

Several countries have promised to provide Ukraine with air defense missile systems, but Kuleba said the delays between announcement and delivery are "sometimes excessively long." 

He also called on EU states to pressure Britain and the United States to drop restrictions on the use of donated long-range weapons against "legitimate" targets deep inside Russia.

"Since the very beginning of the invasion the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries act as a coalition," Kuleba said. "I'm calling on the European Union to play a role and to make their point very clearly and strongly that this is something that needs to be done now if we want to maintain the momentum."

For fear of escalating the conflict with Russia, both Britain and the US have put limits on Kyiv's use of donated long-range missiles.

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine, as well as the war in Gaza and the disputed presidential election in Venezuela. 

The meeting is informal, meaning the ministers are not expected to make any official decisions. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will chair the talks. 

The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in Budapest, but ministers moved it to Brussels to protest Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in early July.

A discussion on the Russia-Ukraine war with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is the first item on the agenda. Kuleba is expected to report on the latest wave of Russian airstrikes against his country. 

Earlier, EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell had called on member states to provide more military aid to Kyiv and expressed concern about reports of possible aid cuts in Germany.

An artillery depot and two oil storage facilities in Russia were attacked on Wednesday, causing a fire at the Atlas oil depot in the southern Rostov region, the Ukrainian military confirmed.

The military said it also hit the Zenit oil facility in Russia's Kirov region, about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) northeast of the border with Ukraine. A field artillery depot in Russia's Voronezh region was also hit, it added in the same statement.

Kyiv says its attacks aim to destroy energy, transport and military infrastructure key to Moscow's war effort.

Ukrainian forces destroyed 60 of 74 Russian attack drones and two of three missiles launched overnight, the Ukrainian air force said.

"Aviation, anti-aircraft missile, electronic warfare and mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Air Force and Defense Forces were involved in repelling the air attack," it said in the social media post.

About 15 drones were shot down over the Ukrainian capital, said Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration.

Drone debris damaged the windows and doors of an apartment building and caused a fire in a non-residential building, which was extinguished, Popko added.

Kyiv Regional Governor Ruslan Kravchenko said the drones caused no damage to critical infrastructure in the Kyiv region, and city and regional authorities reported no casualties.

Russia attacked energy facilities across Ukraine on Monday in airstrikes that Ukrainian officials said involved more than 200 missiles and drones. The renewed assault on the power grid has forced Kyiv to rely on emergency and planned power cuts this week to try to stabilize the system.

dh/sms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)