F-16s finally reach Ukraine as Zelensky says pilots have started flying jets – live

Ukrainian attacks injured 14 people, including several at a market, in the Russian-held town of Oleshky in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, a Russia-appointed official said yesterday.

In Luhansk, a Russian-held city in northeastern Ukraine, the Russia-appointed governor said Ukrainian forces fired 12 rockets at various targets, eight of which were intercepted. Governor Leonid Pasechnik said on Telegram the number of casualties was being clarified.

In Oleshky, the head of the local administration, Andrei Alekseyenko, said eight people were injured in the initial Ukrainian attack, the shelling of the town’s market.

Alekseyenko, writing on Telegram, said Ukrainian drones later attacked apartment buildings in the town, smashing windows and starting a fire that was extinguished by emergency services. Six people were injured, he said.

Russian forces seized control of the Kherson region in the early days after the February 2022 Russian invasion, but Ukrainian troops recaptured large swathes of the region later in the year.

Oleshky lies in a Russian-held area on the east side of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian officials say Russian forces still shell Ukrainian positions from Russian-held areas of the region.

Russian forces are advancing gradually towards the key strategic city of Pokrovsk in the eastern region of Donetsk, as Ukraine struggles with soldier shortages as delays in military aid from the West hold up the equipping of fresh brigades.

Pokrovsk, which serves as a key supply route for other Ukrainian outposts, has become the main focus of fighting in the last few weeks. Military analysts fear that Ukrainian equipment is insufficient to hold off the advance – although they expect the Russian offensive to slow down as it reaches more built-up areas.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed in the last few days it had taken control of Prohres and Yevhenivka – two villages to the east of Pokrovsk – with efforts now focussed on making a breakthrough closer to Pokrovsk.

Ukraine has sunk a Russian submarine and hit a Russian airfield over the weekend, as it keeps up its counteroffensive surge of long-range attacks against Russian targets, officials said. Russia said Ukrainian drones also hit an apartment building, killing one person.

Ukraine struck a Russian Kilo-class submarine and an S-400 anti aircraft missile complex in the Moscow-occupied Crimean peninsula, according to a statement from the General Staff on Saturday, confirming the attack.

The air defence system was established to protect the Kerch Strait Bridge, an important logistics and transport hub supplying Russian forces. Units of the missile forces, as well as the Navy damaged four launchers of the Triumph air defence system, while in the port of Sevastopol, the “Rostov-on-Don” — a submarine of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — was attacked and sank, the statement said.

The General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region after launching a massive drone barrage on Russia. Hits were recorded in warehouses with ammunition, where guided aerial bombs were stored. The operation was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of Intelligence and the Defence Ministry, the statement said.

The uptick in attacks since July come as Ukraine mounts pressure on allies to allow it to use long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia. Western allies, in particular the US, have so far resisted, fearing escalation from Moscow.

Analysts say such an intensification is needed if Ukraine is to degrade Russian capabilities.

Ukraine has previously relied on an ageing fleet of Soviet-era warplanes that are outgunned by Russia’s more advanced and far more numerous fleet.

Russia has used that edge to conduct regular long-range missile strikes on targets across Ukraine and also to pound Ukrainian front line positions with thousands of guided bombs, supporting its forces that are slowly advancing in the east.

“This is the new stage of development of the air force of Ukraine‘s armed forces,” Zelenskiy said.

“We did a lot for Ukrainian forces to transition to a new aviation standard, the Western combat aviation,” he added, citing hundreds of meetings and unrelenting diplomacy to obtain the F-16s.

“We often heard ‘it is impossible’ as an answer but we still made our ambition, our defensive need, possible,” he said.

Comments by a Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson have sparked a diplomatic row between Ukraine and Mali, with the African nation now saying it is immediately cutting ties with Kyiv.

The Ukrainian military wing GUR’s remarks were about fighting in Mali’s north that killed Malian soldiers and Wagner fighters in late July.

At least 84 Russian Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers were killed over days of fierce fighting in the north of the West African country, said Mali’s northern Tuareg rebels, in what appears to be Wagner’s heaviest defeat since it stepped in two years ago to help Mali’s military authorities fight insurgent groups.

GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov has not confirmed Kyiv’s involvement in the fighting, but in comments published on public broadcaster Suspilne’s website on Monday, 29 July, he said the Malian rebels had received the “necessary” information to conduct the attack.

“The rebels received all the necessary information they needed, and not just the information, which allowed (them) to conduct a successful military operation against Russian perpetrators of war crimes. We certainly won’t go into details now – you will see more of this in the future,” he said.

Mali said it had learned “with deep shock of the subversive remarks.”

It said Mr Yusov had “admitted Ukraine‘s involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups that resulted in the death of members of the Malian Defence and Security Forces.”

“The actions taken by the Ukrainian authorities violate the sovereignty of Mali, go beyond the scope of foreign interference, which is already condemnable in itself, and constitute a clear aggression by Mali and support for international terrorism,” the Malian government said.

Ukraine’s newly arrived F-16 fighter jets were put on display by president Volodymyr Zelensky, who said the planes will boost the country’s war effort against Russia.

Standing in front of two of the fighter jets as two others flew overhead in close formation, Mr Zelensky said: “These jets are in our sky and today you see them.”

“It’s good that they are here and that we can put them to use.”

The war-time president said Ukraine is also trying to get neighbouring countries to help defend it against Russian missiles.

According to a senior Ukrainian military official, Ukraine may keep some of the F-16 fighter jets at foreign bases to protect them from Russian strikes. Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow could consider launching strikes at facilities in Nato countries if they host the warplanes used in Ukraine.

“This decision is probably a difficult one for our partners, as they are always afraid of unnecessary escalation,” said Ukraine‘s president. “We will work on this… I think we have a good option of a Nato-Ukraine council… so that Nato countries could talk to Ukraine about the possibility of a small coalition of neighbouring countries that would shoot down enemy missiles.”

Two F-16 jets, sporting Ukraine’s trident insignia on their tails and draped in camouflage netting, were a dramatic background for Mr Zelensky’s address to Air Forces Day, an event held under tight security at an undisclosed location to protect the fighter jets from Russian attacks.

Ukrainian pilots have started flying F-16s for operations within the nation, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, confirming the long-awaited arrival of the US-made fighter jets more than 29 months since Russia’s invasion.

The Ukrainian leader announced the use of F-16s, which Kyiv has long lobbied for, as he met military pilots at an air base flanked by two of the jets with two more flying overhead.

“F-16s are in Ukraine. We did it. I am proud of our guys who are mastering these jets and have already started using them for our country,” Mr Zelensky said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will visit three African countries this week in an effort to drum up support for Kyiv’s position in its war with Russia.

Mr Kuleba, on his fourth diplomatic tour to Africa in the last two years, will visit Malawi, Zambia and Mauritius on 4-8 August, the ministry said in a statement.

“All meetings will focus on the development of bilateral relations based on mutual respect and interests. Among the key topics will be the participation of African states in global efforts to restore a just peace for Ukraine and the world,” it said.

A number of African countries took part in a conference on Ukraine hosted by Switzerland in June but they have mostly been reluctant to join Western efforts to isolate Russia, an important supplier of energy and commodities.

The ministry said Kuleba would also discuss during his tour the supply of Ukrainian grain to the region and the participation of African companies in the reconstruction of Ukraine.