Russia used 479 drones and 20 missiles and rockets in its attack on Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Ukraine is very close to forcing Russia to end the war, or at least stop it, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Polish and allied military aircraft based in Poland took to the air on Monday to ensure the security of the country's airspace in response to the massive Russian attacks on western Ukraine.
19:18 Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky has said that if the war in Ukraine stops without a real peaceful solution, there is a risk of a nuclear conflict. According to him, Ukraine, together with NATO, could try to reclaim territories occupied by Russia in the future, which, according to him, could result in the destruction of the planet.
19:16 Russia and the DPRK will resume direct passenger rail service between Moscow and Pyongyang this month, for the first time since 2020. This was announced by Russian Railways. According to the state railways, which has a monopoly in Russia, trains between the two metropolises will run twice a month, the first will leave the North Korean capital on June 17, and the journey, more than 10,000 kilometers long, will take eight days. It will be the longest direct rail link in the world, writes Reuters.
Another direct rail connection between Pyongyang and Khabarovsk, located in eastern Russia near the border with China, is scheduled to follow two days later.
The services will be operated by North Korean state railways. In the case of the Moscow-Pyongyang route, the North Korean wagons will be connected to the regular Moscow-Vladivostok service and then to another train.
North Korean soldiers are wearing Russian uniforms
18:52 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that he does not see a real military threat from Russia to NATO countries. According to him, it has become clear that Russia is unable to achieve its goals in Ukraine, but he added that Ukraine is losing the war. As reported by the website Ukrainska Pravda, Orbán said this in an interview for the French television LCI.
16:47 Russian authorities are searching for a soldier who, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, deserted from a unit in the Volgograd region in southern European Russia and injured two local residents. According to media reports, jealousy may have been the motive for the desertion and shooting.
Thirty-four-year-old Maxim Valkovič, who fought in Ukraine, escaped from the unit to meet his ex-wife's lover. The man in question did not arrive at the meeting and sent two of his friends to the meeting place near the town of Petrov Val instead. Valkovič started shooting at them. One - seriously wounded - is in the intensive care unit, the other, according to doctors, suffered moderate injuries, wrote the Meduza server, referring to information from social networks about the incident, which took place on Sunday evening. The police subsequently launched a raid on the suspect and closed all roads in the area; according to locals, the town is full of police and soldiers. The police detained the driver who drove the soldier to the scene of the crime as a possible accomplice.
According to media reports, Valkovic spent more than nine years behind bars for extortion, robbery and causing grievous bodily harm that led to the death of the victim. He was released from prison in 2020 and three years later volunteered for the war against Ukraine.
According to the Novosti Volgograda server, Valkovic originally fought in the ranks of mercenaries before signing a contract with the army. According to the portal's anonymous source, he did not escape from the unit, but did not return from an authorized leave, on which he secretly took a weapon with him.
Crimes in which war veterans are suspected, especially former convicts released from prison to go to war, are reported quite frequently on Russian social networks and foreign media.
16:00 His last name doesn't suit his character, his nickname describes him. His name is Vasyl Malyuk, he heads the Security Service of Ukraine, meaning he manages secret agents.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, he has attracted the most attention after the recent attack on Russian military bases with strategic bombers. What other successes did he achieve and how did he gain the favor of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before the outbreak of the war?
15:15 Ukraine and Russia announced the start of a new exchange of prisoners of war. The exchange began today, which will continue in several stages in the coming days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the Telegram platform. According to him, the injured or those under 25 are returning to their homeland. The start of the exchange was also announced a few minutes earlier by the Russian Ministry of Defense, which said that this is the first part of the exchange agreed between Russian and Ukrainian representatives last Monday in Istanbul. Neither Moscow nor Kiev have yet specified the numbers.
"Our people are home. Ukrainians are returning from Russian captivity," Zelensky wrote on the social network, noting that the exchange will continue in the coming days."The process is quite complicated, there are many sensitive details, and negotiations continue practically every day," the Ukrainian president said. According to him, Kiev expects that the agreements reached during the negotiations in Istanbul will be fully implemented. According to him, among those now returned are the wounded and under 25 years old.
Extraordinary courage: Ukrainian soldier alone in the field against the Russians
The Russian Ministry of Defense previously reported on Telegram about the retrieval of the first group of Russian prisoners of war under the age of 25 from Ukraine and announced that Moscow had, in turn, handed over a similar number of Ukrainian prisoners to Kiev."Currently, Russian soldiers are located on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance," the Russian ministry wrote, noting that the soldiers will then head to Russia.
13:55 Russian troops are advancing in Ukrainian Dnepropetrovsk region, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow reported today, according to the TASS agency. Moscow reported on Sunday that the administrative border of this region east of central Ukraine had been crossed, but the Ukrainian side has not yet commented on the development. According to the Kremlin, this offensive is part of a plan to create a buffer zone in Ukraine
"The units of the Center group continued to advance deep into the enemy's defenses and increased the area of liberated territory in the Dnipropetrovsk region," TASS quoted a statement from the Defense Ministry as saying. Moscow refers to the territory in Ukraine that its troops will occupy as liberated. The statement does not mention specific locations of the offensive.
The Russian soldiers have crossed the border with Dnipro Oblast. This video is likely recorded just west of Horikhove.#RussiaUkraineWar
— Kiriti | ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ (@in20im) June 8, 2025
According to a map from the DeepState analytical project, which is close to the Ukrainian military, the invading forces have not crossed the eastern border of the Dnepropetrovsk region, but are in its immediate vicinity in its southern and central parts. This threatens to make the Dnepropetrovsk region the next Ukrainian region to be hit by ground fighting, following Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that the army is conducting an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region with the aim of creating a buffer zone in Ukraine, which he said is necessary to protect Russia's borders. Putin announced the creation of such a zone inside Ukrainian territory some time ago. The plan is also linked to the intensification of Russian attacks on the Sumy region in recent months.
13:22 According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Moscow is ready to comply with the agreement on the exchange of additional prisoners and fallen soldiers with Ukraine, which he also accused of thwarting the agreement. The Russian state agency TASS reported this today. Russia has previously accused Kiev of postponing the agreed exchanges. The Ukrainian Coordination Staff for Prisoners of War Issues said on Sunday that the exchange of prisoners and bodies of fallen soldiers will take place this week. According to him, Russia is exerting information pressure in order to dictate the terms of the exchange. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of playing a dirty political game in this regard.
Representatives of Russia and Ukraine agreed in Istanbul last Monday to another prisoner exchange and hand over the bodies of the fallen. But Kiev accused Moscow on Saturday of acting unilaterally in this matter. Russia, which accuses Ukraine of postponing the exchange, which Kiev has denied, has not submitted the lists in the form agreed in Istanbul. It also claims that no specific date has been approved for the repatriation of the bodies.
Russia also announced on Sunday that trains and trucks carrying the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers were starting to move towards the border. According to Moscow, the first handover will include over 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers out of the total 6,000 that Moscow has announced it will hand over to Ukraine.
12:08 Ukraine is very close to the moment when it can force Russia to end the war, or at least stop it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in an interview with ABC News.
"Honestly, we are very close to the moment when we can force Russia to end the war. At least stop it. We are very close to that. We feel it. Our operation Spider Web is with them... Although they are angry, they understand everything," Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian head of state also explained how to force Putin to end the war.
"We don't want the war to continue, but if this is the only way out, we will fight for ourselves. We were very close. We need strong, decisive help from the United States. The United States needs unity with Europe and continues to put pressure on Putin. He doesn't want to end the war, but he can end it thanks to pressure from our partners. In my opinion, this gives a chance. And that certainly doesn't sound pessimistic," he added.
In the recent Operation Spiderweb, Russia lost more than 40 aircraft, including strategic bombers, costing Moscow more than $2 billion.
Ukrainians release new unique footage of Russian air fleet massacre. Moscow says bombers will be repaired
11:03 Over the past day in Ukraine, according to Kiev, Russia lost 970 soldiers. The number of Russian armed forces killed in combat since the beginning of the war has increased to 997 120, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Facebook on Monday. Over the past day, Moscow also lost four tanks, 11 armored infantry fighting vehicles, 42 artillery systems and one rocket launcher, it said.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has lost a total of 10,915 tanks, 22,759 infantry fighting vehicles, 28,934 artillery systems and 1,411 rocket launchers, according to Kiev.
10:30 Russia apparently used a record number of drones and missiles in its attack against Ukraine last night, according to a report from the Ukrainian Air Force. It launched 479 drones and 20 missiles and shells against its territory, of which air defenses neutralized 479 targets of various types.
According to Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat, the country suffered a massive strike, one of the largest carried out by Russia against it in recent times. The main attack was aimed at one of the airports, Ihnat said, without giving further details.
Like bees from a hive. This is how the drones that destroyed Russian aircraft worth billions of dollars flew out
Ukrainians shot down 277 drones over their territory, another 183 were neutralized using electronic warfare means, or the drones disappeared from radars. Air defense also destroyed, for example, ten Kh-101 missiles, two Kh-22 missiles missed the target and disappeared from radars.
The Rivne region in northwestern Ukraine has suffered the biggest attack since the start of the Russian invasion, the head of its military administration, Oleksandr Koval, announced."Thanks to the work of air defense, the consequences were minimized. Critical infrastructure facilities are operating in normal mode," he said. One person was injured and is in hospital.
10:20 NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will call for a 400 percent increase in the alliance's air and missile defense capabilities in a speech in London today.
10:04 Poland sent fighter jets to secure its airspace on Monday morning after large-scale Russian attacks hit neighboring Ukraine.
"Due to the intensive air attack by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, Polish and allied aircraft began operating in Polish airspace this morning," the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces wrote in a statement on social media.
Russia launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on western Ukraine on Monday night, Rivne Mayor Oleksandr Tretiak said, calling it the"largest attack" on the region.
In March last year, a Russian missile with a flat trajectory violated Polish airspace. A similar incident occurred in December 2023, when a Russian missile penetrated Polish airspace for several minutes before returning to Ukraine.
9:06 An electronics factory in the Chuvash Republic has suspended production after being attacked by two Ukrainian drones, the head of the regional administration, Oleg Nikolayev, said on Monday. According to Reuters, this is one of the deepest strikes on Russian territory.
The attack took place about 1,300 kilometers from the border with Ukraine and no one was injured, Nikolayev said on the Telegram platform. According to the head of the region,"security measures have been taken to temporarily stop production to ensure the safety of employees" at the VNIIR enterprise. Damage is not immediately known. Nikolayev also reported that another drone fell in a field near the city of Cheboksary on the Volga River.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram that its troops shot down two drones over Chuvashia. According to the ministry, air defense systems destroyed a total of 49 Ukrainian drones over Russia overnight.
Photos and videos on Telegram news channels showed drones setting off a fire at a VNIIR plant that reportedly makes electronic warfare components. Reuters could not independently verify the reports, and Ukraine did not immediately comment on the attack. Kiev has repeatedly said that strikes on Russian territory are targeting infrastructure that Moscow considers crucial to the war.
The VNIIR scientific and technological research institute with experimental production in Chuvashia is on the US sanctions list, according to the US Treasury Department website. Kiev also launched a drone attack on the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, damaging a gas pipeline. This cut off gas supplies to 22 consumers, regional governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram. (reuters, tasr)
8:12 A 50-year-old Czech man who joined the Russian army and is now seeking help from Czech authorities is a convicted criminal. A warrant has been issued for the man to be taken to prison.
6:30 An airstrike alert was in effect across Ukraine overnight Sunday, with a large number of Russian drones in the air. It was issued after the Ukrainian Air Force was warned of Russian missile and drone attacks, Reuters reported.
The Rivne region has experienced the largest air attack of the war. The main blow fell on the city of Dubno. This was reported by the mayor of the city of Rivne, Oleksandr Tretyak."Today our region experienced one of the most difficult nights: dozens of martyrs and missiles attacked our region," he said. So far, one victim is known, the Unian agency reported.
The Ukrainian capital Kiev was once again the target of a large-scale attack by Russian drones on Sunday night, the DPA agency reported, citing the Ukrainian Air Force and the local military administration.
Polish and allied military aircraft were scrambled overnight to ensure the security of the country's airspace after Russia launched airstrikes on targets in western Ukraine near the Polish border, the Polish Armed Forces' operational command said, Reuters reported.
"The steps taken are aimed at ensuring security in the regions bordering the endangered areas," the command said in a message on the social network X.
Russian air defenses shot down 49 Ukrainian drones on Monday night, some of which were attacking as far away as Chuvash Republic, Russian authorities said, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian drones disrupted operations at a local electronics factory but did not injure anyone, the head of the Chuvash Republic, Oleg Nikolayev, said in a telegram. The area of the Ukrainian drone strike is approximately 1,300 kilometers from the borders of the country, which has been defending itself against Russian aggression for more than three years and has carried out airstrikes against targets deep in the Russian interior.
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