Ukraine war briefing: Nato condemns Russian drone violations of Latvia and Romania airspace

Two Nato members have said Russian drones violated their airspace , as one reportedly flew into Romania during night-time attacks on neighbouring Ukraine while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, Romania’s defence ministry said. Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions, it added. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Latvia’s defence minister, Andris Sprūds, later said a Russian drone fell the day before near the town of Rezekne and had likely strayed into Latvia from neighbouring Belarus.

Nato’s outgoing deputy secretary general and Romania’s former top diplomat said the military alliance condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace . Mircea Geoană wrote on X: “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous.” Latvia’s military similarly said there were no indications that Moscow or Minsk purposely sent a drone into the country.

Supporters of President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine were set to win gubernatorial races across Russia, according to early vote counts on Sunday, including in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces have seized control of some towns and territory. Russia’s three-day local and regional elections came to an end on Sunday evening, with voters expected to elect Kremlin-backed candidates in all 21 gubernatorial races, as well as legislative assembly members in 13 regions and city council officials across the country. Results of the tightly controlled elections are already being interpreted in Russia as a vote of confidence in Putin and his operation in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian air force shot down six out of eight Russia-launched drones and two out of three missiles during an attack overnight, it said on Monday . Ukraine’s military said earlier that Russia had launched a drone attack on Kyiv and air defences were engaged in repelling the strikes.

Two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a night-time Russian airstrike on the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy , the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, it said. The Russian defence ministry claimed later on Sunday that its forces struck foreign pro-Kyiv fighters in a village on Sumy’s northern outskirts. It was not immediately clear if that referred to the same attack.

Ukraine’s general staff said Russian troops continued to pound Sumy and the surrounding regions with airstrikes , and had launched at least 16 devastating “glide bombs” at the province by mid-afternoon Sunday. Russian forces shelled the city again during the day, wounding a teenager and a civilian man, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.

Three more women died on Sunday after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region , governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram. Separately, Russian shelling killed a woman on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, in the north-east, local authorities said.

Ukrainian forces attacked a fuel depot in the Volokonovsky district of Russia’s southern Belgorod region, triggering a series of fires , the regional governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram: “Several reservoirs caught fire in an explosion. Firefighting crews are putting out the blaze.” Gladkov also reported drone attacks on three other localities. Separately in the Belgorod region, three civilians including two children were reportedly injured in overnight attacks to Sunday. Gladkov said two residential buildings were destroyed and more than 15 buildings in total damaged.

Russian forces continued to push towards the city of Pokrovsk , a key logistics hub in the east, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove further south, Ukraine’s general staff reported. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town about 19km (11 miles) south-east of Pokrovsk.

The death toll rose to 58 from a huge Russian missile strike that blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava on Tuesday, regional governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, agreed that Moscow should be included in a future peace conference aimed at ending its invasion of Ukraine. Scholz told Germany’s ZDF public television on Sunday: “There will certainly be a further peace conference, and the president [Zelenskiy] and I agree that it must be one with Russia present.” As well, Scholz called for stepped up efforts to solve the conflict.