A major Ukrainian drone strike has set ablaze a large Russian weapons depot, destroying what Ukraine’s General Staff said were thousands of tons of weapons, including North Korean missiles.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the United States to send more weapons ahead of his visit to the White House next week with a multilateral “plan for victory.”
Russia’s news agency and the Defense Ministry announced Saturday that Ukraine fired more than 100 drones overnight at Russia and the occupied Crimean peninsula.
The attack left a weapons depot just a few kilometres from a Ukrainian drone storage facility engulfed in flames earlier this week in an attack that injured 13 people and also caused a large fire. On Saturday, in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, weapons and ammunition depots were also targeted.
Zelensky told reporters that the “winning plan” Zelensky will present to President Biden will include long-range missile capabilities and other weapons that kyiv has long sought and will be the basis for any future negotiations with Russia.
Zelensky reveals the small details
Zelensky has repeatedly hinted at the preparation of the plan but has not publicly explained its content, saying only that it includes conditions for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia.
“This will be the beginning and the basis for any kind of talks with Russia. In any case, with each of its representatives, because there will be a plan and something to show,” Zelensky said at Friday’s briefing.
Zelensky said he would present the plan to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Zelensky said he also plans to meet with Harris’ opponent in the November election, former President Trump.
He said he still does not want the United States to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike deep into Russia, fearing an escalation by Moscow, the world’s largest nuclear power. Ukraine was forced to use its capabilities to carry out strikes inside Russian territory.
“I think Biden is actually getting information from people around him today that maybe there will be some tension. But, and this is important, not everyone around him thinks that way. And it is already an achievement that not everyone around him thinks that way,” Zelensky said.
But the longer Western partners wait to use long-range missiles, the more obsolete their tactical value will become, Zelensky said.
Zelensky is expected to address the annual UN General Assembly in New York before travelling to Washington.
Western supporters of Ukraine are regularly criticised for only helping the country survive invasion, not victory, but out of concern for the chaos that would ensue if Putin were to be ousted in Russia. The plan may be to try to change that score.
Ukraine is likely to seek detailed commitments from its European allies. Zelensky said on Thursday, without elaborating, that Ukraine’s success would depend on immediate decisions by “a number of actors” between October and December.
Trump has said he would immediately end the war if he wins, and many in Ukraine and Europe fear he will not be sympathetic to kyiv.
Guns were fired
Ukraine’s General Staff said Saturday that “at least 2,000 tons” of weapons, including missiles supplied by North Korea, were destroyed in an overnight drone strike that targeted warehouses in southern and northwestern Russia.
On Saturday, Russian authorities temporarily closed a 62-kilometer stretch of highway and evacuated passengers from a train station after a fire broke out near the town of Toropet in Russia’s Tver region, about 300 miles from the border with Ukraine.
Reports on local Telegram channels say a missile depot near Toropets was hit. Unconfirmed images circulating on Telegram on Saturday showed a huge fireball rising into the night sky, with dozens of smoke trails from the explosions.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian drones attacked an isolated military depot in the town, which the British Ministry of Defence described as “one of Russia’s largest strategic munitions depots, directly supporting its operations in Ukraine.” In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said the attack, reported on Wednesday, may have caused “a large loss of ammunition.” The update, published on X, cites reports of North Korean missile storage at Thoropet, but has not independently confirmed it.
An attack on Saturday in the Krasnodar region also torched an ammunition depot and a missile arsenal in southwestern Russia, prompting evacuations after a fire near the city of Tikhoretsk sparked a series of explosions. Videos on social media showed bright orange clouds rising over the horizon as the sound of gunfire and explosions echoed almost continuously. Russian state media described billowing smoke from two locations near Tikhoretsk, and authorities later declared a state of emergency around the city.
Regional authorities in both provinces blamed the fire on debris from drones shot down by Russian air defenses. There were no reports of casualties in either area.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday morning that the country’s forces shot down 101 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and occupied Crimea overnight.
Deaths in Zelensky’s hometown
In Ukraine, a 12-year-old boy and two adult women were killed by Russian missiles overnight in Krivoy Rog, Zelensky’s hometown in central Ukraine, local governor Serhiy Lisak said on Saturday.
Lisak said the missiles struck “in the middle of the night when the city was sleeping,” wounding three others, destroying two buildings and injuring 20 others.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian airstrikes on Friday night left 15 people wounded, including young teenagers, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, more than double the number initially reported. Shortly afterward, Terekhov said seven civilians, including three children, were injured as a result of precision-guided bombs dropped by Su-34 fighter jets on three districts of Kharkiv.
At least three civilians were injured in Russian drone and artillery strikes in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on Saturday, and another person was wounded in an airstrike on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, according to local authorities.
Associated Press writer Hicks reported from Kyiv, Kozlovska reported from London. AP writer Lorne Cook contributed to this report from Brussels.
