Ukraine has inflicted serious damage to Russia’s air defence capabilities as it has destroyed more than 80 air defence systems since March this year, its defence ministry said in an update.

Ukrainian forces have significantly intensified their strike campaign against Russian air defence systems, it said, damaging almost twice as many Russian air defence and radar systems in April 2026 compared to October 2025.

“The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces have struck 81 Russian air defence systems since March 1, 2026, and the Ukrainian MoD noted that Ukrainian forces have struck 12 Pantsir air defense systems in occupied Crimea since the start of 2026,” the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank said.

“Ukrainian forces have been conducting a coherent campaign to suppress and destroy Russian air defences since late 2025 in order to destroy or temporarily degrade surface-based air defenses and let friendly aircraft operate safely,” it added.

A 23-year-old British man, Ayrton Redfearn, was killed in action in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. He died on 9 May.

From Devon, Mr Redfearn had joined a specialist unit supporting the Ukrainian army in 2025, his mother, Natasha, told the BBC, adding she “lived in fear of the police coming to my door with bad news”.

“This fear became reality on the evening of 11 May, and the world of myself, and Ayrton’s 10-year-old brother, then fell apart,” she said.

Mr Redfearn was a Torquay Air Cadet as a child, joining the RAF at 17 before travelling overseas.

His mother stated: “We are trying to have just 1 per cent of the strength, bravery and courage of Ayrton, and if we can do this, it will help us to eventually come to terms with our life without him.

Several magnetic mines had been detected on a tanker in Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, Russia’s Investigative Committee said yesterday.

The committee said the mines, ⁠manufactured in a Nato country, ​were ⁠found by divers during an inspection of the hull of the tanker Arrhenius, which arrived from ⁠Belgium’s port of Antwerp to load liquefied petroleum gas.

“Based on initial ⁠investigative actions, it can already be concluded that the magnetic mines could ‌not have ​been installed in Russia’s territorial waters,” ‌Petrenko said.

Nato has not mined any tanker, a Nato official said in an emailed statement.

Last year, Russia ordered divers to inspect ships in its ports, after suspected attacks on four oil tankers. The Suezmax tanker Koala ran aground at Ust-Luga after a blast in its engine room in February 2025.

According to LSEG ship tracking data, Arrhenius is Liberia-flagged and is managed by the Maple Mariner Holding in the UAE.

A spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said the vessel, which entered Ust-Luga on 20 May, was scheduled to sail to the Turkish port of Samsun. The mines were deactivated, she said.

At least six people, including four children, have died in a fire that broke out in a private house in Russia’s Omsk region, local officials said.

Omsk lies in southwestern Siberia, about 2,200km (1,370 miles) ​east ‌of Moscow.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

Ukraine reburied the repatriated remains of divisive military figure Andrii Melnyk, who worked with Nazi Germany to fight against Soviet rule, yesterday.

The ashes of the 20th-century Ukrainian military figure and his wife Sofiia Fedak-Melnyk were exhumed last week from Luxembourg and sent to Ukraine.

Their remains were reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv yesterday in a ceremony attended by president Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials.

“Today we all see that the Ukrainian idea can overcome what once seemed absolutely insurmountable,” Zelensky said, speaking at the reburial ceremony.

“Now, when we are on Ukrainian soil, under our Ukrainian flag, to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, paying due tribute to our Ukrainian heroes, we feel in our hearts everything that Ukrainians were forced to go through, everything our people had to endure,” he said.

Ukraine says it used Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian military targets in the occupied Luhansk region yesterday.

“Ukraine used Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles to successfully destroy an important enemy command-and-control and communications post in the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk (Oblast),” a statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

“This strike underscores the strategic foresight, unity of planning, and deliberate actions that prove no position of the Russian aggressor is safe on Ukrainian soil,” the General Staff said.

Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 155 miles (250km). The French call it Scalp.

Powered by a turbo-jet engine, the 1,300kg Storm Shadow travels at speeds of more than 600mph, is just over five metres long and has a wingspan of three metres.

Russia had blamed Britain after a Ukrainian strike using the same kind of missile targeting a vital munitions factory in March. The attack reportedly killed seven people.

Kyiv said it hit one of Russia’s “most important military factories”, the Kremniy El plant in the border city of Bryansk using the British-supplied missile.

Ukraine had made little progress in talks with the United States on expanding production of missile defences and was ⁠working with Europe to solve the matter, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Unfortunately, there has been no progress for a long time with America regarding the expansion of anti-ballistic missile production,” he said in his nightly video address.

“We are ​trying ⁠to accelerate this work in Europe, the production of our own anti-ballistic systems on the ⁠continent in sufficient quantities,” he said.

Zelensky said Ukraine was continuing to talk to the United States on how it can help Ukraine and that US leadership was vital.

He thanked French president Emmanuel Macron for ‌his role in developing systems and ‌said Europe was instrumental in providing financial help for Ukraine to acquire weapons.

“Europe is helping us financially. But the leadership of the United States is also very much needed. Today it is very, very important to say this,” he said.

He added that Ukraine was grateful for US expertise and that it was “very important that there are results. The same applies to diplomacy. We expect new diplomatic measures ‌with representatives of the President of the United ​States of America”.

Ukrainian forces have achieved stronger battlefield results this year and managed to stabilise parts of the front despite major Russian attacks, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Everything is not simple. We are actively defending ourselves, but this year we have achieved greater results than before,” Zelensky said.

The war-time president said Ukraine has strengthened its battlefield positions through drone operations, long-range strikes and technological innovations.

He added that Ukraine’s claims have been indirectly confirmed by criticism and complaints from Russian military bloggers.