Russo-Ukrainian war, day 1661: Ukraine’s Neptune missile reaches a Russian warship at its own pier

Exclusives

Ukraine is working down the short list of ships that shell its cities with cruise missiles. A Neptune reached one of them tied up at its own pier. Drones went in with the missile, and the general staff counts three more vessels and the port's fuel-oil storage hit the same night.

One Russian drone held up seven flights in Moldova, Zelenskyy's trip to Norway for King Harald V's funeral among them. The drone crossed Moldova twice that afternoon, and controllers shut the airspace over the center of the country for more than an hour, until after it came down in the north.

Military

Ukraine hits key Russia-Iran logistics hub in Caspian Sea, damages three Russian warships. A fire broke out at the Makhachkala port after Ukrainian forces struck its oil infrastructure, while separate attacks damaged Russian vessels in Novorossiysk.

Intelligence and technology

"Its task is not cargo. Its task is people": After Russian FPV drone hit their house, K-2 brigade sent ground robot to carry casualties out.

Future wars will be won not only by those who have the best technological systems, Ukraine's former top general says in London. Valerii Zaluzhnyi says an expensive Cold War missile has become a cheap weapon fired in bulk.

"Credit to the Russians, they know how to scale," Ukrainian military spokesperson says. Ukraine's jet-drone interceptors show early promise, but harder job ahead. Scaling them up to match Ukraine's success against slower drones is the real test.

Ukraine shows its drones in Canada as Ottawa pledges a third of its future output. The presentation followed a declaration on defense cooperation that Kyiv calls the first step toward a drone deal still to be signed.

Money, not engineering, is what stands between Ukraine and Russia's fastest drones, Zelenskyy says. Dozens of firms are chasing the problem, but nobody has funded production at the scale the nightly waves demand.

International

A drone beside a Ukrainian cargo plane is costing Russia its last consulate in Germany. Four others closed in 2023, leaving Moscow with an embassy and, from this month, no consular presence outside it.

Humanitarian and social impact

"Sometimes I forget I don't have a leg": how two Ukrainian infantry soldiers returned to war behind screens. Two Ukrainian soldiers who lost limbs to mines have returned to Khartiia, their National Guard unit, working the drone screens—instead of walking into positions on the ground.

Political and legal developments

Russia has fired its Oreshnik with six warheads at Ukraine three times. State Duma defense committee member says "hour is not far" before fourth one. He cast it as revenge for a naval drone strike on Sochi.

Canada sanctions eight Russians over deported Ukrainian children as only about 2,500 of more than 20,000 have come home. Ottawa's listing bars anyone in Canada from handling the property of the eight, and it took effect a week before Ukraine's leader arrived for talks.

Read our earlier daily review here.