How Russia is avoiding detection with its strikes from the skies above Ukraine

Published

7 months ago

November 28, 2024

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There’s a veneer of normality to life in Ukraine’s major cities if you ignore the air raid sirens, the booming sounds of anti-aircraft fire, the threatening buzz of drones passing overhead, and the darkened streets of neighbourhoods taking their turn as part of rolling power cuts affecting all of Ukraine.

As I say, if you ignore all of the above it’s fine, and many people do.

Kyiv appears particularly normal. Shops and restaurants are open, I’m told theatre performances are sometimes sold out, and at times you can still see families taking photos in front of the capital’s exquisite churches and cathedrals.

Late at night though, the city starts to change.

In the past few days, mostly throughout the night, air raid apps have been lighting up with warnings to “seek shelter”, while the sound of the sirens pierces the still and freezing air of the city.

From different directions I watched the anti-aircraft batteries tracking and following Russian drones swarming over Kyiv in unprecedented numbers – the tracers from their machine guns shooting into the night skies and ominous orange glows in the distance from possible missile strikes.

The capital is being targeted as never before, so much so that the military has assigned special anti-air units particularly for the defence of Kyiv.

Attacking this city is partly a Russian tactic to wear its population down and create fear and uncertainty.

But many of its drones and missiles are targeting the country’s energy infrastructure. Russia wants to switch the lights out here and, if possible, literally freeze this people’s resistance.

A necessity, rolling blackouts are the norm now while engineers repair power stations and supply lines. Power producing capacity is already limited after years of targeting, and as the temperature drops the authorities must save wherever they can.

For families the threat of attack from the skies never goes away

I drove through the streets of Kyiv’s left-bank suburbs, darkened apartment blocks silhouetted against the city’s skyline.

The dimly lit lights inside apartments are provided by generators or car batteries hooked up to makeshift electrical circuits tacked on to walls and ceilings.

Alona emerged from the doors of her apartment building into a pitch-black car park, her torch glinting off the remains of the first snows of winter, now turned into ice.

I followed her up three flights of stairs into her apartment and was introduced to her husband, Yevhen, and their two-year-old, Oles.

For families in particular, the threat of attack from the skies never goes away. In many ways it is psychological warfare, and Alona said it’s taking its toll on her and her little boy Oles.

“The hardest part, by far, is at night when you’re putting your child to sleep in the bathroom or when you have to rush to the shelter in the middle of the night. It’s really tough because it disrupts the child’s routine,” she explained.

“He doesn’t get proper sleep, everything is upside down for him, he’s terrified and he had started to become scared of the alarms.”

‘It’s still deeply frightening to be in the open’

Alona talked me through how her family tries to work out the risk of a strike in their area when the air raid sirens go off, and then they make a decision whether or not to seek shelter accordingly.

This family is typical of thousands here – scared to stay at home and scared to go out.

“I saw a missile being shot down and let me tell you, it was terrifying,” Alona said.

“It’s a haunting experience, even though I’m standing here now, telling you about how we ‘measure’ the scale of the danger, it’s still deeply frightening to be in the open.”

The soldiers who do their best to track Russian drones

After travelling to see the family, I went to meet an air defence mobile group belonging to the National Guard. I followed them on to a frozen field where they set up to man their position in the dark of night and sub-zero temperatures.

They are just a handful of hundreds, even thousands, of soldiers across the country doing the same.

These men, led by their commander Serhii, do their best to track the incoming drones with radar and use large spotlights to search the skies when they believe a Russian drone is nearby.

‘The enemy is changing tactics’

Russian tactics have changed though. As many as half are harmless decoys designed to waste time and bullets. The other half are deadly.

“The enemy is changing tactics, trying out different manoeuvres,” Serhii told me.

“They are attempting to approach in groups at low altitudes to avoid detection by radar, some targets fly high and are visible on radar, while another group flies low and slips past air defence systems.”

He showed me a Ukrainian-developed program on a tablet that tracks and monitors the movement of drones and missiles.

“Here it shows the movement of aerial targets in real-time within our zone of engagement,” he explained, pointing at a swarm of drones on his screen flying over Ukrainian territory.

People try to carry on as normal as attacks increase

Whether Russia’s main tactic is to target energy infrastructure or to sow fear, or both, nobody really knows. What they do know is that the attacks have increased.

“I cannot say the specific [reason for] that, whether it’s just the terror to make people feel unsafe and create [an] unstable situation or it’s some kind of facilities they’re trying to target, but they are operating, it’s like regular,” Pavlo Yurov of the National Guard’s “Hurricane” brigade told me.

Beneath the National Guards’ rudimentary dome of protection, people try to carry on with life as staff in restaurants and shops dress Christmas trees and hang fairy lights, but this war is grindingly depressing for everyone.

Young men fear being drafted, many hide out of sight. The news from the eastern front lines is never good, the Russians are taking more land.

Another Christmas is coming and like the last two it will likely pass without any sign of peace.

World

IDF presence in Gaza ‘only issue’ still to be resolved in push for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Sky News understands

Published

8 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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IDF presence in Gaza 'only issue' still to be resolved in push for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Sky News understands

Only one issue remains unresolved in the push to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Sky sources.

Intense negotiations are taking place in Qatar in parallel with key talks in Washington between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations have told Sky News that disagreement between Israel and Hamas remains on the status and presence of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza.

The two sides have bridged significant differences on several other issues, including the process of delivering humanitarian aid and Hamas’s demand that the US guarantees to ensure Israel doesn’t unilaterally resume the war when the ceasefire expires in 60 days.

On the issue of humanitarian aid, Sky News understands that a third party that neither Hamas nor Israel has control over will be used in areas from which the IDF withdraws.

This means that the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – jointly run by an American organisation and Israel – will not be able to operate anywhere where the IDF is not deployed. It will limit GHF expansion plans.

It is believed the United Nations or other recognised humanitarian organisations will adopt a greater role.

On the issue of a US guarantee to prevent Israel restarting the war, Sky News understands that a message was passed to Hamas by Dr Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American who has emerged as a key back channel in the negotiations.

The message appears to have been enough to convince Hamas that President Trump will prevent Israel from restarting the conflict.

However, there is no sense from any of the developments over the course of the past day about what the future of Gaza looks like longer-term.

Final challenge is huge

The last remaining disagreement is, predictably, the trickiest to bridge.

Israel’s central war aim, beyond the return of the hostages, is the total elimination of Hamas as a military and political organisation. The withdrawal of the IDF, partial or total, could allow Hamas to regroup.

One way to overcome this would be to provide wider guarantees of clear deliverable pathways to a viable future for Palestinians.

But there is no sense from the negotiations of any longer-term commitments on this issue.

Two key blocks have been resolved over the past 24 hours but the final challenge is huge.

The conflict in Gaza erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Some 20 hostages are believed to remain alive in Gaza.

Israel has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

World

Trump applying ‘heavy pressure’ on Netanyahu to end war in Gaza

Published

8 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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Trump applying 'heavy pressure' on Netanyahu to end war in Gaza

US President Donald Trump is putting “heavy” pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza, two sources close to the ceasefire negotiations have told Sky News.

One US source said: “The US pressure on Israel has begun, and tonight it will be heavy.”

The source, who is not authorised to speak publicly, was referring to the White House dinner on Monday night between Trump and Netanyahu.

A second Middle Eastern diplomatic source agreed that the American pressure on Israel would be intense.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington DC in the early hours of Monday morning and held meetings on Monday with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The Israeli prime minister plans to be in Washington until Thursday with meetings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Trump has made clear his desire to bring the Gaza conflict to an end.

However, he has never articulated how a lasting peace, which would satisfy both the Israelis and Palestinians, could be achieved.

His varying comments about ownership of Gaza, moving Palestinians out of the territory and permanent resettlement, have presented a confusing policy.

Situation for Palestinians worse than ever

Over the coming days, we will see the extent to which Trump demands that Netanyahu accepts the current Gaza ceasefire deal, even if it falls short of Israel’s war aims – the elimination of Hamas.

The strategic objective to permanently remove Hamas seems always to have been impossible. Hamas as an entity was the extreme consequence of the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinians’ challenge has not gone away, and the situation for Palestinians now is worse than it has ever been in Gaza and also the West Bank. It is not clear how Trump plans to square that circle.

Trump’s oft-repeated desire to “stop the killing” is sincere. Those close to him often emphasise this. He is also looking to cement his legacy as a peacemaker. He genuinely craves the Nobel Peace Prize.

In this context, the complexities of conflicts – in Ukraine or Gaza – are often of secondary importance to the president.

If Netanyahu can be persuaded to end the war, what would he need?

The hostages back – for sure. That would require agreement from Hamas. They would only agree to this if they have guarantees on Gaza’s future and their own future. More circles to square.

Was White House dinner a key moment?

The Monday night dinner could have been a key moment for the Middle East. Two powerful men in the Blue Room of the White House, deciding the direction of the region.

Will it be seen as the moment the region was remoulded? But to whose benefit?

Trump is a dealmaker with an eye on the prize. But Netanyahu is a political master; they don’t call him “the magician” for nothing.

Trump makes decisions instinctively. He can shift position quickly and often listens to the last person in the room. Right now – that person is Netanyahu.

Gaza is one part of a jigsaw of challenges, which could become opportunities.

Diplomatic normalisation between Israel and the Arab world is a prize for Trump and could genuinely secure him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But without the Gaza piece, the jigsaw is incomplete.

World

‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says

Published

17 hours ago

July 8, 2025

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'Widespread sexual violence' took place during Hamas's 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says

A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence

The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.

The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.

According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.

Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.

One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.

At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.

The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.

Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.

The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.

This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.

Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.