How Russia is avoiding detection with its strikes from the skies above Ukraine
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.
Explosions over Kyiv during a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
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.
A supermarket in Kyiv during a power outage. Pics: AP
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.
Alona, with 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.”
Stuart Ramsay with the anti-air unit
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 air defence units search for Russian drones
‘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.
The sole surviving guest of a lunch where three others died after being served food laced with toxic mushrooms has told an Australian court that the actions of murderer Erin Patterson have left him feeling “half alive”.
Ian Wilkinson, who received a liver transplant and spent months in hospital after the poisoning in July 2023, described how he had been left traumatised as he delivered his victim impact statement at Patterson’s pre-sentencing hearing in Melbourne.
Patterson, 50, was found guilty last month of luring her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, to lunch at her home in Leongatha and poisoning them with individual portions of Beef Wellington that contained toxic death cap mushrooms.
A jury also found her guilty of the attempted murder of Mr Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Australian mother found guilty of killing three relatives by serving toxic lunch
Speaking at the start of the two-day hearing, Mr Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, said the death of his wife had left him bereft.
“It’s a truly horrible thought to live with that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her,” he said, breaking down in tears.
“It’s one of the distressing shortcomings of our society that so much attention is showered on those who do evil and so little on those who do good.”
Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Pic: The Salvation Army Australia – Museum
‘I bear her no ill will’
He described Gail and Don Patterson, the parents of Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, as the closest people to him after his wife and family.
“My life is greatly impoverished without them,” Mr Wilkinson said.
“I’m distressed that Erin has acted with callous and calculated disregard for my life and the lives of those I love. What foolishness possesses a person to think that murder could be the solution to their problems, especially the murder of people who have only good intentions towards her?”
Pic: AP
He called on Patterson, who said the poisonings were accidental and continues to maintain her innocence, to confess to her crimes.
“I encourage Erin to receive my offer of forgiveness for those harms done to me with full confession and repentance. I bear her no ill will,” he said.
“I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim and she has become the victim of my kindness.”
Read more from Sky News:
National Guard will begin carrying firearms in Washington DC
Flesh-eating screwworm parasite detected in person in US for first time
The court received a total of 28 victim impact statements, of which seven were read publicly.
Don and Gail Patterson. Picture: Facebook
‘An irreparably broken home’
Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson – who was invited to the lunch but declined – spoke of the devastating impact on the couple’s two children.
“The grim reality is they live in an irreparably broken home with only a solo parent, when almost everyone else knows their mother murdered their grandparents,” he said in a statement that was read out on his behalf.
Patterson attended the court in person on Monday rather than watch via a video link from prison which she did during a hearing earlier this month.
The hearing is scheduled to continue on Tuesday.
Patterson faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder.
She has 28 days from the day of her sentencing to appeal, but has not yet indicated whether she will do so.
Israel pounded the outskirts of Gaza City overnight, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.
Families streamed out of the city as the explosions hit.
“I stopped counting the times I had to take my wife and three daughters and leave my home in Gaza City,” said Mohammad, 40.
“No place is safe, but I can’t take the risk. If they suddenly begin the invasion, they will use heavy fire.”
Mahmoud Abedrabo mourns over the body of his son Hamada in Gaza City on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Others said they would prefer to die and not leave.
“We are not leaving, let them bomb us at home,” said Aya, 31, who has a family of eight, adding that they couldn’t afford to buy a tent or pay for the transportation.
“We are hungry, afraid and don’t have money,” she said.
Mourners pray next to the body of Palestinian boy Hamada Abedrabo on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Witnesses said that overnight they heard nonstop explosions in Zeitoun and Shejaia.
Tanks shelled houses and roads in Sabra, and buildings were blown up in Jabalia.
On Sunday, the IDF said its forces had returned to combat in Jabalia to strengthen its control of the area and dismantle militant tunnels.
Smoke rises following an Israeli strike in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
It added that the operation there “enables the expansion of combat into additional areas and prevents Hamas terrorists from returning to operate in these areas.”
This month, Israel approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City. The offensive isn’t expected to start for another few weeks.
Read more from Sky News:
Pro-Palestine Australians protest after week of tension with Israel
‘I’m deprived of my UK citizenship but I’m not a convicted terrorist’
Ghislaine Maxwell was given ‘platform to rewrite history’, say Giuffre’s family
In the meantime, mediators in Egypt and Qatar are trying to resume ceasefire talks between the two sides.
On Friday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said that Gaza City will be razed unless Hamas releases all its remaining hostages and ends the war on Israel’s terms.
Mourners transport the body of Ahmed Balata on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Around half of Gaza’s two million residents currently live in the city and on Friday a global hunger monitor said that Gaza City and its surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine that will likely spread.
Israel said the monitor ignores steps Israel has taken since late July to increase aid supplies into and across Gaza.
Eight more people died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry on Saturday.
281 people, including 114 children, have now died of malnutrition and starvation since the war started, according to the ministry.
The war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel, mainly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Since then, Israel has killed at least 62,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and internally displaced nearly its entire population.
Two married couples have died after a British car veered off the road and crashed in Germany, according to police.
The fatal accident happened shortly after midnight on Saturday in the trees near a highway in the Kassel district, north of Hesse in central Germany.
The 32-year-old male driver, a 31-year-old female passenger, a 32-year-old female passenger, and a 30-year-old female passenger all died at the scene, despite the efforts of German emergency services.
Sky News understands UK officials have not been contacted for assistance.
At roughly 12.30am on Saturday, the car appears to have veered off the road and crashed into nearby trees around 30m from the road, according to the Kassel police department.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
One of the victim’s phones automatically alerted the emergency services to the incident, who sent an ambulance to the scene.
Soon, fire engines, ambulances, command vehicles and emergency support vehicles were all dispatched.
When emergency workers arrived, the car was lying on its side, wedged between several trees.
It wasn’t until they removed the roof that they found all four passengers.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
The accident happened on Highway L3229
The emergency workers who dealt with the victims were immediately supported by the specialist mental health workers at the fire station in Reinhardshagen.
“This high number of deaths is an extraordinary operation for our Reinhardshagen Volunteer Fire Department,” said a fire department spokesperson.
“For some of the emergency personnel, it is the first time they have been confronted with death in this way.
“Therefore, a great deal is being done to help us process these images. We will also discuss this among ourselves and within families, because not everyone can easily shake off what they have seen.”
An investigation into the accident is ongoing and is being conducted by the Hofgeismar police station.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024