fatalities as Moscow continues to target Ukrainian cities with regular drone and missile attacks. Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that three Russian oil tankers, a cruise-missile carrier warship and a patrol boat were struck in separate attacks on two Russian ports. There are no details on damage to the ships, but Zelensky said that the tankers were part of Russia's "shadow fleet" used to evade Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's full-scale invasion launched in 2022. Ukraine's air force said 269 drones were fired by Russia overnight, but 249 of them were shot down or jammed. It confirmed 19 direct drone hits and one ballistic missile hit in 15 locations, as well as damage caused by falling debris from one drone.

Ukrainian officials said that three people were killed in separate incidents in Kherson region, while two died in each of Odesa, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and one in Sumy region. At the same time, Russia's military said Ukraine had fired at least 334 drones, with the north-western Leningrad region heavily targeted. Export terminals there and in other regions have been targeted by Ukraine in recent weeks in a series of successful strikes launched by Ukraine on Russian oil infrastructure, which Kyiv says has knocked out billions of dollars’ worth of exports. On Sunday, Zelensky said that infrastructure of the north-western Primorsk terminal on the Baltic Sea, near Finland, had been significantly damaged, and an oil tanker and a patrol boat were hit. He added that the third vessel struck there was a Karakurt class corvette designed to carry Kalibr cruise missiles. The Ukrainian leader earlier said that another two oil tankers were hit by Ukrainian drones at the entrance to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

"These tankers were actively used for transporting oil. Now they will not be", he wrote on Telegram. The post was accompanied by black-and-white video footage apparently showing a naval drone approaching one of the tankers. Russian authorities have mostly downplayed the impact of such attacks, but the Kremlin is clearly concerned about the deep reach of Ukrainian drones into its territory. Last Wednesday the Kremlin announced that it was paring back its annual military parade to mark Victory Day - the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two, on 9 May - due to what it said was the "terrorist threat" from Ukraine. Ukraine has recently intensified its drone strikes deep inside Russia, more than four years into Russia's full-scale invasion. Kyiv says that it is hitting legitimate military targets, and in turn accuses Moscow of attacking civilians in Ukraine. (BBC/Getty Images)