Ukraine-Russia war latest news: Blow for Putin’s forces as Crimea airfield hit and Russia drone debris found in Romania

A Ukrainian gymnast will compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics with more than just medals on his mind.

Oleg Verniaiev, 30, will join around 140 athletes in the smallest team that Ukraine has fielded for any Olympic Games.

But they enter Paris after the lives of an estimated 488 athletes, and thousands of civilians, have been taken following the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

Ukraine said on Friday its missile forces carried out a strike on a Russian military airfield in Crimea that has been used for long-range attacks against it, the latest in a series of blows to the Russian military on the occupied peninsula.

Ukraine has ramped up long-range attacks on Crimea in recent months and says the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, which is headquartered in Sevastopol, has been forced to move its combat vessels to safer harbour elsewhere.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said in a statement that Russia‘s Saky airfield in western Crimea was the latest target to be struck and that it was assessing the aftermath.

“This is one of the operational airfields that Russia uses to control the airspace, in particular the Black Sea, and for launching airstrikes on Ukrainian territory,” it said.

The statement did not say which weapon was used but that the attack was carried out by Ukraine‘s missile forces alongside other contingents. There was no immediate comment from Russia‘s defence ministry or local Moscow-installed officials.

When Donald Trump suggested during the 2016 presidential campaign that he might not honor a U.S. commitment to defend other NATO countries if they were attacked, it triggered alarm throughout the trans-Atlantic alliance.

With Trump’s “America First” rhetoric drawing cheers from fervent supporters, the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is once again on the agenda. But this time, European leaders acknowledge the alliance must evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century and say they are ready to shoulder more responsibility for their own defense.

The Kremlin on Friday welcomed Donald Trump’s comments on Russia being “a war machine” that had defeated Napoleon and Hitler, but said it was not wearing rose-tinted spectacles when it came to the U.S. Republican presidential candidate.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about comments Trump said he had made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call on July 19.

Trump told Fox News later that he had told Zelenskiy that the war needed to be brought to an end.

“This is a war machine you’re facing. That’s what they (the Russians) do they fight wars. They beat Hitler. They beat Napoleon. We got to get this war over with,” said Trump.

Commenting on Trump’s remarks, Peskov said: “It will probably be useful for most of the American audience to know that there are many glorious pages in the history of Russia, and indeed, probably few people in the U.S., we mean ordinary Americans, and maybe representatives of the so-called political establishment, know history in such depth.”

The former prisoners of war still puzzle over the strange events leading up to the night now seared into their memories, when an explosion ripped through the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison barracks and killed so many comrades two years ago.

Among the survivors: Kyrylo Masalitin, whose months in captivity and long beard age him beyond his 30 years. Arsen Dmytryk, the informal commander of the group of POWs that was shifted without explanation to a room newly stocked with bare bunks. And Mykyta Shastun, who recalled guards laughing as the building burned, acting not at all like men under enemy attack.