Ukraine-Russia war latest: Boy, 12, among injured after Moscow-born gunman kills six in Kyiv supermarket attack

Bulgaria went to the polls on Sunday, with a pro-Russian candidate clearly in the lead on a ticket of stamping out corruption.

Former President Rumen Radev, a eurosceptic former fighter pilot who opposes military support for Ukraine, stepped down from the presidency in January to run in the parliamentary elections, after mass protests forced out the previous government in December.

“We need, finally, a path to democratic, modern European Bulgaria,” Radev said after casting his ballot in Sofia, adding that he wants to “develop practical relations with Russia based on mutual respect and equal treatment.”

Polls close at 8pm (5pm GMT). Exit polls are expected as the vote closes and preliminary results could come later on Sunday or Monday.

A fire at Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse has been extinguished, local authorities said on Sunday, days after it broke out following a major Ukrainian drone attack on April 16.

Soldiers fighting in Ukraine are increasingly turning to the supernatural, seeking solace and solutions from figures like self-described witch Natalia Malinovskaya.

Amidst the ongoing conflict and economic uncertainty, a growing number of Russians are being drawn to the dark arts.

Operating from her darkened Moscow apartment, Malinovskaya, who claims to have inherited her powers from her grandmother and frequently appears on Russian television, offers a range of services from love spells to protection from evil.

Pope Leo on Sunday decried the intensification of the war in Ukraine, calling “for the weapons to fall silent and for the path of dialogue to be followed”.

The pope made the appeal after a Mass outside Angola’s capital Luanda that drew roughly 100,000 people.

The first US pope also praised the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, to end fighting between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as a “reason for hope.”

Nato allies are looking to provide Ukraine with around $60bn (£44bn) in military and security assistance in 2026, the alliance’s secretary general Mark Rutte said in a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Berlin.

The critical assistance would be delivered in addition to the €90bn (£78.2bn) loan package agreed by the European Union and would focus on priority needs, Rutte said.

“We must focus funding on the priorities – air defence, drones and extended-range ammunition. These are the big priorities,” the Nato official said.

The aid from Nato is timely as Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said the top diplomatic priority is securing allies’ help to buy and build more air defence systems.

Zelensky is also championing joint weapons production agreements, including for drones and missiles, while pushing for the European Union to move quickly on providing the promised loan.

Citing an intelligence report from Ukraine‘s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Mr Zelensky revealed concerns over “road construction in areas leading to Ukraine and the establishment of artillery positions… in the Belarusian border area”.

He added: “We believe that Russia will once again try to involve Belarus in its war.”

Russia lost nearly 1,100 troops in 24 hours of war, according to Ukraine’s military.

In its latest tally, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia has lost 1,318,220 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, on 24 February 2022.

That figure includes 1,070 casualties recorded in the last day.

A civilian has been killed and dozens more wounded in overnight Russian attacks across Ukraine, local officials said.

One person was killed in a strike on Mykolaivka in the eastern Donetsk region, local leader Vadym Filashkin said in a post on social media.

Other officials reported at least 26 people had been hurt in attacks across northern and eastern Ukraine, including a strike on port infrastructure in the city of Odesa.

Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday that Russia launched 219 drones overnight, of which 190 were shot down.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike targeted industrial areas in Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in Russia’s Samara region, governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. Both cities are home to large oil refineries.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had destroyed 258 Ukrainian drones overnight over 16 Russian regions, as well as over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Ukraine’s SBU security service said it also struck two Russian landing ships and a warship based on the peninsula.

According ‌to Ukraine’s drone forces commander, ‌Robert Brovdi, a series of recent strikes on Russia’s oil logistics at ​Primorsk, Ust-Luga, Sheskharis and Tuapse reduced total daily oil shipments by ‌about 880,000 barrels. Reuters could not ⁠immediately verify the figure.

Separately, authorities in the southern Krasnodar region yesterday said that a fire at an oil depot in Tikhoretsk, and another at an oil terminal ‌at the Black Sea ​port of Tuapse, which had burned since ‌Thursday, have been extinguished.

Both fires, authorities ​have said, were caused by Ukrainian drone strikes.

Ukrainian drones struck a handful of Russia’s oil facilities overnight, including two oil refineries in the Samara region, an oil depot in Crimea and a Baltic Sea port that exports petroleum products, Russian local governors ⁠and a Ukrainian army official said on Saturday.

Kyiv’s troops have in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries – key sources of revenue for Moscow’s war budget – sometimes targeting sites thousands of kilometres from Ukraine’s borders.

In the Leningrad region, which ⁠surrounds St Petersburg and borders Finland, governor Alexander ​Drozdenko ⁠said a fire had been extinguished at the Vysotsk port, which houses a terminal operated by Lukoil handling exports of fuel oil, naphtha, diesel ⁠and vacuum gas oil.

In a statement on the Telegram messaging app acknowledging the ​port ⁠attack, Ukraine’s drone forces commander, ‌Robert Brovdi, said Ukrainian forces also attacked oil refineries in the cities of Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in the Samara region. Both sites have been repeatedly struck in ‌the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Make Russian Oil ‌Great Again,” he wrote sarcastically.

Brovdi also criticised the US decision to renew a waiver allowing countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil at sea.

Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the Samara regional governor, said industrial targets ⁠came under attack. He did not name the facilities.

On the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol said that 22 drones had been downed, with incidents of damage across the city, including a fire at a fuel tank. Ukraine’s Brovdi said Kyiv had targeted an oil depot.