Ukraine-Russia war live: Kremlin prepares for final day of elections as more drones hit Odessa

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said recent successful Ukraine drone strikes on Russian targets revealed vulnerabilities in the Russian war machine.

Ukraine has struck multiple oil refineries in Russia this week, reaching targets in Krasnodar, Samara, Ryazan, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, and Leningrad.

“These weeks have demonstrated to many that the Russian war machine has vulnerabilities that we can reach with our weapons,” Mr Zelensky said in his evening address.

“I am grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, and Defence Intelligence for their new Ukrainian long-range capability.

“What our own drones are capable of is a true Ukrainian long-range capability. Ukraine will now always have a strike force in the sky,” he added.

United Russia, for which Vladimir Putin acts as its de facto ruler but is not representing in these elections, claimed it faced a widespread denial of service attack – a form of cyberattack aimed at paralysing web traffic – and had suspended non-essential services to repel it.

State news agency RIA quoted a senior telecoms official as blaming the cyberattacks on Ukraine and Western countries. They did not provide evidence to substantiate this claim.

Russian citizens will spend this weekend casting their vote for their next president, even though the result has already been decided.

No amount of votes against him can prevent his victory, say the Russian dissident community, since the system is rigged and those that could challenge him have either been killed, imprisoned or exiled.

Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod killed two people, officials said Saturday, while Russia claimed to have thwarted a new attempt by saboteurs to cross the border.

Saturday’s attacks occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule by another six years after he crushed dissent.

A man and a woman died in the attack and three other people were wounded, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. It was the latest in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

With the results of the vote already known in advance, it may be tempting to cast a blind eye to the proceedings, writes Mary Dejevsky. But after the death of Alexei Navalny, and uncertainty around Ukraine, things may not be quite as predictable as they seem…

Editorial: With little doubt over the ‘winner’ of this weekend’s Russian presidential election, the West should take heart that Putin finds himself isolated – and as his country recedes into Stalinism, so too does its economic prospects. His impoverishing of the Russian people will prove his undoing

One person died as fire broke out after Ukraine launched several drones at the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region, official said on Sunday.

“The drones were neutralised, but a fire broke out as a result of the fall of one of the devices,” the operational headquarters of the region in southern Russia said.

The fire was extinguished and there were no casualties as a result of the fire itself, the administration said. Preliminary information indicated, however, one person had died of a heart attack, it added.

Roman Siniagovskyi, head of the Slavyansk administrative district, said on Telegram that the refinery workers were evacuated and there was no threat to nearby populated areas from the incident.

Starting with a call for citizens to head to the polls en masse at noon on Sunday – in a symbolic show of dissent – Russia’s opposition begins a new chapter in the wake of the death of Putin’s fiercest critic Alexei Navalny, writes Tom Watling

Russia’s air defence system has destroyed multiple drones flying towards Moscow early on Sunday, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

The alleged attack comes on the third day of a sham Russian election, which president Vladimir Putin is expected to win.

One drone was destroyed in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region and one in the Stupinsky district, while two were downed earlier in the area of Domodedovo, the mayor said.

There were no casualties or damage reported, he added.