Russia says it struck a cargo ship near Odesa in overnight drone attack

Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces struck a cargo ship at sea that was moving supplies to Ukraine's military through the port of Odesa. According to the ministry, the vessel was hit during overnight drone strikes aimed at Ukrainian port infrastructure and at ships it says were operating in the interest of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Moscow added that it also hit a workshop producing unmanned surface vessels in the port of Chornomorsk.

The two sides are trading eye-watering drone counts. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 616 Ukrainian drones overnight, spread across 17 territories including the Moscow region, the Republic of Crimea, Tatarstan, Krasnodar Krai and the Ulyanovsk region, plus waters. Ukraine's Air Force countered that its defenses destroyed or neutralized 101 Russian drones, among them 50 jet-powered Shahed-type craft and S-8000 Banderol/Dan-T and Gerbera UAVs, from a launch wave of 126 that included Parodiya decoy drones. It said the launches came from Shatalovo, Orel, Bryansk, Kursk, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, and from Donetsk and Gvardeyskoye in Crimea.

There's movement on the communications front too. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Saturday that SpaceX's Starshield satellite communications system had resumed operating at higher speeds, with Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara telling reporters the connection was stable and the military was still testing upper limits. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that restrictions on both systems remained in place.

The overnight barrage rippled into Russian travel. Flights from several airports in Russia's Far East to Moscow faced lengthy delays Saturday, the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor's Office said, hitting departures from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Kamchatka and Vladivostok. Flights between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, were also postponed, with officials blaming the late arrival of aircraft and saying prosecutors were monitoring the situation.