Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian fighter jet crashes into sea off Sevastopol, Crimea | Ukraine

NATO member Romania said it had found fragments of what appeared to be a drone on a farm near the river Danube and the border with Ukraine late on Thursday.

Russia has been striking targets in western and central Ukraine with missile and drone attacks conducted at night.

“In the evening of 28 March 2024, fragments that seemed to come from an aerial device (drone) were identified on an agricultural land in Insula Mare a Brailei,” Romania’s defense ministry said in a statement.

“The Ministry of National Defense, together with specialized structures within the National Defense System, public order and national security, is conducting an investigation of the incident.”

Nato has a mutual defense commitment if one of its members comes under attack, but the Atlantic alliance and Romanian officials have said following similar such incidents in the past that they have found no evidence of any deliberate attack targeting Romania.

Romanian authorities found fragments of what appeared to be a drone on a farm near the river Danube and border with Ukraine on Thursday evening, the defense ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said in a statement that energy facilities in six Ukrainian regions had been attacked in Russian missile and drone attacks.

The barrage hit thermal and hydro power plants in central and western Ukraine, power grid operator Ukrenergo said on Friday.

Shmyhal said Ukraine needs more air defense systems to secure critical infrastructure and protect the population.

Ukrainian state-run Naftogaz oil and gas firm also said its facilities had come under attack on Friday morning.

“(Russian attacks) targeted Naftogaz Group’s facilities, but there was no serious damage,” it said in a statement, giving no more details.

• Russian missile and drone attacks overnight damaged Ukrainian thermal and hydro power plants, electricity grid operator Ukrenergo said on Friday. There were emergency shutdowns in the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. The Dnipropetrovsk governor, Serhii Lysak, said “critical infrastructure” was bombed and a man taken to hospital. Explosions were heard in Ukraines Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskyi regions and the city of Dnipro after Russian cruise missiles were spotted, national media outlet Suspilne reported.

• Poland scrambled planes as Ukraine came under missile attack on Friday morning, the Polish defense force said. The operational command said Polish and allied aircraft were activated due to “intense activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation” related to missile strikes against targets in Ukraine.

• A Russian SU-35 Flanker fighter jet has crashed into the sea off Sevastopol, Crimea. Footage online showed a jet on fire, spiraling into the ocean and exploding. The Russian-installed governor of the illegally occupied region, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Thursday the pilot ejected and was picked up by rescuers but gave no details as to the cause of the crash.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, told the speaker of the US House of Representatives during a phone call on Thursday that it was vital for Congress to pass a new military aid package for Ukraine. Mike Johnson, the speaker, has held up a bill for months that would supply $60bn in military and financial aid.
  “We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelenskiy said.

• Zelenskiy said he briefed Johnson about the situation on the battlefield and also spoke about “the dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror”. The Ukrainian military later said that it was top commander, Oleksander Syrskyi, spoke to the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Charles Brown, about battlefield issues.

• Zelenskiy, in a CBS interview, has warned that Vladimir Putin will push Russia’s war “very quickly” on to NATO soil unless he is stopped in Ukraine. Zelenskiy acknowledged that his troops are not prepared to defend against another imminent major Russian offensive, and highlighted the urgency for American Patriot missile defense systems and more artillery.

• The US is counting American companies making and selling parts that can be used in missiles and drones to stop shipping their goods to more than 600 foreign parties who might divert them to Russia. The parts have been found in Russian munitions recovered in Ukraine.

• A Russian court on Thursday journalist Mikhail Feldman sentenced to two years in prison for denouncing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive on Ukraine.

• Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, several central and eastern European countries began marking on Thursday the 20th anniversary of the largest expansion of NATO when formerly socialist countries became members.