Probe into reports ‘three ex-British special forces soldiers killed’ in Russian airstrike as Ukraine braces for fresh attacks

The Foreign Office has launched an urgent investigation into reports that three ex-British Special Forces soldiers were killed by a Russian airstrike on a military base near the Polish border.

Sources told the Daily Mirror that the three Britons were feared dead after airstrikes on the Yavoriv base in western Ukraine on Sunday.

The FCDO confirmed to the Standard that an investigation was ongoing on Monday night. It is understood that officials are working closely with Ukrainian authorities to establish further information.

A source told the Mirror that the three men were not part of a foreign fighters unit that was being trained at the base.

They said: “There were many more killed within the site than has been claimed and bodies are still being found.

“I do not believe the three British ex-military personnel would have known anything about it, fortunately.”

It is not known which branch of the special forces they had served in. The Ministry of Defence said that no serving personnel had been killed in the attack.

Ukrainian officials said the Russian strike killed 35 people on Sunday and injured at least 130, though the newspaper reported there are fears that “many scores more” were feared to be injured in the attack.

It was the most westerly air strike on Ukraine since Russia launched its attack on February 24 and came as Vladimir Putin’s forces continued to bombard besieged cities to the east.

The Russian defence ministry claimed that its attack had killed 180 “foreign mercenaries” – though this could not be independently verified.

It came as cities in Ukraine were preparing for a fresh wave of attacks on Tuesday after further bombardment on Monday.

Air raid alerts sounded in cities and towns around the country, from near the Russian border in the east to the Carpathian Mountains in the west, and fighting continued on the outskirts of Kyiv. Ukrainian officials said Russian forces shelled several suburbs of the capital.

Ukrainian authorities said two people were killed when the Russians struck an airplane factory in Kyiv, sparking a large fire. The Antonov factory is Ukraine's largest aircraft plant and produces many of the world's biggest cargo planes.

Russian artillery fire also hit a nine-story apartment building in the northern Obolonskyi district of the city, killing two more people, authorities said.

And a Russian airstrike near a Ukrainian checkpoint caused extensive damage to a downtown Kyiv neighborhood, killing one person, Ukraine's emergency agency said.

In other developments on Monday an evacuation convoy of about 160 cars managed to leave the besieged city of Mariupol, authorities there said. Previous attempts to allow civilians to flee the southern city along humanitarian corridors failed as Russian attacks continued.

Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video statement Ukraine was able to evacuate more than 4,000 people from front-line cities via seven humanitarian corridors.

She said three other humanitarian corridors did not operate successfully and she accused Russian forces of firing on civilians who were evacuating in the Kyiv region.

While UK cabinet ministers on Monday warned Vladimir Putin that he would face “war with Nato” if a “single toecap of a Russian soldier” stepped into the territory of the military alliance’s 30 members.

Health secretary Sajid Javid said: “We have been very clear, even before the war started, that if there was an attack on any Nato country, even if just a single toecap of a Russian soldier steps into Nato territory then it will be war with Nato and Nato would respond.

“That has not changed throughout this conflict and there would be a significant response from Nato if there was any kind of attack from Russia.”

On Tuesday negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were set to continue. The latest negotiations, held via video conference on Monday, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first in a week.

The talks ended without a breakthrough after several hours, with an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the negotiators took “a technical pause” and planned to meet again on Tuesday.

The two sides had expressed some optimism in the past few days. Mykhailo Podolyak, the aide to Zelenskyy, tweeted that the negotiators would discuss “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees.”

On Monday evening it emerged White House officials are discussing the possibility of US President Joe Biden traveling to Europe in the coming weeks to discuss Russia and Ukraine with allies, according to Reuters.