The funeral of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, was held privately on Tuesday at a cemetery on the outskirts of his hometown St Petersburg, his press service said. The farewell to Prigozhin came as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba meets French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna in Paris. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
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01:30am: Russian military says destroyed four Ukrainian vessels
Russia's military, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said early on Wednesday that one of its aircraft had destroyed four rapid Ukrainian vessels carrying up to 50 paratroops in an operation on the Black Sea.
01:20am: Russian military says it downed four Ukrainian drones
Russia's military, reporting on the Telegram messaging app, said early on Wednesday it had downed three Ukrainian drones over southern Bryansk region and one over central Orlov region.
12:50am Airspace closed briefly around Moscow's Vnukovo airport -Tass
The airspace around Moscow's Vnukovo airport was closed briefly early on Wednesday, Tass news agency quoted Russian aviation officials as saying.
The airport was reopened to air traffic.
The closure was ordered after officials said the military was repelling a drone attack on an airport in the western city of Pskov.
Tass news agency, quoting emergency services, said four Il-76 transport aircraft, long the workhorse of the Russian military, were damaged at the military airfield.
7:18pm: US announces new $250 million military assistance package for Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced a new package of military assistance to aid Ukraine.
The package includes additional mine clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, ammunition for artillery and high bar systems, and over 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition, Blinken said in a statement.
4:33pm: Prigozhin's funeral takes place behind closed doors
The funeral of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, was held privately at a cemetery on the outskirts of his hometown St Petersburg, his press service said on Tuesday.
"The farewell to Yevgeny Viktorovich took place in a closed format. Those who wish to say goodbye may visit Porokhovskoye cemetery," it said in a short post on Telegram, accompanied by a photo of Prigozhin.
Secrecy had surrounded the funeral arrangements for Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash on Aug. 23, two months to the day since staging a mutiny in the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin's rule since he rose to power in 1999.
The Kremlin had said earlier that Putin would not attend the funeral.
3:56pm: Russian nationalist Girkin loses appeal, remains in detention
Prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin failed in an appeal on Tuesday against his pre-trial detention on charges of inciting extremism, a Moscow court said.
Girkin, also known as Strelkov, has fiercely criticised the way that Russia has conducted the war in Ukraine.
He is best known in the West for having been convicted by a Dutch court over the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane with the loss of 298 lives over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
3:09pm: Three dead after FSB helicopter crash in Russia
An FSB security services helicopter crashed Tuesday in central Russia leaving three people dead, regional officials said.
The MI-8 helicopter went down near the village of Krasnoe Pole in the Chelyabinsk region, the governor said without indicating a cause for the incident.
"According to preliminary information, three people died," governor Aleksei Teksler said on social media.
There was no damage to buildings or individuals on the ground, he added in the statement linking the aircraft to the FSB.
2:55pm: Russia says second Ukrainian drone downed over Black Sea
Russian forces downed a second Ukrainian drone over the Black Sea at around 1300 local time on Tuesday, the RIA news agency cited Russia's defence ministry as saying.
The ministry said earlier the first drone had been shot down by a military jet.
2:44pm: Ukraine orders evacuation of children from five towns on southern front
Kyiv on Tuesday ordered children to be evacuated from five towns near the frontline in southern Ukraine, citing an uptick in attacks as its forces claim territorial gains nearby.
"Due to the difficult security situation and enemy shelling, 54 children and 67 accompanying persons will be forcibly evacuated" from the villages in the Zaporizhzhia region, the ministry responsible for reintegrating Russian-occupied territories announced on social media.
2:35pm: Russia sentences two exiled journalists to jail for 'misinformation' on Ukraine war
Russia on Tuesday handed 11-year jail terms to two exiled journalists accused of spreading misinformation about the military, pursuing a historic crackdown on criticism of the war in Ukraine.
Prosecutors said the journalists, Ruslan Leviev and Michael Nacke, posted a video online last March containing information about the military that they knew to be false.
Nacke runs a YouTube channel with more than 700,000 subscribers, while Leviev founded the respected Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which investigates Russia's army.
Both Nacke and Leviet left Russia before they were charged in May. Prosecutors announced the sentence in a statement on Tuesday.
2:22pm: Ukrainian FM Kuleba in Paris to rally support for Kyiv
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday meets French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna in Paris, with a joint news conference scheduled at the Quai d'Orsay as part of the annual Conference of Ambassadors.
Colonna has pledged that France’s support for Ukraine will last “as long as necessary, militarily, politically and on a humanitarian level”.
Citing rules of law and justice, Colonna said: “The Russian invasion must be a failure”.
Kuleba, on a mission to rally more support for Kyiv, will later meet with President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.
Click on the player to watch FRANCE 24 correspondent Clovis Casali's report:
1:57pm: Ukraine mourns celebrated fighter pilot killed in collision
Hundreds of Ukrainians attended a church ceremony in Kyiv on Tuesday to pay their last respects to a celebrated fighter pilot with the callsign "Juice" who was killed in an air disaster during training.
The death of Andriy Pilshchykov, 30, a poster boy for Ukraine's air force who lobbied Western governments for supplies of F-16 fighter jets, was a bitter blow for Ukraine's military as it battles Russia.
Pilshchykov and two other pilots were killed on Friday when two L-39 combat training aircraft collided.
The air force spokesperson described him as a "mega-talent".
12:39pm: More than 1,300 schools destroyed in Ukraine, says UNICEF
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion and others have been badly damaged, the UN children's fund UNICEF said on Tuesday.
Persistent attacks mean that only about a third of school-age children there are attending classes fully in person and many are forgetting what they have already learned, it said.
Beyond Ukraine, more than half of the children whose families have fled the conflict to seven countries are not enrolled in national education, UNICEF said, citing language barriers and overstretched education systems.
Some schools have suffered direct hits and others have closed down as a precaution in 18 months of missile and artillery attacks on residential areas across the country.
"Inside Ukraine, attacks on schools have continued unabated, leaving children deeply distressed and without safe spaces to learn," UNICEF said.
The war followed disruptions due to Covid-19, meaning some Ukrainian children were facing a fourth consecutive school year of disruptions as they return to classes this week after the summer break, UNICEF said.
"Not only has this left Ukraine's children struggling to progress in their education, but they are also struggling to retain what they learnt when their schools were fully functioning," said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF regional director for Europe and Central Asia.
11:50am: Kremlin says Putin not planning to attend Prigozhin's burial
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin following his death in a plane crash, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn't say where or when the chief of the Wagner Group would be buried, although some Russian media suggested it could take place as early as Tuesday in Prigozhin’s home city of St Petersburg.
St Petersburg's Fontanka news outlet and some other media said Prigozhin, 62, will likely be put to rest at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has previously been used for high-profile military burials.
10:58am: Pope had no intention of glorifying Russian imperialism, says Vatican
Pope Francis did not mean to glorify Russia's historic imperialism in a speech last week to Russian youths that has come under fire in Ukraine, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
"The Pope intended to encourage young people to preserve and promote all that is positive in the great Russian cultural and spiritual heritage, and certainly not to exalt imperialist logic and government personalities, mentioned to indicate some historical periods of reference," the Vatican said in a statement.
The pope came under criticism on Monday for telling Russian youths to remember that they are the heirs of past tsars such as Peter the Great, who President Vladimir Putin has held up as an example to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine said the comments, which Francis made on Friday in a live video address to Catholic youths gathered in St Petersburg, were "deeply regrettable".
9:57am: Ukraine advancing on southern front near Robotyne, says military
Ukraine said Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, one day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
Military spokesman Andriy Kovalyov said Ukrainian forces were edging further in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims is part of Russia.
"Ukrainian forces had successes in the direction of Novodanylivka to Verbove," he told state media on Tuesday, naming two hamlets in the war-battered region.
He added that the troops were holding captured territory and attacking Russian artillery.
Kyiv launched a grinding counteroffensive in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and building up assault battalions, but progress has been slow.
5:15am: Russia foils Ukrainian drone attacks, says state news agency
Russian air defences downed Ukrainian drones over the Tula and Belgorod regions, Moscow's defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
Two drones "were destroyed" by air defences over the Tula region south of Moscow, Russia's defence ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
Another drone was "destroyed by air defence forces" over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, at around 11pm Moscow time (2000 GMT) on Monday, the ministry said in a separate statement.
11:50pm: Five killed in Russian attacks in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials say
Three people were killed in an overnight Russian missile strike in central Ukraine, and two people died in shelling later on Monday in the east and south, said Ukrainian officials.
The three people were killed at an industrial plant in the central Poltava region, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Five pepole were wounded and another person was unaccounted for, he said.
Those killed were night-shift workers at a vegetable oil factory in the Myrhorod district, said presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who posted photos showing the plant in flames.
Klymenko said the fire had later been extinguished.
A 63-year-old woman was killed in mid-morning shelling of the village of Sadove in the southern Kherson region, said its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin.
Russian shelling killed a man working outside his home in the early evening in Toretsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, said prosecutors.
Key developments from Monday, August 28:
A second civilian cargo ship to sail from Ukraine since Russia withdrew from a UN-backed Black Sea grain export agreement safely reached Istanbul on Monday.
Poland and the Baltic states demanded that Belarus expel the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.
Ukraine announced that its forces had liberated the village of Robotyne on the southern front line.
Russia charged an ex-employee of a US consulate with spying.
Read yesterday's liveblog to see how the day's events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
