Ukrainian forces have made an attempt to cross the Dnieper River dividing liberated and occupied Kherson, in a potential breach of what has for months served as the frontline in the south of Ukraine. Russian military bloggers reported that up to seven boats, each carrying six to seven people, had landed near the village of Kozachi Laheri, east of Kherson city, on Tuesday and broke through Russian defensive lines.
It was claimed that the Ukrainian soldiers had advanced up to 800 metres after getting to the riverbank, though it appeared Russian forces had some success in fighting them back. The Russian-imposed head of the occupied part of the Kherson oblast, Vladimir Saldo, claimed the Ukrainian raid had been repelled.
Video shared online has shown an explosion in Sergiyev Posad, north-east of Moscow. The blast injured 45 people, six of them severely, officials said. Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said the the blast occurred at a warehouse storing fireworks. Russian news agency Tass claimed emergency services found the explosion happened ‘in the area of the boiler room’. However, there is significant speculation, including from Ukrainian political adviser Anton Gerashchenko, that the Zagorsk optical-mechanical plant was used to make military products, possibly tanks.
Two Ukrainian combat drones headed for Moscow were shot down, Russian officials said on Wednesday, the latest attack targeting the capital. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, “Two combat drones’ attempt to fly into the city was recorded. Both were shot down by air defence”. Emergency services were at the scene, he said, but he did not list any casualties.
Ukraine has claimed it is enjoying “partial success” on the southern front, while successfully defending against a Russian push in the east, where the situation is described as “complex, but controlled”. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said that Ukrainian offensive actions continue in the Bakhmut direction, where Russian forces “make constant assaults to try to restore lost positions”. She stated that Russian attempts to push forward near Kupiansk were being repelled. In the south, Maliar claimed “partial success”, and said “our fighters leave no chance for the enemy to advance and regain lost positions.”
499 children have been killed and 1,095 injured in Ukraine during the course of the war so far, according to the latest figures released by the office of the prosecutor general of Ukraine.
The general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine on Wednesday claimed to have downed a Russian helicopter.
Local authorities in Dnipropetrovsk region report that overnight an 18-year-old boy was killed and three men were wounded in a Russian strike in the area of Nikopol. A church and private houses were damaged.
A child was killed and two people were injured when a Ukrainian artillery shell hit a two-storey building in Donetsk, the Russian-appointed head of the occupied region, Denis Pushilin, said on Wednesday
Interfax in Russia is reporting that Russian security forces have detained a man accused of sabotaging a gas pipeline in Crimea at the behest of Ukrainian secret services.
Russia will build up forces at its western borders, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu told the collegium of the defence ministry on Wednesday. Shoigu said Nato-member Poland had already announced plans to strengthen its military, and he expected significant Nato forces and weaponry to be deployed in Finland, which has just joined the US-led western alliance.
Poland will send 2,000 troops to the Belarus border to support the border guard.
Dozens of secondhand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by a major European country for the Ukrainian army fighting Russia, according to the arms trader who sold them. Freddy Versluys, CEO of the private defence company OIP Land Systems, told the Guardian that he sold 49 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause.
Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles – the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The strikes on Monday evening in the downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk killed nine people and wounded more than 80 others, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address. According to Ukrainian authorities, one of those killed was an emergency official, and most of those wounded were police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who rushed to assist residents.
Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko put the number of wounded at 81, including 39 civilians, 31 policemen, seven employees of the state emergency service and four military personnel. Two children were among those injured. Donetsk is one of the regions of Ukraine that Russia partially occupies and claimed to unilaterally annex late in 2022.
Ukrainian special services claim to have foiled an attempt by Russian hackers to penetrate the Ukrainian armed forces’ combat information system, the SBU security service said on Tuesday. “As a result of complex measures, SBU exposed and blocked the illegal actions of Russian hackers who tried to penetrate Ukrainian military networks and organise intelligence gathering,” Reuters reported the SBU as saying.
Roman Starovoyt, governor of Kursk in Russia, has claimed a Ukraine “kamikaze” drone fell at the Gornalsky St Nicholas monastery in the region on Tuesday, injuring a child.
Zelenskiy said in a video published on Tuesday that Ukraine would fight back against Russia in the Black Sea to ensure its waters were not blockaded and it could import and export grain and other goods. The comments, published on the president’s website, come days after Ukrainian maritime drones packed with explosives damaged a Russian warship near a major Russian port and struck a Russian tanker.
Reuters has reported that dozens of ships are backed up around critical Danube arteries close to Ukraine’s river gateways days after Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian ports. Shipping data showed at least 30 ships anchored around Musura Bay in the Black Sea, which leads into a channel that links up with Izmail further along the waterway.
Britain has said it is targeting Vladimir Putin’s access to foreign military supplies by imposing 25 new sanctions on individuals and businesses. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said: “Today’s landmark sanctions will further diminish Russia’s arsenal and close the net on supply chains propping up Putin’s now-struggling defence industry. There is nowhere for those sustaining Russia’s military machine to hide.”
This article was amended on 9 August 2023. An earlier version incorrectly stated that 1,594 children had been wounded, conflating the 499 killed and 1,095 wounded into the larger total.
