Summary
The time in Kyiv is 9pm. Here is a round-up of today’s headlines:
The British defence secretary has said Vladimir Putin is now unlikely to succeed in occupying Ukraine. Ben Wallace said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “faltered” and was “starting to fail”, as he pledged more financial and military support to the eastern European nation’s defence.
There have been conflicting reports of continued shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said it had been shelled ten times by Russian forces on Thursday, resulting in staff being unable to change shifts. Energoatom said the plant was operating normally. However, Russian news agency Tass reported that the local Russian-imposed authorities in occupied Zaporizhzhia said the plant had been fired upon by Ukrainian forces. Russian-imposed authorities in Zaporizhzhia region have also claimed Thursday that anti-aircraft defence systems thwarted Ukrainian attacks on the occupied city of Enerhodar. None of the claims have been independently verified.
The United States supports calls for a demilitarised zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after fighting involving Russian and Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of the plant, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday. “Fighting near a nuclear plant is dangerous and irresponsible and we continue to call on Russia to cease all military operations at or near Ukrainian nuclear facilities and return full control to Ukraine, and support Ukrainian calls for a demilitarised zone around the nuclear power plant,” the spokesperson said.
Ukraine aims to evacuate two thirds of residents from areas it controls in the eastern battleground region of Donetsk before winter, partly out of concern people won’t be able to stay warm amid war-damaged infrastructure, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday. The government plans to evacuate some 220,000 people out of around 350,000, including 52,000 children, Iryna Vereshchuk told a news conference.
Ukraine expects $3bn of US financial aid to arrive in August and a further $1.5bn in September, its finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said on Thursday. Marchenko said the payments were part of the $7.5bn financial aid package agreed by Ukraine and the US at the start of the summer and would be used to finance “critical spending” such as healthcare and pension costs.
Belarus has said that blasts heard overnight at one of its military bases 19 miles from Ukraine were caused by a “technical incident.” At least eight explosions were heard after midnight near Zyabrovka military airport, according to reports on Telegram messenger. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
McDonald’s will start reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months, in a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia. The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia’s invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald’s employees in the country.
On Wednesday, Ukraine accused Russia of firing rockets from around the captured plant, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, knowing it would be risky for Ukraine to return fire. Ukraine says Russia targeted the town of Marhanets, which Moscow says Ukraine has used in the past to shell Russian soldiers at the plant, which Russia seized in March. Calling on foreign allies to send more powerful weapons, Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address that Kyiv “will not leave today’s Russian shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region unanswered”, and vowed to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible to end the war quickly.
Ukraine’s air force said it believed up to a dozen Russian aircraft were destroyed on the ground in Tuesday’s dramatic explosions at the Saky airbase in Crimea, which Russia said killed one, wounded 13 and damaged dozens of nearby houses. Political sources in Ukraine said it had carried out the attack, but Kyiv did not publicly claim responsibility. One expert said it may have been the product of a daring raid rather than a missile strike.
Russia has doubled the number of air strikes on Ukraine’s military positions and civilian infrastructure compared with the previous week, Ukrainian brigadier general Oleksiy Hromov said. “The enemy’s planes and helicopters avoid flying into the range of our air defences, and therefore the accuracy of these strikes is low,” he told a news conference.
That’s it from the Ukraine live blog for today. I’ll be back tomorrow but for now, it’s goodnight from me.
McDonald’s will start reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months, in a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia.
The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia’s invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald’s employees in the country.
McDonald’s said on Thursday that it would begin gradually reopening some restaurants in western Ukraine and the capital, Kyiv, where other American businesses including Nike and KFC, and Spanish clothing retailer Mango are open.
“We’ve spoken extensively to our employees who have expressed a strong desire to return to work and see our restaurants in Ukraine reopen,” Paul Pomroy, corporate senior vice-president of international markets, said in a message to staff. “In recent months, the belief that this would support a small but important sense of normalcy has grown stronger.”
Ukraine aims to evacuate two thirds of residents from areas it controls in the eastern battleground region of Donetsk before winter, partly out of concern people won’t be able to stay warm amid war-damaged infrastructure, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday.
The government plans to evacuate some 220,000 people out of around 350,000, including 52,000 children, Iryna Vereshchuk told a news conference.
Late last month Ukraine announced the mandatory evacuation of people from Donetsk region, which has been the scene of fierce fighting with Russia, to save civilian lives, Reuters reported.
Although the authorities describe the evacuation as “mandatory”, residents can opt out by filling in a form declaring their intention to stay.
The United States supports calls for a demilitarised zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after fighting involving Russian and Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of the plant, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday.
“Fighting near a nuclear plant is dangerous and irresponsible and we continue to call on Russia to cease all military operations at or near Ukrainian nuclear facilities and return full control to Ukraine, and support Ukrainian calls for a demilitarised zone around the nuclear power plant,” the spokesperson said.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres earlier on Thursday called for an immediate end to military activity near the facility, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Reuters reported.
Belarus has said that blasts heard overnight at one of its military bases 19 miles from Ukraine were caused by a “technical incident.”
At least eight explosions were heard after midnight near Zyabrovka military airport, according to reports on Telegram messenger. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
Commenting on the incident, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said “the engine of a vehicle caught fire after replacement ... there were no casualties.”
The incident occurred after powerful explosions rocked Russia’s Saki air base earlier this week in Russian-ruled Crimea, which Moscow had termed an accident.
Ukraine has declined to publicly claim responsibility for the explosions at the base, while also not denying involvement.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine 'starting to fail', says UK defence secretary
The British defence secretary has said Vladimir Putin is now unlikely to succeed in occupying Ukraine.
Ben Wallace said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “faltered” and was “starting to fail”, as he pledged more financial and military support to the eastern European nation’s defence.
Denmark joined the UK in offering more aid to Ukraine at a conference in Copenhagen on Thursday, co-hosted by Wallace. The defence secretary said it was important to understand that fighting and loss of life was still taking place, but added Russia was “starting to fail in many areas”.
He said:
They have failed so far and are unlikely to ever succeed in occupying Ukraine.
Their invasion has faltered and constantly been re-modified to the extent they are really only focusing in parts of the south and in the east, a long, long way away from their three-day so-called special operation.
Three days are now over 150 days and nearly six months in, with huge significant losses of both equipment and indeed Russian personnel.
He added:
President Putin will have gambled that come August, come a few months in, we will have all got bored of the conflict and the international community would have gone off in different directions. Well, today is proof of the opposite.
We have come out of this meeting with more pledges of finance, more pledges of training and more pledges of military aid, all designed to help Ukraine win, to help Ukraine stand up for its sovereignty and indeed to ensure that president Putin’s ambitions fail in Ukraine as they rightly should.
Updated
Ukraine expects $3bn of US financial aid to arrive in August and a further $1.5bn in September, its finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said on Thursday.
Marchenko said the payments were part of the $7.5bn financial aid package agreed by Ukraine and the US at the start of the summer and would be used to finance “critical spending” such as healthcare and pension costs.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent over the newswires from Ukraine and Russia.
Updated
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom has also claimed that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has been attacked again, although, contrary to the claims reported in Russian media that Ukraine was to blame, it said that it has been shelled by pro-Russian forces. In a statement on Telegram it said:
Today the Rashists once again bombarded the ZNPP, the largest in Ukraine and Europe. Five “arrivals” were recorded in the area of the commandant’s office of the station – right next to the welding area and the storage of radiation sources. Grass caught fire in a small area, but luckily no one was hurt. However, the enemy did not stop there.
Five more “arrivals” occurred in the area of the fire department, which is located not far from the ZNPP … for the safety of nuclear workers, the buses with the personnel of the next shift were turned back to Energodar. Until the situation finally normalises, the workers of the previous shift will continue to work.
The situation at the station is currently under control. The information, which was immediately spread in the hostile public, that the staff allegedly left the station in a panic, is fake and manipulative.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Russian news agency Tass is reporting that the occupying forces in Zaporizhzhia have told it that the armed forces of Ukraine fired at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the territory near the nuclear facility for the second time in a day. The claims have not been independently verified. The nuclear complex has been under Russian occupation since early March, although Ukrainian technicians still operate it.
Updated
Sweden’s government has decided to extradite a man to Turkey wanted for fraud, it said, the first case since Turkey demanded a number of people be extradited in return for allowing Stockholm to formally apply for Nato membership.
Turkey, a Nato member, lifted its veto over Finland and Sweden’s bid to join the alliance in June after weeks of tense negotiations where Ankara accused the two Nordic countries of harbouring what it says are militants of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
As part of the deal, Turkey submitted a list of people it wanted Sweden to extradite, but has since expressed frustration over the lack of progress. The man, in his 30s, would be the first known case of an extradition to Turkey since the deal was struck.
“This is a normal, routine matter. The person in question is a Turkish citizen and convicted of fraud offences in Turkey in 2013 and 2016,” Morgan Johansson, Sweden’s justice minister, told Reuters in a text message.
“The supreme court has examined the issue as usual and concluded that there are no obstacles to extradition,” he said.
A spokesperson for the justice ministry declined to say whether the man was on the list of people Turkey demanded to have extradited, or to provide further comment on the matter.
Updated
Russia has doubled the number of air strikes on Ukraine’s military positions and civilian infrastructure compared with the previous week, Ukrainian brigadier general Oleksiy Hromov said.
“The enemy’s planes and helicopters avoid flying into the range of our air defences, and therefore the accuracy of these strikes is low,” he told a news conference, Reuters reported.
UN secretary-general, António Guterres, called for an immediate end to military activity near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest.
“I am calling on the military forces of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to immediately cease all military activities in the immediate vicinity of the plant and not to target its facilities or surroundings,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Updated
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has told the UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, on a call that cooperation between the two countries on Ukraine and regional stability was “hugely important for the world”, Johnson’s spokesperson said.
“The prime minister praised the crown prince’s success in bringing prosperity to both the UAE and the Gulf more generally,” the Downing Street spokesperson said on Thursday.
“[Johnson] expressed his confidence that this cooperation will continue in the years ahead.”
Updated
UK and Denmark set out further support for Ukraine
Britain and Denmark will provide more financial and military aid to Ukraine, they said on Thursday as European defence ministers met in Copenhagen to discuss long-term support for the country’s defence against Russia’s invasion.
Britain, which has already donated advanced weapons systems to Ukraine and given thousands of its troops military training, said it would send more multiple-launch rocket systems, Reuters reported.
It would also donate a “significant number” of precision-guided M31A1 missiles that can strike targets up to 80km (50 miles) away.
“This latest tranche of military support will enable the armed forces of Ukraine to continue to defend against Russian aggression and the indiscriminate use of long-range artillery,” the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a statement.
“Our continued support sends a very clear message: Britain and the international community remain opposed to this illegal war and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder, providing defensive military aid to Ukraine to help them defend against Putin’s invasion.”
Denmark will increase its financial aid to Ukraine by 110m euros, said the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, at a conference in Copenhagen hosted by Ukraine, Denmark and Britain.
She added: “This is a war on the values that Europe and the free world are built upon ... Today we reaffirm our commitment to support of Ukraine.”
Updated
Russia has turned down a Swiss offer to represent Ukrainian interests in Russia and Moscow’s interests in Ukraine because it no longer considers Switzerland a neutral country.
Switzerland has a long diplomatic tradition of acting as an intermediary between countries whose relations have broken down, but Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Ivan Nechayev said this was not possible in the current situation.
“The Swiss were indeed interested in our opinion on the possible representation of Ukraine’s interests in Russia and Russia’s in Ukraine,” Nechayev told reporters.
“We very clearly answered that Switzerland had unfortunately lost its status of a neutral state and could not act either as an intermediary or a representative. Bern has joined illegal western sanctions against Russia.”
Neutral Switzerland has mirrored nearly all the sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Ukraine has accused Russia of firing rockets from around the captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, knowing it would be risky for Ukraine to return fire. Ukraine says Russia targeted the town of Marhanets, which Moscow says Ukraine has used in the past to shell Russian soldiers at the plant, which Russia seized in March. Calling on foreign allies to send more powerful weapons, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a late-night video address that Kyiv “will not leave today’s Russian shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region unanswered”, and vowed to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible to end the war quickly.
Russian-imposed authorities in Zaporizhzhia region have claimed that anti-aircraft defence systems thwarted Ukrainian attacks on the occupied city of Enerhodar and the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The claims have not been independently verified.
Ukraine’s air force said it believed up to a dozen Russian aircraft were destroyed on the ground in Tuesday’s dramatic explosions at the Saky airbase in Crimea, which Russia said killed one person, wounded 13 and damaged dozens of nearby houses. Political sources in Ukraine said the Ukrainian military had carried out the attack, but Kyiv did not publicly claim responsibility. One expert said it may have been the product of a daring raid rather than a missile strike.
The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said he thought the Saky airbase in Crimea was a “legitimate target” for Ukraine. “First and foremost, Russia has illegally invaded, not just in 2014, but now Ukrainian territory,” he said. “Ukraine, under UN articles, is perfectly entitled to defend its territory and take what action it needs to against an invading force.”
Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukraine of shelling a brewery in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia that sparked a fire, Reuters reported.
Russia’s governor of Kursk, Roman Starovoyt, said that two settlements that border Ukraine were shelled.
The Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights has issued updated figures for child casualties since Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine. The official figures are that 361 children have been killed and 705 children injured. As of 11 August, the commissioner says that 204 are considered missing, and that 6,159 have been deported.
The EU has been urged to put a travel ban on Russian tourists, with some member states saying visiting Europe is “a privilege, not a human right” for holidaymakers. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told the Washington Post that the “most important sanction” is to “close the borders, because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land”.
Latvia’s parliament, the Saeima, has named Russia as a terrorist-supporting state. In a statement, it said Russia had chosen a “cruel, immoral, and illegal tactic, using imprecise and internationally banned weapons and ammunition, targeting disproportionate brutality against civilians and public places” in Ukraine.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later on. Tom Ambrose will be here with you shortly.
Updated
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has been at the Ukraine Donors’ Conference in Copenhagen with his Danish and British counterparts. Speaking this morning, he said:
Russia’s words, and agreements with them, are not worth the paper they are written on. So what can be done? This solution is obvious. Russia succeeds when it manages to divide us, when it confronts us one-on-one, pulling together its resources and beating us. Russia is defeated and backs down when it loses the initiative, and meets with coordinated resistance.
He went on to thank the Danish defence minister, Morten Bøedsko, and the British defence minister, Ben Wallace, for their continued support, and also singled out for praise Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence. The meeting was addressed via video link by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Updated
Here is a selection of some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the newswires.
Updated
Latvia’s parliament, the Saeima, has named Russia as a terrorist-supporting state.
In a statement, the Saeima called on the EU to prevent tourism from Russia. It said:
Russia has been providing support and financing for terrorist regimes and organisations for many years, directly and indirectly, as the largest arms supplier for the Assad regime in Syria and as an implementer, such as the poisoning of the Skripal family or the shooting of the MH-17 aircraft. In Ukraine, Russia has chosen a similar, cruel, immoral, and illegal tactic, using imprecise and internationally banned weapons and ammunition, targeting disproportionate brutality against civilians and public places.
Latvia’s public broadcaster reports:
In its statement, the Saeima stresses that Russia uses suffering and intimidation as an instrument in its attempts to demoralise the Ukrainian people and armed forces. The Saeima acknowledges Russia’s violence against civilians, which is being pursued for political purposes, as terrorism and Russia as a country supporting terrorism, and calls on other similar-thinking countries to express such an opinion.
Updated
The Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights has issued updated figures for child casualties since Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
The official figures are that 361 children have been killed and 705 children injured. As of 11 August, the commissioner says that 204 are considered missing, and that 6,159 have been deported.
Reuters reports that the Russian-imposed authorities in Zaporizhzhia region have claimed to Russian news agencies Tass and RIA that anti-aircraft defence systems thwarted Ukrainian attacks on the occupied city of Enerhodar and the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The claims have not been independently verified. The source of attacks on and near to the Russian-occupied nuclear power plant has been hotly disputed.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence has been exploiting the explosions at the Russian air base in Crimea for social media propaganda purposes.
It has issued a video with the message: “Unless they want an unpleasantly hot summer break, we advise our valued Russian guests not to visit Ukrainian Crimea. Because no amount of sunscreen will protect them from the hazardous effects of smoking in unauthorised areas.”
The video, to the soundtrack of Bananarama’s Cruel Summer, lists a host of summer holiday venues that Russian tourists in Crimea could have chosen instead, alongside inviting footage of those destinations, then says that they made a big mistake by choosing to holiday in Ukraine. It then cuts together social media footage of the explosions along with clips of tourists fleeing beaches and crying in the aftermath of the incident.
The reference to “smoking in unauthorised areas” is to the suggestion from Russian authorities that the explosions, which appear to have destroyed multiple planes that were on the ground at the time, were caused by an accidental fire at the base.
Back to that series of explosions at a Russian air base on Tuesday for a moment, the Guardian has been carrying some analysis by Justin Bronk:
Justin Bronk, an aviation analyst with the Rusi thinktank, said that, having studied social media videos of the incident, he could see no evidence of incoming missiles and that he was “almost certain” there were “secondary explosions” of ammunition stores or fuel bunkers which were stored on or near the airstrip.
That led him to conclude that “the most likely current theory for me is that Ukrainian special forces carried out the attack by infiltrating close enough to the base to launch and guide in small UAVs [drones] or loitering munitions, to hit either parked aircraft or fuel trucks/storage”.
Read more here in our updated report from Samantha Lock and from Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv: Russian warplanes destroyed in Crimea airbase attack, satellite images show
Russia’s governor of Kursk, Roman Starovoyt, has claimed on Telegram that two Russian settlements close to the border with Ukraine are under fire this morning. He named Tetkino and Popovo-Lezhachi as the targets. His message promised more details later.
Russian media this morning are carrying claims from the self-proclaimed breakaway republics in Ukraine’s east.
Tass has quotes from Denis Pushilin, the self-styled leader of the chiefly unrecognised Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Pushilin again is pushing his line that the deaths of prisoners of war at the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison were the responsibility of Kyiv. He told the media:
The motive here is clear. The first is to shut up, not to give them the opportunity to speak, to confess to those crimes. Because not only are they the perpetrators of war crimes, they are also witnesses. Because these teams gave them specific names, surnames, positions and directly, according to our data, Zelensky himself often personally intervened here.
Tass goes on to quote him saying that the attack happened after confessions of Ukrainian soldiers began to be made public. “After these video confessions began to appear, this blow was dealt directly,” he said.
There have been calls for a UN-backed independent investigation into the incident, which led to the deaths of at least 51 people died while more than 100 were injured. Both sides of the war have claimed the other is responsible. Ukraine claims pro-Russian forces blew up the prison building to conceal evidence of the torture and deaths of the POWs being held there.
The RIA Novosti agency, meanwhile, is carrying a claim from the authorities of the similarly self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).
In its report it says that the armed forces of the LPR have told it that they have found the bodies of foreign mercenaries that have been burnt by Ukrainian troops as they retreated in order to conceal the identity of the dead.
The incident is reported to have happened at Soledar, which is inside the territory claimed by the DPR. The report offered no evidence and the claims have not been independently verified.
The DPR and the LPR are only recognised as legitimate authorities by three UN member states: Russia, Syria and North Korea.
The British ministry of defence has issued its daily intelligence briefing about the war in Ukraine, which today has focused on the impact of the war on Russia’s military exports.
In part of the report, the ministry says Russia’s “military industrial capacity is now under significant strain, and the credibility of many of its weapon systems has been undermined by their association with Russian forces’ poor performance in the Ukraine war.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 11 August 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 11, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/NhsgyrWLNM
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/kSKIv6NRUQ
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has posted to Telegram to say that his western region of Ukraine had a peaceful night with no attacks or air alarms. He said that 155 people arrived in the region on evacuation trains from the east yesterday.
This is Martin Belam on the live blog in London. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Summary so far
Before I hand you over to my colleague, Martin Belam, here is a quick update of developments so far this morning.
Russian warplanes appear to have been damaged or destroyed in the recent attack on Saky airbase in Crimea, according to newly released satellite images. The images, from the US-based Planet Labs, show large areas of scorched earth and damage to the runway alongside the charred remnants of military aircraft.
Russia has claimed control of Pisky in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. An official with the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic said Pisky, on the frontlines just 10km (6 miles) northwest of provincial capital Donetsk, was under control of Russian and separatist forces. “It’s hot in Pisky. The town is ours,” the official, Danil Bezsonov, said on Telegram. Ukrainian officials denied that the heavily fortified town, a key to the defence of Donetsk, had fallen.
Reports of explosions sounding near the Belarus border with Ukraine were described on Wednesday evening. Franak Viacorka, senior advisor to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the national leader of Belarus and opposition leader to president Alexander Lukashenko, said he heard “at least eight explosions” around 1am in the Homiel region near the border with Ukraine.
Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukraine of shelling a Donetsk brewery, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia. The emergencies ministry in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said a shell had hit an ammonia line late at night, sparking a fire that at one point covered 600 square metres (6,500 square feet).
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later today to address the crisis at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The meeting is scheduled to occur on 11 August at 3pm (7pm GMT) according to a statement issued by the UN nuclear safety watchdog.
The first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a UN-backed deal last week docked in Turkey on Wednesday, marine traffic sites showed, following a report that it has finally found a buyer for its maize. Marine traffic sites showed the Razoni docked in Turkey’s Mediterranean Sea port of Mersin after spending several days anchored just off the coast.
The first wartime wheat from Ukraine should ship next week after an agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine last month lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and established safe corridors, a top UN official has said. The first 12 ships to leave the three Black Sea ports designated by the agreement were carrying 370,000 tonnes of corn and foodstuffs, according to Frederick Kenney, interim UN coordinator at the joint centre in Istanbul overseeing the deal.
The UN expects to see a “big uptick” in applications for ships to export Ukrainian grain after transit procedures were agreed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations, a senior UN official said on Wednesday. The number of inbound vessels is expected to “grow in the near future” as grain deals are made, Kenney said. So far, 24 grain carrying ships have left Ukrainian ports.
Russia claims control of Pisky in Ukraine's Donetsk
Heavy fighting raged around the eastern Ukrainian town of Pisky on Thursday as Russia pressed its campaign to seize all of the industrialised Donbas region.
An official with the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic said Pisky, on the frontlines just 10km (6 miles) northwest of provincial capital Donetsk, was under control of Russian and separatist forces.
“It’s hot in Pisky. The town is ours but there remain scattered pockets of resistance in its north and west,” the official, Danil Bezsonov, said on Telegram, according to a report from Reuters news agency.
Ukrainian officials denied that the heavily fortified town, a key to the defence of Donetsk, had fallen. The Guardian has been unable to immediately verify the battlefield accounts.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said in an interview posted on YouTube that Russian “movement into Pisky” had been “without success”.
Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai, interviewed on Ukrainian TV, said Russia had sent increasing numbers of mercenaries into the region, including from the Wagner private security firm.
“We once had peaceful Ukrainian towns. Now we have been thrust into the Middle Ages ... People are now leaving because they are afraid of freezing in the coming winter,” he said.
Explosions heard near Belarus Ziabrauka airfield - reports
Reports of explosions sounding near the Belarus border with Ukraine were described on Wednesday evening.
Franak Viacorka, senior advisor to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the national leader of Belarus and opposition leader to president Alexander Lukashenko, said he heard “at least eight explosions” around 1am in the Homiel region near the border with Ukraine.
“At least eight explosions in the Homiel region near the border with Ukraine. According to witnesses, explosions took place near Ziabrauka airfield. Russian military aircraft are often stationed there,” he said in a tweet.
According to the Belarus defence ministry, military drills were set to be conducted during the time the explosions were heard. However, there has been no confirmation whether the explosions were connected to the drills.
The Ziabrauka airfield has been used by Russia’s armed forces in the war against Ukraine.
The armed forces of Ukraine also said it had received information that explosions could be heard and flares can be seen in the vicinity of the Ziabrauka airfield in an update posted to Telegram late on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Belarus ministry of defence announced the conduct of live-fire exercises of the air force.
❗️At least 8 explosions in the Homiel region near the border with Ukraine. According to witnesses, explosions took place near Ziabrauka airfield. Russian military aircraft are often stationed there.
— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 10, 2022
Russian separatists accuse Ukraine over ammonia leak
Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukraine of shelling a brewery in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia, Interfax news agency said.
The emergencies ministry in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said a shell had hit an ammonia line late at night, sparking a fire that at one point covered 600 square metres (6,500 square feet).
Reuters pictures from the scene showed flames lighting the sky above one part of the city as well as firefighters donning masks. One picture appeared to show a corpse on the ground.
Russian state media agency RT said the “toxic gas is affecting a 2km radius round the factory” citing local DPR officials.
Residents have been urged to stay inside and not open their windows.
The Ukrainian defence ministry has not made any comment.
⚡️Ammonia Leak: Brewery in Donetsk Shelled
— RT (@RT_com) August 10, 2022
The toxic gas is affecting a 2km radius round the factory, according to local officials in the Donetsk People's Republic.
Residents have been urged to stay inside and not open their windows. pic.twitter.com/46AkWfovIn
Updated
On the topic of Ukrainian grain exports, the centre coordinating its shipment to world markets expects “a big uptick” in applications to pick up cargoes at Ukrainian ports in the near future, its interim coordinator said.
Frederick Kenney told a virtual news conference from Istanbul, where the Joint Coordination Centre is located, that ship owners have shown “tremendous interest” in exporting grain from Ukraine under a recently signed new deal.
The centre is receiving “literally dozens and dozens of phone calls every day and emails asking when can we get ready to go,” said Kenney, director of legal and external affairs at the international maritime organisation who is leading the UN’s efforts at the centre to get grain shipped from three Ukrainian ports.
He said detailed procedures on shipping and inspections were sent out to the industry on Monday and their dissemination “is also going to drive a surge in requests, but it is early days.”
We’re expecting to see a big uptick in applications for transit,” Kenney said. “Indeed, we’re aware that there are a number of empty grain vessels sitting at anchorage in Turkish anchorage areas waiting to arrange the contracts. And once they have their deals arranged they’ll be transiting northbound.”
Asked about relations among the parties, since Russia and Ukraine are at war, he said, “I’ve been extremely impressed with the level of cooperation and coordination that has been displayed.”
UN to discuss Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant crisis
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later today to address the crisis at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse.
The meeting is scheduled to occur on 11 August at 3pm (7pm GMT) according to a statement issued by the UN nuclear safety watchdog.
A diplomatic source at UN headquarters in New York told Agence France-Presse that the council’s 15 member nations would gather at the request of Russia, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council - along with Britain, China, France and the United States - which hold veto power over UN resolutions.
At least 14 people were killed after shelling in southeastern Ukraine near the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the largest in Europe.
The G7 group of most industrialised nations warned that Moscow’s continued occupation of the plant “endangers the region,” and called for return of the facility to Ukrainian control.
The UN nuclear safety watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a statement that its director general Rafael Grossi would brief the Security Council meeting “about the nuclear safety and security situation” at the plant as well as his “efforts to agree and lead an IAEA expert mission to the site as soon as possible”.
“I welcome this opportunity to inform the Council. It is vital that the IAEA be present at the plant to help reduce danger of a possible nuclear disaster,” Grossi said.
I welcome this opportunity to inform the United Nations Security Council about the extremely serious situation facing one of the world’s biggest nuclear power plants, now located in the middle of an active war zone. An accident at this plant could threaten public health and the environment both in Ukraine and neighbouring countries, as well as further away.
It is vital that the IAEA be present at the plant to help reduce danger of a possible nuclear disaster.”
Grossi called the situation at the complex “extremely serious”.
Updated
First Ukraine grain ship docks in Turkey
The first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a UN-backed deal last week docked in Turkey on Wednesday, marine traffic sites showed, following a report that it has finally found a buyer for its maize.
The Sierra Leone-flagged vessel Razoni left the Ukrainian port of Odesa on 1 August carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn and had been expected to dock in the Lebanese port of Tripoli last weekend.
But Ukrainian officials said the shipment’s five-month delay caused by Russia’s invasion prompted the Lebanese buyer to cancel the deal once the ship was already at sea.
Marine traffic sites showed the Razoni docked in Turkey’s Mediterranean Sea port of Mersin after spending several days anchored just off the coast.
The Middle East Eye news site cites a shipping agent as saying that a Turkish buyer has been found for the maize.
The “cargo sold.... It will [unload] at Mersin,” Ahmed al-Fares of the Ashram Maritime Agency told the news site.
Updated
First Ukrainian wheat shipments expected next week: UN
The first wartime wheat from Ukraine should ship next week after agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine last month lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and established safe corridors, a top UN official has said.
The first 12 ships to leave the three Black Sea ports designated by the agreement were carrying 370,000 tonnes of corn and foodstuffs, according to Frederick Kenney, interim UN coordinator at the joint centre in Istanbul overseeing the deal.
But that should change once the ships docked in Ukraine leave their ports and new ones come in to pick up wheat that has accumulated with this year’s harvest, Kenney told reporters.
#BlackSeaGrainInitiative
— Pamela Falk CBS News Correspondent United Nations (@PamelaFalk) August 11, 2022
Frederick J. Kenney Jr., interim Coordinator for the UN at the Joint Coordination Centre for the Black Sea Initiative, said a dozen ships have exported “over 370,000 metric tons of grain" @CBSNews|UNhttps://t.co/MmJPNVOmy8 pic.twitter.com/SL6tObsIap
We are dealing with three ports that were essentially frozen in time.
The silos were full of corn and the ships that were there have been loaded with corn.
It’s imperative to get those ships out to get new ships in .... that can deal with the food crisis.”
Kenney added that the shipments would be transitioning to wheat.
We have cleared the first ship inbound” to Ukraine through the Bosphorus Strait, he said. “That should occur some time next week.”
We’re seeing steady progress in the number of ships coming in and out. We’re off to a good start.”
Satellite images show Russian warplanes destroyed
At least eight Russian warplanes appear to have been damaged or destroyed in the recent attack on Saky airbase in Crimea, according to newly released satellite images.
The images, from the US-based Planet Labs, show large areas of scorched earth and damage to the runway alongside the charred remnants of military aircraft.
Images taken by the private satellite operator at around 8am on 9 August – approximately four hours before the attack – and about 4.40pm on 10 August, show at least eight aircraft parked outside were damaged or destroyed.
The before-and-after images are the first independent confirmation of damage to the base, prompting questions about how a location more than 100 miles (160km) from the frontline could have been attacked.
Eliot Higgins, founder and director of open source investigative website Bellingcat, said he “can’t think of a time Russia has lost this many air assets in one day in recent memory” in a series of tweets on Thursday.
Updated
Ukraine claims 9 Russian jets destroyed in Crimea raid
Ukraine says nine Russian aircraft were destroyed on the ground following Tuesday’s dramatic explosions at the Saky airbase in Crimea, which Russia said killed one, wounded 13 and damaged dozens of nearby houses.
Political sources in Ukraine said the country had carried out the attack – but no public claim of responsibility was made by Kyiv.
Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, told national television that from studying video footage of the incident, it was clear “the aircraft weapons depot was hit”. He said: “And if additionally a dozen planes are destroyed there, it will be a real small victory.”
The country’s air force also said on its Facebook page that “nine invader planes” had been destroyed in a short posting, although it did not specify in that message where or how it believed they had been eliminated.
Ukraine’s president, Volodoymyr Zelenskiy, referred to the attack in his latest national address on Wednesday evening.
In just one day, the occupiers lost 10 combat aircraft: nine in Crimea and one more in the direction of Zaporizhzhia. The occupiers also suffer new losses of armoured vehicles, warehouses with ammunition, logistics routes.”
The claims could not be verified but the Saky airbase is home to Su-30M fighters, Su-24 bombers and the Il-76 transporter, used regularly to launch missile strikes into Ukraine and patrol the Black Sea and surrounding area.
Ukraine’s public coyness about the attack is partly designed to preserve some ambiguity about the means used, sources said, prompting broad speculation as to how Kyiv was able to strike so deep behind Russian lines, in one of the first attacks on Crimean soil since the Russian invasion began in February.
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments for the next short while until my colleague, Martin Belam, takes the reins.
At least eight Russian warplanes appear to have been damaged or destroyed in the recent attack on Saky airbase in Crimea, according to newly released satellite images.
The first wartime wheat from Ukraine should ship next week after agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine last month lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and established safe corridors, a top UN official has said.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later today to address the crisis at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse.
It is 7.30am in Ukraine. Here is everything you might have missed:
Ukraine has accused Russia of firing rockets from around the captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, knowing it would be risky for Ukraine to return fire. Ukraine says Russia targeted the town of Marhanets, which Moscow says Ukraine has used in the past to shell Russian soldiers at the plant, which Russia seized in March. Calling on foreign allies to send more powerful weapons, Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address that Kyiv “will not leave today’s Russian shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region unanswered”, and vowed to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible to end the war quickly.
Ukraine’s air force said it believed up to a dozen Russian aircraft were destroyed on the ground in Tuesday’s dramatic explosions at the Saky airbase in Crimea, which Russia said killed one, wounded 13 and damaged dozens of nearby houses. Political sources in Ukraine said it had carried out the attack, but Kyiv did not publicly claim responsibility. One expert said it may have been the product of a daring raid rather than a missile strike.
The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said he thought the Saky airbase in Crimea was a “legitimate target” for Ukraine. “First and foremost, Russia has illegally invaded, not just in 2014, but now Ukrainian territory,” he said. “Ukraine, under UN articles, is perfectly entitled to defend its territory and take what action it needs to against an invading force.”
Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukraine of shelling a brewery in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia that sparked a fire.
The EU has been urged to put a travel ban on Russian tourists, with some member states saying visiting Europe is “a privilege, not a human right” for holidaymakers. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told the Washington Post that the “most important sanction” is to “close the borders, because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land”.
China, which Russia has sought as an ally since being cold-shouldered by the west, has called the US the “main instigator” of the crisis, Reuters reported. In an interview with the Russian state news agency Tass published on Wednesday, China’s ambassador to Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, accused Washington of backing Russia into a corner with repeated expansion of the Nato defence alliance.
The UN expects to see a “big uptick” in applications for ships to export Ukrainian grain after transit procedures were agreed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations, a senior UN official said on Wednesday. The number of inbound vessels is expected to “grow in the near future” as grain deals are made, said Frederick Kenney, interim UN coordinator in Istanbul. So far, 24 grain carrying ships have left Ukrainian ports.
Estonia said it had summoned the Russian ambassador and formally protested about the violation of its airspace by a Russian helicopter on Tuesday. “Estonia considers this an extremely serious and regrettable incident that is completely unacceptable,” the ministry announced, saying the helicopter had flown over Estonia’s south-east without permission.
Ukraine’s overseas creditors have backed its request for a two-year freeze on payments on almost $20bn in international bonds, allowing it to avoid a debt default, Reuters reported. Ukraine’s prime minister says it will save the country almost $6bn, while helping to stabilise its economy and strengthen its army.
