Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
Ukrainian forces have recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and are successfully encircling Russian troops in the city, the deputy defence minister in Kyiv has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Hanna Maliar said Russian soldiers could no longer move around Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region and progress was being made in outflanking enemy forces after months of deadly battle.
Two people have been killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian village of Chausy in the Bryansk region, the region’s governor has claimed. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram: “Currently, two civilians have died from the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Bryansk borders Ukraine to the north-east.
Russia’s defence ministry said early on Thursday it had downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea overnight, as well as two drones flying toward the capital Moscow. It said two Ukrainian drones were shot down near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, and “another 9 were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea”. The ministry said there were no reports of damage or casualties in any of the affected areas.
Ukraine claims to have shot down seven of ten “Shahed” drones launched at it overnight by Russia. Air defence was said to be active in Kyiv region and Khmelnytskyi.
Six residents of Bilozerka in the Kherson region have been hopitalised after Russian artilerry fire hit people receiving humanitarian aid, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Three people are now known to have died after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Wednesday. Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. Zaporizhzhia city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said a church had been destroyed and about 15 high-rise buildings had been damaged. The authorities received requests from residents of at least 400 apartments to repair smashed windows and damaged balconies.
Russian drones destroyed a fuel depot in Ukraine’s western Rivne region on Thursday, governor Vitaly Koval wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant again lost connection to its last remaining main external power line overnight and was switched to a reserve line, state-owned power generating company Energoatom said on Thursday. Additionally, the station’s Russian-installed administration said the Number 4 reactor had been moved from a “hot” to a “cold” shutdown because of signs of a steam leak.
The co-founder of Russian internet giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, condemned what he described as Russia’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, days after criticism in Russia over his apparent efforts to distance himself from the country. Volozh described himself as a “Kazakhstan-born Israeli tech entrepreneur” on a personal website, drawing some criticism in Russian media and on the Telegram messenging platform for apparently playing down his links to Russia. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it,” Reuters reports Volozh said in a statement. “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day.”
Poland is planning to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the Border Guard, the defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said on Thursday. “About 10,000 soldiers will be on the border, of which 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in the reserve,” the minister said in an interview for public radio. “We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us,” Błaszczak said. Last week Poland said Belarusian helicopters had violated its airspace and has warned of provocations.
The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed Russian authorities have stepped up efforts to block citizens’ access to virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to bypass restrictions on the internet. It notes “VPNs are hugely popular in Russia, despite being illegal since 2017. They allow users to access objective international news sources, including about the war in Ukraine.”
Reuters reports that a Zaporizhzhia city official claims Russia attacked a “civilian infrastructure object” in the city on Thursday evening.
Anatoliy Kurtev, Zaporizhzhia city council’s secretary, said on Telegram that a fire broke out at the site of the attack and two people were injured. He did not give more details about the incident.
Our chief reporter, Daniel Boffey, has this report from Kyiv.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has vowed to help pursue army commanders credibly accused of sexual harassment through the courts after allegations of “unacceptable” behaviour were raised by a female soldier speaking to the Guardian.
Hanna Maliar, a lawyer by training, called on those who claimed to have been targeted to meet her, after a whistleblower alleged that a commander in a combat unit had ordered female subordinates to have sex with him or face their husbands being sent to the front.
She also said she would investigate allegations that women in the armed forces had been threatened with being sent to psychiatric units for raising allegations of sexual harassment or seeking to transfer to a combat unit, warning the accused that she would personally take any credible cases to the police.
The allegations were made last week by a platoon sergeant, Nadiya Haran, 27, who told the Guardian that she felt forced to ask to be transferred from her previous unit after raising the cases with senior officers but being told to “shut up”.
“I left [my brigade] because there was this person high up the food chain who would harass women and I know these women,” she had said. “Some of them are my subordinates who I’m responsible for. They were harassed by the same person who basically told them if they refuse to have sex with him, he’s sending their husbands who were also in the brigade to their deaths. I was told to shut up because he did not harass me personally.”
Maliar said she would meet Haran and protect any female soldiers who came forward with testimony.
Ukraine has recaptured heights over Bakhmut, defence minister says
Ukrainian forces have recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and are successfully encircling Russian troops in the city, a defence minister in Kyiv has said.
Hanna Maliar also warned of a “nightmare” situation further north after 12,000 civilians in the Kharkiv region were ordered to evacuate.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maliar said Russian soldiers could no longer move around Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region and progress was being made in outflanking enemy forces after months of deadly battle.
With Ukraine on the advance on the outskirts of the city, she claimed that Russia had been seeking to draw their combat units away by attacking areas of the Kharkiv region liberated from Russian occupation last September.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of thousands of civilians from 37 towns and villages in the Kupiansk district, which lies north of Bakhmut.
Two killed in Ukrainian shelling of Russian village, regional governor claims
Two people have now been killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian village of Chausy in the Bryansk region, up from one death earlier on Thursday, the region’s governor has claimed.
On Telegram, Alexander Bogomaz said: “Currently, two civilians have died from the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
The Canadian defence ministerm Bill Blair, said he had had a “productive” first conversation with the Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, on Thursday.
On Twitter, he said: “Canada has already committed over $1.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine and trained almost 40,000 Ukrainian troops. As said to Minister Reznikov, our steadfast support will continue.”
Productive first conversation with Ukraine’s Defence Minister, @OleksiiReznikov. Canada has already committed over $1.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine and trained almost 40,000 Ukrainian troops. As I said to Minister Reznikov, our steadfast support will continue. 🇨🇦🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/mJF4FmNDIC
— Bill Blair (@BillBlair) August 10, 2023
Updated
Andriy Kostin, the prosecutor general of Ukraine, has met the country’s Austrian ambassador, Arad Benkö.
Kostin said he “sincerely appreciates the support of Austria”.
Delighted to make acquaintance with the Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to Ukraine @AradBenkoe. We sincerely appreciate the support of Austria and the 🇦🇹 people to 🇺🇦. Ukraine has been advocating for a multifaceted response to Russia’s aggression since the first days of the… pic.twitter.com/WrHxQQmob1
— Andriy Kostin (@AndriyKostinUa) August 10, 2023
Updated
One person was killed and two were wounded in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian village of Chausy in the Bryansk region, the region’s governor claimed on Thursday.
“The armed forces of Ukraine shelled the village of Chausy, Pogarsky district,” Reuters reports Alexander Bogomaz said on the Telegram messaging app. “Unfortunately, as a result of the shelling, one man died, two local residents were injured.”
Bryansk borders Ukraine to the north-east.
Updated
Ukrainians have been sharing on social media a clip of two young women that purports to show them singing on the streets of Zaporizhzhia just a short while before they were both killed as a result of the strike yesterday which damaged a church and killed three people.
Khrystyna and Svitlana were singing in the street in Zaporizhzhia an hour before a Russian missile strike on the city, and this video of them was filmed.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 10, 2023
One of them died yesterday at the site of the strike. She was 19 years old. The other girl died in the ICU today. She was 21.… pic.twitter.com/1CoJFJg2dp
According to Ukrinform, the Matviyivka village centre for culture and leisure posted:
As a result of a missile attack by Russian terrorists on Zaporizhzhia, our talented girls, Svitlana Semeykina and Khrystyna Spitsyna, were killed. Yesterday they were singing and playing together for people, and today nothing of them is left. A Russian missile mercilessly took their voice, their lives, and with it a piece of the soul of each of us.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
The co-founder of Russia’s biggest internet firm has condemned Moscow’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, offering some of the strongest criticism to date by a prominent Russian business figure of the Kremlin’s military actions.
Arkady Volozh, who co-founded Yandex in Russia in 1997, said: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it.”
In the statement, published on Thursday, he said: “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day.”
Yandex went public on the US Nasdaq stock exchange in 2011. Volozh stepped down as chief executive and left the board of directors after the EU included him on its list of sanctions against Russian individuals and entities in June 2022.
In its statement at the time, the EU wrote that the company was “responsible for promoting state media and narratives in its search results, and deranking and removing content critical of the Kremlin, such as content related to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.
Reuters reports that the US will allow administrative transactions involving Russia’s central bank, National Wealth Fund and finance ministry until 12:01am on 8 November, according to the US Department of the Treasury’s website on Thursday.
The Treasury allowed the extension in an updated Russia-related general license notice posted to its website.
Updated
Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said he had a video conference call with US military and political leaders about the situation at the frontlines on Thursday.
He said the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and chairof the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, were in attendance.
Today I participated in a video conference call with the US military and political leaders regarding the situation at the frontlines.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) August 10, 2023
Along with @CinC_AFU Valerii Zaluzhnyi, CLF AFU-Commander of the Khortytsia OSG Oleksandr Syrskyi… pic.twitter.com/GkJipToc0s
Updated
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget A Brink, has commented on new anti-monopoly legislation passed in the country’s parliament on Wednesday.
She said the legislation would strengthen “Ukraine’s competitiveness to help attract private sector investment for its recovery.”
Ukraine's Rada adopted important anti-monopoly legislation yesterday that provides additional tools to combat corruption and promote good corporate governance. Implementing this legislation and strengthening the independence of the Anti-Monopoly Committee will increase Ukraine's…
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) August 10, 2023
Updated
Ukraine’s navy has said a new temporary Black Sea “humanitarian corridor” had started working on Thursday and that the first ships were expected to use it within days, Reuters reports.
Oleh Chalyk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian navy, told Reuters that the corridor would be used by commercial ships blocked at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and for grain and agricultural products.
“Today a new temporary humanitarian corridor has started to work,” Chalyk said by phone.
“The corridor will be very transparent, we will put cameras on the ships and there will be a broadcast to show that this is purely a humanitarian mission and has no military purpose,” he said.
The navy said in a separate statement that the risk posed by mines in the Black Sea and the military threat from Russia remained.
Our visuals team has put together an interactive guide on Bakhmut, a mid-sized Ukrainian city, and how it became a key battleground in the war
Summary of the day so far …
Russia’s defence ministry said early on Thursday it had downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea overnight, as well as two drones flying toward the capital Moscow. It said two Ukrainian drones were shot down near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, and “another 9 were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea”. The ministry said there were no reports of damage or casualties in any of the affected areas.
Ukraine claims to have shot down seven of ten “Shahed” drones launched at it overnight by Russia. Air defence was said to be active in Kyiv region and Khmelnytskyi.
Six residents of Bilozerka in the Kherson region have been hopitalised after Russian artilerry fire hit people receiving humanitarian aid, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Three people are now known to have died after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Wednesday. Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. Zaporizhzhia city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said a church had been destroyed and about 15 high-rise buildings had been damaged. The authorities received requests from residents of at least 400 apartments to repair smashed windows and damaged balconies.
Russian drones destroyed a fuel depot in Ukraine’s western Rivne region on Thursday, governor Vitaly Koval wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant again lost connection to its last remaining main external power line overnight and was switched to a reserve line, state-owned power generating company Energoatom said on Thursday. Additionally, the station’s Russian-installed administration said the Number 4 reactor had been moved from a “hot” to a “cold” shutdown because of signs of a steam leak.
The co-founder of Russian internet giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, condemned what he described as Russia’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, days after criticism in Russia over his apparent efforts to distance himself from the country. Volozh described himself as a “Kazakhstan-born Israeli tech entrepreneur” on a personal website, drawing some criticism in Russian media and on the Telegram messenging platform for apparently playing down his links to Russia. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it,” Reuters reports Volozh said in a statement. “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day.”
Poland is planning to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the Border Guard, the defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said on Thursday. “About 10,000 soldiers will be on the border, of which 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in the reserve,” the minister said in an interview for public radio. “We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us,” Błaszczak said. Last week Poland said Belarusian helicopters had violated its airspace and has warned of provocations.
The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed Russian authorities have stepped up efforts to block citizens’ access to virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to bypass restrictions on the internet. It notes “VPNs are hugely popular in Russia, despite being illegal since 2017. They allow users to access objective international news sources, including about the war in Ukraine.”
Six residents of Bilozerka in the Kherson region have been hopitalised after Russian artilerry fire hit people receiving humanitarian aid, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Bilozerka is to the west of the city of Kherson, opposite the currently occupied left-bank of the Dnipro River.
Reuters is carrying a little bit more detail about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Earlier, Ukraine’s Energoatom said that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was on the verge of a blackout as it had been switched to a reserve power line that less than half of the power capacity of the main power line.
Now the station’s Russian-installed administration said the Number 4 reactor had been moved from a “hot” to a “cold” shutdown because of signs of a steam leak.
One of the six reactors needs to be in “hot shutdown” to produce steam for the plant’s own needs.
“Plant personnel found signs of leaks in the pipe section of steam generator No. 3,” the administration said on Telegram. “To meet the steam auxiliary needs of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the transfer of power unit No. 6 to a ‘hot shutdown’ state is being considered.”
The co-founder of Russian internet giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, on Thursday condemned what he described as Russia’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, days after criticism in Russia over his apparent efforts to distance himself from the country.
Volozh described himself as a “Kazakhstan-born Israeli tech entrepreneur” on a personal website, drawing some criticism in Russian media and on the Telegram messenging platform for apparently playing down his links to Russia.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it,” Reuters reports Volozh said in a statement. “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day.
“Although I moved to Israel in 2014, I have to take my share of responsibility for the country’s actions,” wrote Volozh, who holds both Russian and Israeli passports.
He stepped down as CEO and left the board of directors after the EU included him on its list of sanctions against Russian entities and individuals in June 2022. Volozh called the EU’s decision “misguided”.
Three people are now known to have died after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Wednesday. Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.
Reuters reports officials said two of the people had been killed on the spot and a woman had died overnight at a hospital. A Reuters reporter at the scene saw emergency workers lifting a body, putting it on a stretcher, and wrapping it into a black body bag. Rescuers sifted through debris and an ambulance was parked near damaged buildings.
Zaporizhzhia city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said the church had been destroyed and about 15 high-rise buildings had been damaged. The authorities received requests from residents of at least 400 apartments to repair smashed windows and damaged balconies.
Interfax in Russia reports that in a statement the company who own the Zagorsk optical and mechanical plant in Sergiev Posad said it had suffered “significant damage”, adding that “it is still difficult to make an accurate assessment of it”. Russian media reports that 12 people are considered missing as a result of an explosion.
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant again lost connection to its last remaining main external power line overnight and was switched to a reserve line, state-owned power generating company Energoatom said on Thursday.
Reuters reports Energoatom said that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was on the verge of a blackout as the reserve line had less than half of the power capacity of the main power line.
“Such a regime is difficult for the reactor plant, its duration is limited by the project’s design and it can result in failure of the main equipment of the energy unit,” Energoatom said on Telegram.
Zaporizhizhia nuclear power plant with its six reactors has been controlled by the Russian military since the early days of Moscow’s invasion in February 2022. Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of endangering the safety of the plant, where Ukrainian staff have continued to work under the duress of the occupation.
Suspilne offers this morning round-up of latest news about the war:
At night, the Russian army released ten “Shahed” drones over Ukraine. The air force reported air defence managed to destroy seven.
Air defence was active in Kyiv region at night. There were no hits, no casualties. Air defence forces also worked in the Khmelnytskyi region.
The Russian army shelled the village of Kindrashivka in the Kharkiv region – two people were injured. Kupiansk was also hit by a guided aerial bomb, and the city council building was damaged.
At night, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost power from the main external power transmission line. Energoatom reported it was switched to the only available backup line.
Poland is planning to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the Border Guard, the defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said on Thursday.
“About 10,000 soldiers will be on the border, of which 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in the reserve,” Reuters reports the minister said in an interview for public radio.
“We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us,” Błaszczak said.
The deputy interior minister, Maciej Wąsik, had said on Wednesday that Poland would send 2,000 additional troops to its frontier with Belarus.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that 28 explosions in the Sumy region were recorded overnight due to Russian shelling, but that no casualties have been reported.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Russian government stepping up efforts to stop VPN use, says UK Ministry of Defence
The UK Ministry of Defence has posted its daily intelligence briefing, saying that Russian authorities have stepped up efforts to block citizens’ access to virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to bypass restrictions on the internet.
“Reports suggest many of the most popular VPNs have become unusable in some regions of Russia,” the MoD tweeted.
“VPNs are hugely popular in Russia, despite being illegal since 2017. They allow users to access objective international news sources, including about the war in Ukraine.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 August 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 10, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/lNs9SRnaOE
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/fEx1vfY2FC
The update notes that in addition to restricting access, Russia has mounted a scare campaign about the dangers of VPNs.
“As well as increased technical disruption, the Russian state has also launched a public information campaign, attempting to scare citizens into avoiding VPNs by claiming they put their personal data at risk,” the MoD said.
Updated
By turning food into a weapon Russia has resorted to one of the oldest forms of warfare. Ancient armies burned the granaries of their foes to starve them into submission.
In this case, Ukraine’s economy has been further damaged and Russian exports have fetched higher prices. But the threat of starvation is thousands of miles away in the very poorest countries, that could be pushed further towards famine by higher prices and fewer humanitarian deliveries.
Ukraine provided half the wheat the World Food Programme (WFP) bought on global markets, which it shipped to people most in need in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It was good quality, cheap and quick to ship from Odesa through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean, then through the Suez Canal to Yemen and the Horn of Africa. The WFP now has to buy grain at a higher price and transport it from ports much further away:
After failing to conquer Ukraine by conventional means, Russia tried an energy war, trying to hobble the power grid and freeze the nation into submission. Now it has launched a food war.
The mining of the Kakhovka dam in June threatens to turn southern Ukrainian farmland into a dustbowl. Since Moscow pulled out of an UN-brokered deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea last month, it has announced a naval blockade of the country’s ports, and directly targeted food (destroying 220,000 tonnes of cereals awaiting export in silos) on the sea coast but also inland with attacks over the past two weeks on the Danube ports of Reni and Izmail.
The global cereal price index rose 10% in late July after Russia torpedoed the Black Sea grain initiative (BSGI), blocking a route that carried 32m tonnes over a year, more than half Ukraine’s total grain exports.
Some traders believe prices will have risen 20% by the end of the summer. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has appealed to Vladimir Putin to reconsider, but few involved in the grain business are optimistic that the deal can be revived:
More now on the drone strikes in Russia.
Until a series of attacks in recent months, Moscow had not been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine, which began more than a year ago, AFP reports.
The Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula, however, has been disrupted by several strikes throughout the hostilities, and has seen more frequent attacks in recent weeks.
Russia said Saturday it had downed a drone over the ocean near Sevastopol, the base of its Black Sea fleet.
In July, Ukrainian drone strikes on Crimea blew up an ammunition depot and damaged the bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the peninsula to Russia’s mainland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned last month that “war” was coming to Russia, with the country’s “symbolic centres and military bases” becoming targets.
Updated
Russian drones destroy oil depot in Ukraine, say authorities
Meanwhile Russian drones destroyed a fuel depot in Ukraine’s western Rivne region on Thursday, governor Vitaly Koval wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
There were no casualties from the attack, he said, standing in front of the burning site in a video.
Russia says downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea, plus 2 headed to Moscow
Russia’s defence ministry said early on Thursday it had downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea overnight, as well as two drones flying toward the capital Moscow, AFP reports.
“Two UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) flying in the direction of the city of Moscow were destroyed,” the ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
It said two Ukrainian drones were shot down near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, and “another 9 were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea”.
The ministry said there were no reports of damage or casualties in any of the affected areas.
The strikes come a day after Russia said two Ukrainian combat drones headed for Moscow were shot down, and constitute at least the fourth attack near the capital within a week.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Russian air defences shot down two drones targeting Moscow in the early hours of Thursday morning, the city’s mayor has said.
In the latest attack on the Russian capital, a drone was shot down in the Kaluga region south-west of Moscow and a second was shot down on Moscow’s central ring road, Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Russian forces also downed 11 drones near Sevastopol, the city in Crimea which serves as Russia’s Black Sea navy base, the RIA news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying.
Russia usually blames such attacks on Ukraine, which usually refrains from commenting. However, drone strikes targeting Moscow and Russian occupied Crimea have recently increased in frequency and last month Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that “the war is returning to the territory of Russia”.
In other developments:
An explosion on the grounds of a factory north of Moscow that previously made optical equipment for the Russian military killed one person, wounded 60 others and left at least eight people unaccounted for, officials said. No official explanation was given for the explosion in the city of Sergiev Posad, which produced a tall plume of black smoke and added to jitters over recent night-time drone attacks on Moscow.
Ukrainian forces have made an attempt to cross the Dnipro river dividing liberated and occupied Kherson potentially breaching what has for months served as the frontline in the south of Ukraine. Russian military bloggers reported that up to seven boats, each carrying around six to seven people, landed near the settlement of Kozachi Laheri, east of Kherson city, and broke through Russian defensive lines.
Two people were killed and seven injured in an apparent missile attack by Russia on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian officials said Russia targeted a residential area and a video posted by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed smoke billowing from burning and badly damaged buildings next to a church.
Thirty secondhand Leopard I battle tanks are to be refurbished by the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall at the orders of the German government and exported to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed. The tanks are part of a fleet of 49 vehicles that the Düsseldorf-based company bought from the Belgian private defence company OIP Land Systems.
Germany and Ukraine have also agreed on the supply of two additional Patriot air defence missile systems to Kyiv, Zelenskiy said in his latest evening address. “This will definitely bring us closer to creating a full-fledged air shield for Ukraine. This will help people, cities, villages,” Zelenskiy said.
German prosecutors meanwhile arrested an officer from the military procurement agency on suspicion of passing secret information to Russian intelligence, the federal prosecutor’s office said. Germany, one of the largest providers of military hardware to Ukraine, is a major target of Russian spying operations, which have grown in scale since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, authorities have warned.
The US and Canada imposed new sanctions on Belarus over its human rights abuses and support for the war in Ukraine. The new US measures include action against the state carrier Belavia and target a tobacco mogul close to president Alexander Lukashenko as well as 101 officials accused of subverting democracy.
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”.
One person was killed by Ukrainian shelling in the border village of Gorkovsky, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border, said. Belgorod has suffered frequent artillery and drone attacks in the last few months, and in May saw an armed cross-border
incursion by a raiding party purportedly consisting of Russian nationals.Moscow accused Poland and Finland of threatening its security on Wednesday and vowed a response to multiplying “threats” on Russia’s western frontier from Nato members. “Threats to the military security of the Russian Federation have multiplied in the western and northwestern strategic directions,” defence minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with military officials. Those risks “require a timely and adequate response,” he added.
Warsaw earlier announced it would send an additional 2,000 troops to its eastern border to join the 2,000 soldiers already stationed there, as it strengthens its border with Belarus after it became a new base for the Russian Wagner mercenary group. Last week Poland said Belarusian helicopters had violated its airspace and has warned of provocations from Belarus.
