Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is coming up to 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning to attack one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants, which is located in southeastern Ukraine and occupied by Russian troops, but neither side provided evidence to support their claims. Citing intelligence reports, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russian troops had placed “objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The objects could be used to “simulate” an attack, he said, meaning a false flag attack, AP reported.
A man who detonated explosives in a court house in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday has died, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko said. Klymenko, in a statement at the site of the explosion at the Shevchenkivskyi court house said the man may have stepped inadvertently on explosives.
James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, and Ben Wallace, the British defence secretary, joined with their Polish counterparts Zbigniew Rau and Mariusz Blaszczak at a pre-Nato summit meeting in London on Wednesday and followed it up with a press conference. The two countries are ruled by right-leaning parties, and each emphasised their mutual agreement on defence and foreign policy ahead of next week’s Nato meeting where the key topic will be Ukraine’s demand for concrete steps towards membership whenever its war with Russia ends.
The United Nations is making “every effort” to ensure that the Black Sea grain deal and a memorandum of understanding to facilitate access of Russian fertiliser and other products to global markets are extended, UN trade chief Rebeca Grynspan said. “We need both to continue bringing down prices and have stable markets of food and fertilisers in the world,” Grynspan told reporters in Geneva.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that Russian forces had struck three Ukrainian army groups near Bakhmut, amid conflicting reports about fighting in the area. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield situation. The ministry made no comment in its daily briefing on reports that Russian forces have retreated from the village of Klishchiivka, south-west of Bakhmut, which a Russian-installed official in eastern Ukraine has denied.
Vladimir Rogov, one of the prominent pro-Russian figures in occupied Zaporizhzhia region has reported on his Telegram account that “the houses of local residents, a garage and a car were damaged” in the region due to Ukrainian fire. He said there were no casualties. The claims have not been independently verified.
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s former election spokesperson has been appointed to run the state news agency Tass, according to a government order published on Wednesday. The Kremlin has tightened its control over the media since the start of the Ukraine war, forcing the closure of leading independent news outlets and designating many journalists and publications as “foreign agents”, Reuters reported.
Next week’s Nato summit must offer “real security guarantees” to Ukraine, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said today. Speaking in Warsaw alongside the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, Meloni said Italy and Poland were “in perfect agreement” on the issue, Reuters reported.
Russia accused a small US based charity of “sabotaging” the construction of a huge gas pipeline to China and banned it as an “undesirable organisation”. Jennifer Castner, director of the Altai Project, described the accusation as absurd but said it had been only a matter of time. The move followed clamp-downs on many foreign NGOs in Russia, including a similar ban last month on the local arm of the WWF environmental group.
Russia said on Wednesday that one person was killed and another 41 injured, including two children, by Ukrainian fire in the east Ukraine town of Makiivka, which is occupied by Russian forces.
Overnight residential buildings and a medical facility were damaged by a Russian rocket attack on Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region.
Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions came under fire from Ukrainian forces across the border in the early hours of Wednesday, the regions’ governors said, adding that no casualties were reported.
Ukrainian officials said at least 43 people, including 12 children, were wounded in a Russian missile strike on Tuesday which an officer said targeted a military funeral in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. The strike hit a parking lot outside a residential building in the town of about 28,000 people.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported Wednesday that the website and mobile app of the Russian railways network has been subjected to “a massive hacker attack”.
Yelena Milashina, the prominent journalist for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, who was brutally beaten in Chechnya yesterday, has been moved to a hospital in Moscow.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
A man who detonated explosives in a court house in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday has died, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Klymenko, in a statement at the site of the explosion at the Shevchenkivskyi court house said the man may have stepped inadvertently on explosives.
