Closing summary
It’s 11pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Russian air defences shot down several drones targeting the Moscow region, the mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with one hitting a tower that had also been struck on Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones had been destroyed in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, and that a third was jammed and had crashed in the capital. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. No injuries were reported. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
Russia also downed a drone in the Sevastopol district of Crimea, according to the local governor. Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram: “A UAV was shot down in the Kara-Koba area. An explosion occurred on the ground. Grass and bushes caught fire. Fire brigades are already on site and have begun to put out the blaze.”
Poland’s ministry of defence said it will increase the number of troops at its border with Belarus after two helicopters from Belarus violated Poland’s airspace on Tuesday. Poland’s military initially denied that helicopters with Belarusian insignia had crossed into Polish airspace, but by Tuesday evening, the defence ministry acknowledged there “was a violation of Polish airspace by two Belarusian helicopters that were carrying out training near the border”.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said at least three drones had hit populated areas, one destroying two floors of a dormitory. Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram early on Tuesday: “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending. Details on casualties are being clarified.”
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is occupied by Russia and which it claims to have annexed. Gerasimov was one of the military figures repeatedly criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin before the Wagner group’s aborted uprising.
Ukraine thwarted an overnight attempt by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northern border, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said. Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said four armed people attempted to cross the border but were repelled by Ukrainian fire.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. Thank you for following.
Polish residents in an area near the border with Belarus reported earlier on Tuesday that they had seen helicopters with Belarusian insignia which they said flew overhead.
Poland’s military initially denied that they had crossed into Polish airspace, but by evening, the defence ministry acknowledged there “was a violation of Polish airspace by two Belarusian helicopters that were carrying out training near the border”.
The ministry added that Belarus had earlier informed Poland of plans to carry out training exercises in the area. It said they were flying at a low altitude and were not picked up by radar.
In response to the incursion, Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak ordered an increase in the number of soldiers along the border, as well as an increase in other resources, including combat helicopters, the ministry said.
In a separate statement, the Polish foreign ministry said the chargé d’affaires of Belarus was “immediately summoned” and that Warsaw “issued a firm protest and called on the Belarusian side to immediately and in detail explain the incident”. It added:
The Polish side emphasized that the incident is perceived as another element of the escalation of tension on the Polish-Belarusian border. Poland expects Belarus to refrain from such activities
Iceland announced it has formally suspended work at its embassy in Russia but insisted the closure was not designed to end diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Reykjavik had made public the decision to close its mission in June, when it said maintaining embassy operations in Moscow was “no longer justifiable” with commercial, cultural and political ties with Russia “at an all-time low”.
The Icelandic foreign ministry said in a statement today that it was increasing its presence in Ukraine. It added:
The decision to suspend the operations of the Embassy of Iceland in Moscow does not constitute a severance of diplomatic relations.
Iceland planned to “increase its presence in a show of solidarity with Ukraine during Russia’s illegitimate aggression against Ukraine”, it added.
Thórdís Gylfadóttir, the Icelandic foreign minister, said in a statement:
We expect that our relations with Ukraine will continue to strengthen in the foreseeable future, and as we currently do not have plans to open an embassy in Kyiv this collaboration is an excellent starting point.
Poland to send more troops to border after Belarus 'violates airspace'
Poland’s ministry of defence said it will increase the number of troops at its border with Belarus after two helicopters from Belarus violated Poland’s airspace on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Polish defence ministry said Belarus’ charge d’affairs had been called in to explain the situation. Nato has been informed, it said.
In response, the Belarusian ministry of defence posted to Telegram:
Accusations of a violation of the Polish border by Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters of the Belarusian Air Force and air defense forces are farfetched and made by the Polish military and political leadership to justify the build-up of forces and means at the Belarusian border.
The US has not seen any indication that Russia was behind the coup in Niger, State department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said.
Miller told reporters that the US has not seen evidence suggesting Russia was involved in a coup in Niger, after several Russia flags were seen in pro-coup protests across Niger’s capital, Niamey and Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, expressed support for putschists.
Miller however, warned that Russia could take advantage of uncertainty in Niger. He said: “It would not be out of character for Russia or for the Wagner group to try to take advantage of instability in this country or any other in Africa”.
Thousands of people backing the coup were seen marching through the streets of Niamey, denouncing France, the country’s former colonial power.
Some demonstrators shouted support for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Shouts of “long live Putin,” “long live Russia” and “down with France” could be heard among the crowds on Sunday.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent over the news wires of the aftermath of a Russian drone attack on Kharkiv.
Summary of the day so far ...
Russian air defences have shot down several drones targeting the Moscow region, the mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday, with one hitting a tower that had also been struck on Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones had been destroyed in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, and that a third was jammed and had crashed in the capital. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. Sobyanin wrote on Telegram that no injuries had been reported. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
Russia also downed a drone in the Sevastopol district of Crimea, the local governor said. Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram: “A UAV was shot down in the Kara-Koba area. An explosion occurred on the ground. Grass and bushes caught fire. Fire brigades are already on site and have begun to put out the blaze.”
The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said more attacks on Russian soil were coming. He tweeted: “Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the ‘authors of the war’ to collect all their debts … Everything that will happen in Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war.”
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said early on Tuesday that at least three drones had hit populated areas, one destroying two floors of a dormitory. Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram: “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending. Details on casualties are being clarified.”
A doctor was killed and a nurse wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, regional officials said.
Ukraine’s interior minister said a Russian saboteur group’s attempt to cross into the country in the Chernihiv region on its northern border had been foiled.
The Russian ministry of defence said it had successfully repelled a unmanned boat attack on two of its Black Sea fleet ships – the Sergey Kotov and the Vasily Bykov. It said the attack had taken place 340km southwest of Sevastopol, and that three Ukrainian drone boats had been destroyed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is occupied by Russia and which it claims to have annexed. Gerasimov was one of the military figures repeatedly criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin before the Wagner group’s aborted uprising.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, said the village of Staromaiorske remained hotly contested.
A resident of Krasnodar in Russia has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of passing information to Ukraine’s security service.
At least six people, including a 10-year-old child, were killed and more than 80 are now known to have been injured after Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih on Monday.
Updated
Poland has called in Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw in response to the “comments of representatives of Ukrainian authorities”, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.
The move came after the Ukrainian foreign ministry called in Poland’s ambassador to Kyiv earlier in the day over what it said were unacceptable comments made by the country’s presidential foreign policy adviser.
Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych informuje, że w związku z wypowiedziami przedstawicieli władz ukraińskich do siedziby MSZ został zaproszony Ambasador Ukrainy w Polsce.
— Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych RP 🇵🇱 (@MSZ_RP) August 1, 2023
Updated
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has said the country “needs decisions on full military support to drive the Russians out of the occupied territories” to end the war.
The only country that needs negotiations and a ceasefire today is #Russia – to retain the occupied territories, declare a tactical victory in the form of a land corridor to #Crimea, start internal consolidation of the crumbling #Putin's regime, and prepare for a new round of war,…
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) August 1, 2023
Updated
Russia shoots down drone in Crimea
Russia has downed a drone in the Sevastopol district of Crimea, the local governor has said.
The Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said on Telegram: “A UAV was shot down in the Kara-Koba area. An explosion occurred on the ground. Grass and bushes caught fire. Fire brigades are already on site and have begun to put out the blaze.”
Updated
Reuters has spoken to Moscow residents who were near the site of the drone attack earlier today.
“In this situation, any place can be hit, so it is quite hard to feel 100% safe,” said Alexander Gusev, 67. “No one is safe in this situation because we don’t know what will hit us and where.”
Another resident, Kirill, 32, who declined to give his last name, said: “I feel safe. I’m originally from Donetsk, so I consider this a minor incident … You should just adjust your attitude and everything will be fine.”
A witness told Reuters: “We were going to see the tower where the explosion happened the day before yesterday … Suddenly there was this explosion, and we immediately ran.
“There were shards of glass, and then smoke rising. Then the security services starting running that way. The shards were really big.”
Updated
Médecins Sans Frontières had partnership with shelled Kherson hospital
Médecins Sans Frontières has confirmed it had a partnership with the hospital in Kherson that was shelled leading to the death of a doctor.
The medical charity said the operating theatre suffered a direct hit and that it had been working at the hospital supplying medical equipment and providing mental health consultations to people displaced by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
The hospital caters “largely to stroke victims, patients with cardiac issues, and the provision of general surgical care”, it said.
🔴 Today a hospital that we have a partnership with in the Kherson region of Ukraine was shelled, resulting in a Ministry of Health doctor being killed. The operating theatre suffered a direct hit... 🧵
— MSF International (@MSF) August 1, 2023
Updated
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Tuesday that Moscow was ready to help to improve Algeria’s combat readiness. He made his comments at a meeting in Russia with the chief of staff of Algeria’s armed forces, Reuters reports.
Updated
Britain’s ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, has characterised Russia’s alleged mass abduction of children from Ukraine as a deliberate strategy to sever ties between Ukraine and the “next generation that will defend the country”.
Simmons told the Ukrainian news outlet ArmyInform that the alleged abductions were part of its “hybrid invasion” of the country.
In March, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, were indicted by the international criminal court at The Hague over the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
Children taken or kept by Russia were “subject to an extraordinary, relentless range of brainwashing”, Simmons said, which “creates a psychological barrier between the kids and their parents”.
This meant that Ukraine not only needed to find and return those children to their families, but it “inherits” the issue of addressing the “psychological journey to undo the harm of that brainwashing”.
Simmons said: “We know that there are children who come back from some of those engagements thinking that fighting Ukraine is the right thing to do.”
Updated
Here are some more images sent over the news wires of the clean up after a Russian drone attack on Kharkiv.
More drones and more war coming to Russian soil, says Kyiv
The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has said more attacks on Russian soil are coming as the war moves into the territory.
He tweeted:
Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the “authors of the war” to collect all their debts …
Everything that will happen in Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war …
#Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the "authors of the war" to collect all their debts... Everything that will happen in #Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more…
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) August 1, 2023
Updated
Dame Melinda Simmons, the British ambassador to Ukraine, said there have already been three air raid sirens in Kyiv today, where it is approaching 4pm local time.
In the tweet, she said:
If that’s how it has to be then that’s how it has to be. [Ukrainian] people aren’t intimidated. Phones out, carry on working underground.
3 air raid sirens in Kyiv so far today. Spent more time in hard cover than I have anywhere else. But if that’s how it has to be then that’s how it has to be. 🇺🇦 people aren’t intimidated. Phones out, carry on working underground.
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) August 1, 2023
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called in Poland’s ambassador to Kyiv on Tuesday over what it said were “unacceptable” comments made by Polish presidential foreign policy adviser, Marcin Przydacz.
In a statement on the ministry’s website, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko said:
During the meeting, it was emphasised that statements about the alleged ungratefulness of Ukrainians for Poland’s help are untrue and unacceptable.
Here is the Guardian’s latest write-up of the Moscow drone attack
A high-rise Moscow building housing Russian government ministries has been hit by a drone for the second time in three days, the city’s mayor has said, as air defences also shot down “several” drones targeting the capital region.
The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts near Moscow, while it claimed a third was jammed and went “out of control” before it crashed in the Moscow City business district, a cluster of glass skyscrapers that was built to show Russia’s growing integration into world financial markets. The ministry blamed Ukraine for what it called an “attempted terrorist attack”.
Photos and video showed that a drone had ripped off part of the facade of a modern skyscraper, IQ-Quarter, 3.4 miles (5.5km) from the Kremlin, which houses staff from several ministries, including Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media.
Updated
The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has told Reuters Kyiv did not and will not attack civilian vessels or any other civilian objects in the Black Sea, calling Russian statements “fictitious”.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had thwarted an attack from Ukrainian drones overnight on civilian transport vessels in the Black Sea, the Interfax news agency reports.
“Undoubtedly, such statements by Russian officials are fictitious and do not contain even a shred of truth. Ukraine has not attacked, is not attacking and will not attack civilian vessels, nor any other civilian objects,” Podolyak told Reuters.
Updated
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak claims Russia is behind the military coup in Niger.
He tweeted: “It is now absolutely clear that Russia is behind the so-called military coup in Niger. It is a standard Russian tactic: to divert attention, seize the moment and expand the conflict.”
It is now absolutely clear that #Russia is behind the so-called "military coup" in #Niger. It is a standard Russian tactic: to divert attention, seize the moment and expand the conflict. The support expressed to the rebels by representatives of pro-Russian #Mali and Burkina Faso…
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) August 1, 2023
Updated
Reuters reports that the chief of staff of Algeria’s military has arrived in Russia and is due to meet Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, with the TASS news agency citing the Algerian embassy in Russia as saying on Tuesday.
It did not say what they would discuss.
Summary of the day so far …
Russian air defences have shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday, with one hitting a tower that had also been struck on Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, while a third was jammed and crashed in the capital. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that no injuries had been reported. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said early on Tuesday that at least three drones hit populated areas of his city and one drone destroyed two floors of a dormitory. Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram: “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending. Details on casualties are being clarified.”
A doctor was killed and a nurse was wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Tuesday, regional officials said.
Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed an attempt to cross into the country on its northern border in the Chernihiv region by a Russian saboteur group has been foiled.
The Russian ministry of defence claims it successfully repelled a unmanned boat drone attack on two of its ships in the Black Sea fleet – the Sergey Kotov and the Vasily Bykov. In a statement the ministry said the unsuccessful attack was 340km southwest of Sevastopol, and that three Ukrainian drone boats were destroyed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited Russian troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is occupied by Russia and which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed. Gerasimov was one of the key Russian military figures repeatedy criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin ahead of the Wagner group’s aborted uprising.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has said the village of Staromaiorske remains hotly contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
A resident of Krasnodar in Russia has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of passing information to the security service of Ukraine.
At least six people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 80 people are now known to have been injured after Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih on Monday.
Updated
A doctor was killed and a nurse was wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Tuesday, regional officials said.
“Today at 11.10am, the enemy launched another attack on the peaceful residents of our community,” Reuters reports military administration head Roman Mrochko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Photos posted by officials showed the bloodied floor of a balcony and a gaping hole in a roof with debris strewn over the floor.
Mrochko said the young doctor had only worked in his job for a few days and that doctors were fighting for the life of the nurse.
Suspilne reports that in Kherson region a 41-year-old man has been hospitalised after a mine exploded while he was driving a tractor.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has said that the village of Staromaiorske remains hotly contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine at one point claimed to have captured it, but Russian authorities have claimed that control of areas of the village continues to change hands.
Tass reports Pushilin told the Russian Solovyov Live channel that Ukraine is suffering heavy losses in the area and putting in a lot of service personnel. He is quoted as saying:
One of the hot spots is Staromaiorske. The settlement really withstands a lot. The enemy periodically enters there, our units are knocked out, for some period they even rolled back in order to carry out the operation more accurately. The enemy does not take into account the loss of manpower, but every person is important to us.
Staromaiorske is in the south-west of Donetsk region, close to the border with Zaporizhzhia region. The Russian Federation claimed to annex both regions last year.
There is currently an air alert in place across all of Ukraine.
Ukrainian political adviser Anton Gerashchenko has said that a second drone strike on the business district of Moscow within days shows that the Kremlin is unable to protect the city’s most privileged residents, and symbolises the failure of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He wrote on social media:
The Moskva-City high-rises were a symbol of Russian economic flourishing and success, as well as Russia’s integration into global economy. After the second drone attack they will symbolise failure of the “special military operation” and lies of the Kremlin regime that promised and keeps promising Moscow residents complete protection.
Those who work in Moskva-City towers are the privileged class of government officials and business people. They saw with their own eyes that Russian authorities are incapable of and cannot protect even their social group. There is no air defence, air raid alerts, bomb shelters for them. Russia is unprotected. Everything that is going on in Russia and Moscow is a clear consequence of the full-scale war that Russia wages.
Updated
Interfax reports that a resident of Krasnodar in Russia has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of passing information to the security service of Ukraine.
Updated
Reuters report an adviser to Russia’s economy minister said on Tuesday the ministry’s employees were continuing to work remotely after drone strikes at the heart of Moscow’s financial district, with experts assessing the damage to infrastructure there.
Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov has described last night in the city as “very difficult”.
Earlier he said that drones destroyed two floors of a dormitory, and Reuters reports he confirmed on Ukrainian television that the dormitory was not in use.
Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said a sports complex in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district was hit, damaging a two-storey building. A 63-year-old security guard had been injured and was in hospital.
Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, has reported on Telegram that Ukrainian forces have shelled the village of Churovichi. He said there were no casualties, but that residential buildings and two cars were among the objects damaged.
Updated
Ukraine claims it repelled Russian saboteur group crossing northern border
Ukraine has thwarted an overnight attempt by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northern border, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Last night, in the Chernihiv region, border guards stopped an attempt by an enemy saboteur-reconnaissance group to cross the state border of Ukraine within the Semenivka community,” Reuters reports he said.
Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said four armed people attempted to cross the border but were repelled by Ukrainian fire.
Klymenko said the four people were detected moving from Russian territory.
He added that reserves of the State Border Guard Service and Ukraine’s armed forces were deployed to strengthen the area.
Ukraine has strengthened its northern military sector following the reported arrival of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and some Wagner group troops in Belarus. The reported presence of the Wagner mercenaries has also led to Poland reinforcing its border.
Updated
Maria Zakharova has said of the drone attack on Moscow that Kyiv “continues to reveal itself to the world community as a terrorist cell.”
Tass quoted the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, saying she was appearing on the Soloviev live TV channel.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the UN has recorded over 20,000 civilian casualties in areas of Ukraine controlled by the Kyiv government and attacked by Russia, including over 7,000 civilian deaths.
Here are some of the latest images that have been released from the site of a Russian strike on Kharkiv.
Reuters has a quick snap that Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed an attempt to cross into the country on its northern border in the Chernihiv region by a Russian saboteur group was foiled.
More details soon …
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, includes the following headlines in its morning daily round-up on Telegram today:
At night, the Russian Federation attacked Kharkiv with five “shahed” drones. In the Shevchenkivskyi district, three struck the territory of a sports complex: a two-story building was damaged, a security guard was injured. In Saltivskyi district, two floors of a school were destroyed.
The number of wounded in Kryvyi Rih has increased to 81, reported the head of the defence council of the city. Among them are seven children. 19 people remain in hospitals. All are in a moderate condition.
Over the last 24 hours, four people died in Kherson region, 18 were injured. On 31 July, two people were killed and three injured in Donetsk region.
Here are some of the pictures that have been sent to us over the news wires from Moscow after a drone hit a building there earlier.
Russia claims to have repelled drone attack on Black Sea fleet
The Russian ministry of defence claims it successfully repelled a unmanned boat drone attack on two of its ships in the Black Sea fleet – the Sergey Kotov and the Vasily Bykov.
Interfax reports that in a statement the ministry said:
Tonight, the armed forces of Ukraine made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the patrol ships Sergey Kotov and Vasily Bykov of the Black Sea Fleet with three sea unmanned boats … 340 km southwest of Sevastopol.
In the course of repulsing the attack, all three unmanned enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the standard armament of Russian ships. The ships Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov of the Black Sea fleet continue to perform their tasks.
It is the second time the ministry has claimed that the Sergey Kotov was targeted in recent days.
This is Martin Bellam taking over the live blog in London. You can email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
More on the drone strikes in Moscow, which come two days after Zelenskiy said the war was coming to Russia, after three drones were shot down over the city on Sunday, although Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases. This is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday.
The attacks on Tuesday mark at least the fifth time unmanned aerial vehicles have reached the Russian capital since May, when two drones came down over the Kremlin. Moscow and its surrounding area are more than 310 miles (500km) from the Ukrainian border and the conflict there.
In Sunday’s attack, Russia said its air defences shot down a drone in Odintsovo in the surrounding Moscow region, while two others were jammed and crashed into the Moscow City business district.
Updated
Chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces visits troops in Zaporizhzhia
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited Russian troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is controlled by Russia, the Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Tuesday.
It said Gerasimov inspected a command centre and underscored the importance of preemptive strikes against the Ukrainian forces.
Updated
Russian drone strike hits college dormitory in Kharkiv
Officials in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said on Tuesday that drones hit populated areas of the city and one drone destroyed two floors of a college dormitory.
The chief of police in Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, Volodymyr Tymoshko, said there were two night-time strikes - one on the college and one on the city centre.
One person was injured in the city centre, he told Suspilne, or public, television. The college building was empty at the time of the strike.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov spoke of three strikes, Reuters reports.
“One of the drones destroyed two floors of a dormitory,” Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending.”
A video posted on social media showed the top of a building ablaze and smoke billowing upwards. Suspilne said the half the college building was destroyed.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the attack or determine the location of the site in the video.
Moscow hit by second drone attack in two days
Russian air defences have shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said, with one hitting a tower that had been struck on Sunday.
The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, while a third was jammed and crashed in the capital, the Russian state news agency Tass reported early on Tuesday. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv.
Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that no injuries had been reported. “The facade of the 21st floor was damaged. The glazing of 150 square metres was broken,” he said.
Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: Russian air defences have shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said, with one hitting a tower that had been struck on Sunday.
Meanwhile, officials in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said on Tuesday that drones hit populated areas of the city and one drone destroyed two floors of a college dormitory.
One person was injured in the city centre, said Kharkiv’s chief of police, Volodymyr Tymoshko.
We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In other news:
At least six people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 50 people injured when Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih. Authorities said people were trapped under rubble. Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, called for revenge, saying: “Every day, Ukrainian cities are under fire from Russian terrorists. Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv. This is only for the last few days.” He said targeting civilians was a sign of “the despair and defeat of the Russian Federation at the front”.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said: “This is how the week begins in a Ukrainian city that just wants a quiet, normal life. Russia wants to take peace and life away.” She offered condolences to the victims and their families. The city is the home town of both Zelenska and her husband.
Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza on Monday lost an appeal against his 25-year jail sentence, the RIA state news agency reported. Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship, was jailed for 25 years in April for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters reports. Britain added six new designations to its Russia sanctions list, an update to the government website showed on Monday, targeting judges and officials involved in the trial of Kara-Murza.
Ukraine and Croatia have agreed on the possibility of using Croatian ports on the Danube and the Adriatic Sea for the export of Ukrainian grain, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after talks with his Croatian counterpart on Monday, according to Reuters.
Russian airstrikes destroyed an estimated 180,000 metric tonnes of grain crops in the space of nine days this month, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said on Monday.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said Russia lost 87 units of equipment last week, including 33 strongholds, 26 armoured combat vehicles and 15 tanks.
The Kremlin on Monday described a drone attack on Moscow as an “act of desperation” by Ukraine after setbacks on the battlefield. AFP reported that Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said it had been “very difficult” for Ukrainian forces on the frontline since they launched their counteroffensive in June.
Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 15 sq km (5.8 sq miles) of land from Russian troops in the east and south over the past week during their counteroffensive, a senior defence official said on Monday. Kyiv’s forces have now retaken 204.7 sq km in the south since they launched a major push back against Russian forces early last month, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has claimed that at least two people have been killed and at least six injured after a Ukrainian strike hit a bus in the city, which had been capital of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014, and which Russia claimed to have annexed last year.
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have said in a voice message published on Monday that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future. Prigozhin said in the voice message that “unfortunately” some of his fighters had moved to other “power structures”, but he said they were looking to return.
Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organised peace summit in early August seeking a way to start negotiations over the war, the Associated Press has reported, citing Saudi officials. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was not invited to the talks in Jeddah.
