Closing summary
The blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
One person has been killed and more than 50 were injured in a blast on Wednesday at the site of an optics and optical electronics factory in the town of Sergiev Posad, local authorities have said. The explosion occurred at the Zagorsk optical-mechanical plant at Sergiyev Posad, near Moscow. Russian state news agency Tass claims that according to emergency services the explosion happened “in the area of the boiler room”. However there is significant speculation, including from Ukrainian political adviser Anton Gerashchenko, that the pictures and film which have emerged of the explosion do not tally with the official explanation that pyrotechnics have caught fire.
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.
The US issued new Belarus-related sanctions which target eight individuals, five entities and one aircraft. US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said Washington is “imposing sanctions and placing visa restrictions on those who enable the Lukashenka’s brutal repression and enable Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.”
Two Ukrainian combat drones headed for Moscow were shot down, Russian officials said on Wednesday, the latest attack targeting the capital. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, “Two combat drones’ attempt to fly into the city was recorded. Both were shot down by air defence”. Emergency services were at the scene, he said, but he did not list any casualties.
Ukraine has claimed it is enjoying “partial success” on the southern front, while successfully defending against a Russian push in the east, where the situation is described as “complex, but controlled”. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said that Ukrainian offensive actions continue in the Bakhmut direction, where Russian forces “make constant assaults to try to restore lost positions”. She stated that Russian attempts to push forward near Kupiansk were being repelled. In the south, Maliar claimed “partial success”, and said “our fighters leave no chance for the enemy to advance and regain lost positions.”
499 children have been killed and 1,095 injured in Ukraine during the course of the war so far, according to the latest figures released by the office of the prosecutor general of Ukraine.
The general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine on Wednesday claimed to have downed a Russian helicopter.
Local authorities in Dnipropetrovsk region report that overnight an 18-year-old boy was killed and three men were wounded in a Russian strike in the area of Nikopol. A church and private houses were damaged.
Interfax in Russia is reporting that Russian security forces have detained a man accused of sabotaging a gas pipeline in Crimea at the behest of Ukrainian secret services.
Poland will send 2,000 troops to the Belarus border to support the border guard.
One person has been killed by Ukrainian shelling in the border village of Gorkovsky, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has said.
On Telegram, he said the man died from shrapnel wounds and that four more people were injured.
Updated
