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
One killed in factory explosion near Moscow
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 took place at about 10:40am local time on Wednesday about 40 miles (65km) from central Moscow. Video of the blast showed a mushroom cloud of smoke rising into the air over the Zagorsk optical mechanical plant, which in the past has manufactured night-vision goggles and other imaging equipment for the Russian military. Factory officials ordered a “total evacuation” of the area.
Updated
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.”
On the three-year anniversary of the fraudulent election in Belarus, together with our allies and partners we are imposing sanctions and placing visa restrictions on those who enable the Lukashenka’s brutal repression and enable Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) August 9, 2023
Reuters reports that prosecutors have arrested an official of the German military procurement agency whom they suspect of passing secret information to Russian intelligence, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
The man, a German national that the prosecutor’s office identified only as Thomas H., approached Russia’s consulate in Bonn and embassy in Berlin on his own initiative and offered his cooperation, it said.
On one occasion, the man passed information obtained during the course of his work to a Russian intelligence service, it 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.
In December, authorities arrested a German Foreign Intelligence Service (BND) employee they suspected of spying for Russia.
A spokesperson for the Berlin defence ministry declined to comment.
A senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told Reuters that they deny a Russian assertion on Wednesday that Kyiv tried to attack the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) with a drone.
“Undoubtedly, Ukraine did not carry out any kind of drone attack on the ZNPP, was not planning and will not even in theory do so,” Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters in a statement.
Reuters reports that Russian security forces said on Wednesday that Ukraine had attempted to attack a spent nuclear fuel storage facility at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with a strike drone, citing the state news agency RIA, who did not attribute this information any named source or official.
Russian security forces reached their conclusion by analysing the flight path of the drone, which they downed, RIA said. It distributed a photograph of the purported downed drone, a quadcopter.
US issues new Belarus-related sanctions
Reuters reports that the US has issued new Belarus-related sanctions on Wednesday, citing the Treasury department’s website.
The sanctions target eight individuals, five entities and one aircraft, the website showed. The department also issued two general licenses related to Belarus.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, has posted to social media to defend the pace of progress made by Ukraine in its counteroffensive.
In the course of the post he pointed out that at the beginning of the war many analysts expected the Russian army to simply roll through Ukraine and take Kyiv within a matter of days. Podolyak suggests that Ukraine’s defence up to this point has destroyed the reputation of the Russian army as the second most feared fighting force in the world. He wrote:
When someone talks about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, its speed, directions and efficiency, gives advice or confidently states that something is “definitely not going according to plan,” the main thing to remember is that yesterday (before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine) the Russian army was seriously called the “second army in the world”, hysterically feared and not even imagined to be effectively fought against.
Therefore, in order to finally debunk another myth that yesterday people were afraid to even think about, everyone needs to be patient and closely monitor the high-quality work of the armed forces of Ukraine. They will in any case achieve a mandatory and fair conclusion. Russia will cease to exist as a military threat after the war in Ukraine. At least for Ukraine and Europe. Meanwhile … offensive operations continue.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, has reported on Telegram that explosions have been heard in Kherson.
This is not an uncommon occurrence, as Russia occupies the southern portion of Kherson oblast, which it claimed to annex late last year.
Russia’s ministry of defence has published its latest infographic for domestic consumption where it details equipment losses it claims to have inflicted on Ukraine since it began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence produces similar graphics on a regular basis.
"What the hell am I doin' here?
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023
I don't belong here"@radiohead
Total combat losses of the enemy from February 24, 2022 to August 7, 2023: pic.twitter.com/pTOCCPHCs4
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has shared a post celebrating indigenous Crimeans, which include Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks.
Today is the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, held on 9 August every year. It was established by the UN in 1994 to raise awareness of the needs of indigenous groups.
On August 9, we celebrate #IndigenousPeoplesDay, supporting Crimean Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks, whose homeland is #Crimea.
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) August 9, 2023
We express solidarity with the indigenous peoples of 🇺🇦Ukraine and appreciate their contribution to our statehood and culture. pic.twitter.com/FxCLlmiwWd
Reuters reports that a child was killed and two people were injured when a Ukrainian artillery shell hit a two-storey building in Donetsk, the Russian-appointed head of the region, Denis Pushilin, said on Wednesday on his Telegram channel.
Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian defences in attempt to cross Dnipro river, military bloggers claim
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.
It was claimed that the Ukrainian soldiers had advanced up to 800metres after getting to shore although it appeared that Russian forces had some success in fighting them back.
The Russian imposed head of the occupied part of the Kherson oblast, Vladimir Saldo, claimed the Ukrainian raid on Tuesday had been repelled.
The respected Institute of the Study War think tank in Washington said, however, that it appeared that a “limited raid” may have had more success than Saldo had acknowledged.
In the latest update, the Institute wrote: “The majority of prominent Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces managed to utilize tactical surprise and land on the east bank before engaging Russian forces in small arms exchanges, and Saldo was likely purposefully trying to refute claims of Ukrainian presence in this area to avoid creating panic in the already-delicate Russian information space.”
They added that there was satellite imagery to suggest there had been a major battle in the area.
“Hotspots on available NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) data from the past 24 hours in this area appear to confirm that there was significant combat, likely preceded or accompanied by artillery fire”, they write. “By the end of the day on August 8, many Russian sources had updated their claims to report that Russian forces retain control over Kozachi Laheri, having pushed Ukrainian forces back to the shoreline, and that small arms skirmishes are occurring in shoreline areas near Kozachi Laheri and other east bank settlements.”
There have been a number of attempts by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnirpo river which has been established as the dividing line between the warring nations since Ukraine’s successful offensive in Kherson last autumn.
In June, a raid was executed by Ukraine’s elite 73rd Marine Special Operations unit but the latest landing appears to have been the most significant of recent months despite doubts over the sustainability of the Ukrainian positions.
At least 45 people injured in factory explosion near Moscow but cause remains unclear
Reuters reports that at least 45 people have been injured in an explosion near Moscow, up from an earlier figure of at least 30 people.
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.
Updated
More than 30 people injured in explosion near Moscow at factory said to supply military
An explosion has occurred at the Zagorsk optical-mechanical plant at Sergiyev Posad, near Moscow. Russian media is reporting that there are at least 30 people injured, and there may be people trapped under rubble. 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.
Regarding the explosion at a factory near Moscow.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 9, 2023
Russian media rushed to say that it was pyrotechnics that exploded. But if we look at videos of pyrotechnics exploding, we'll see that the explosion on the plant doesn't look like pyrotechnics.
The factory was used to… pic.twitter.com/aFzgbs0AmV
A huge explosion was reported in Zagorskiy Optical and Mechanical plant near Moscow
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) August 9, 2023
The factory had contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is part of Shvabe Holding, which is producing sights, thermal imagers, laser rangefinders, and other similar products.… pic.twitter.com/BTPMd8cxvy
Russian state-owned news service RIA has cited Moscow oblast governor Andrey Vorobyov as saying that 19 people have been hospitalised.
Russia will build up forces at its western borders, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told the collegium of the defence ministry on Wednesday, according to the ministry.
Reuters reports Shoigu said Nato-member Poland had already announced plans to strengthen its military, and he expected significant Nato forces and weaponry to be deployed in Finland, which has just joined the US-led western alliance.
Summary of the day so far …
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.
Updated
Reuters has a quick snap that Poland will send 2,000 troops to the Belarus border to support the border guard. It cited deputy interior minister Maciej Wąsik.
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 posted an operational update on Telegram to say:
As of now, the main direction of the enemy offensive remains the Kupiansk direction. Here the enemy has formed an offensive group and is trying to move forward, but without success. The operational situation is complex, but controlled.
The enemy has been conducting unsuccessful offensives in the Sinkivka district of the Kharkiv region for several days. The goal of the enemy in the Kupiansk direction is to break through the defence of our troops and go directly to Kupiansk. The intensity of hostilities and enemy shelling is high.
Maliar said that Ukrainian offensive actions continue in the Bakhmut direction, where Russian forces “make constant assaults to try to restore lost positions.”
In the south, Maliar claimed “partial success”, and said “our fighters leave no chance for the enemy to advance and regain lost positions.”
She added:
Both in the east and in the south, the enemy is currently suffering significant losses in personnel, weapons, and equipment. During these days, our defence forces have significantly reduced the offensive and defensive potential of the enemy and prevent him from implementing his plans.
A man is reported to have received a shrapnel wound when “an unidentified object” fell in the village of Kolotilovka in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to governor Vyacheslav Gladkov on Telegram.
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 latest casualties it listed are two children aged 13 and 15 who were injured as a result of rocket fire in Ochakiv district of Mykolaiv region, and a 14-year-old who was wounded as a result of enemy shelling in the city of Kupyansk. Both occurred on 8 August.
This block was amended at 16.05 BST. An earlier version incorrectly stated that 1,594 children had been wounded, conflating the 499 killed and 1,095 wounded into the larger total.
Updated
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.
It quotes the FSB saying the Russian citizen, born in 1980, “gave confessions about cooperation with the special services of Ukraine for the preparation and commission of sabotage and terrorist acts.”
Russia unilaterally annexed Crimea in 2014.
The general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine have this morning 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.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that overnight and this morning Russia has struck three communities in Sumy oblast. The local authority reports no casualties or damage to civil infrastructure.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued its daily intelligence briefing on the war, which today looks at Ukrainian attacks in the Black Sea. It writes about attacks on supply ships, saying:
Although civilian-flagged, MT Sig and MV Sparta IV have long been contracted to ship fuel and military supplies between Russia and Syria.
Since 28 February 2022, Russian military ships have not been able to pass through the Bosphorus, leaving Russian military forces in Syria and the Mediterranean heavily dependent upon Sig, Sparta IV, and a handful of other civilian vessels.
The attacks show that uncrewed surface vessel (USV) operations are increasingly a major component of modern naval warfare and can be turned against the weakest links of Russia’s sea supply lanes.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 09 August 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 9, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/IogZ2lVJHB
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/JKYwx1myAX
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
“Ukrainian forces appear to have conducted a limited raid across the Dnipro River and landed on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast, although it remains unclear whether Ukrainian troops have established an enduring presence on the east bank,” The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says in its latest daily report.
The ISW said that the Russian-installed administration in the oblast, Vladimir Saldo was intentionally downplaying reports of the raid, but also warned that there was a lack of visual evidence of a significant presence of Ukrainian personnel in the area.
More on those secondhand Leopard tanks: a source with direct knowledge of the deal said that the tanks were bought by a “major German defence player”.
Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Tuesday evening that the buyer was arms maker Rheinmetall which planned to prepare most of them for export to Ukraine. The company and the German defence ministry did not comment.
The German-made Leopards were at the centre of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian defence minister Ludivine Dedonder said it considered buying the tanks but accused the firm of trying to make a “huge profit” from the sale. Versluys at the time denied that the Belgian government had approached him.
The clash underlined a predicament faced by western governments trying to find weapons for Ukraine after more than a year of intense warfare – arms they discarded as obsolete are now in high demand, and often owned by private companies.
“The fact that they leave our company proves that we asked for a fair market price and someone was more than happy to take them,” Versluys said in a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday, accompanied by a picture of tanks next to a bottle of Ukrainian vodka.
EU country buys 49 secondhand Leopard tanks for Ukraine, arms dealer says
Dozens of secondhand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by a major European country for the Ukrainian army fighting Russia, according to the arms trader who sold them.
Freddy Versluys, CEO of the private defence company OIP Land Systems, told the Guardian that he sold 49 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause. He said he also could not disclose the price. Versluys added it could be up to six months before they were on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Versluys previously bought 50 Leopard 1 tanks for €37,000 each (about £29,600) that the Belgian government decommissioned in 2014 as part of a wider trend among western countries of cutting defence spending.
Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers
In case you missed this last night: Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of targeting rescue workers during the attack on Pokrovsk.
Moscow struck residential buildings with two consecutive missiles, with Ukrainian officials saying that the first one was aimed at drawing rescue workers to the scene and the second one at wounding or killing them.
The strikes Monday evening in the downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk killed at least nine people, Zelenskiy said, including an emergency official. The number of injured climbed to 82, most of them police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who rushed to assist residents, Ukrainian officials said.
Emergency crews were still removing rubble on Tuesday. The Iskander missiles, which have an advanced guidance system that increases their accuracy, hit within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Updated
Drones shot down over Moscow are latest in series of attacks
Until a series of drone attacks in recent months, Moscow, Russia’s capital, had not been a target during the conflict, AFP reports.
On July 30, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that “war” was coming to Russia, and in particular, to the country’s “symbolic centres and military bases”.
An office block in the capital’s main business district was recently struck twice within days by debris from a downed drone attack. Russia’s defence ministry said Thursday it had downed seven drones - also near Kaluga, which is less than 200 kilometres (124 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Updated
Two drones shot down near Moscow, says Russia
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.
He said one drone was downed in the Domodedovo area on the southern outskirts of the city, while the second was shot down in the Minsk highway area, west of the capital.
“Air defence destroyed two UAVs,” the Russia’s defence ministry said, adding there were no reported casualties or damage.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top story this morning: two Ukrainian combat drones headed for Moscow were shot down, Russian officials said on Wednesday.
The attempted attack comes a day after the death toll from strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk rose to nine. The attack is also the latest in series of drone attacks near Moscow, after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that the war was “coming to Russia”.
“Two combat drones’ attempt to fly into the city was recorded. Both were shot down by air defence,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.
He said one drone was downed in the Domodedovo area on the southern outskirts of the city, while the second was shot down in the Minsk highway area, west of the capital. Kyiv is yet to comment, but Ukraine rarely claims responsibility for attacks on Russia.
We’ll have more shortly.
Elsewhere meanwhile:
Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles – the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The strikes on Monday evening in the downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk killed nine people and wounded more than 80 others, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address. According to Ukrainian authorities, one of those killed was an emergency official, and most of those wounded were police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who rushed to assist residents.
Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko put the number of wounded at 81, including 39 civilians, 31 policemen, seven employees of the state emergency service and four military personnel. Two children were among those injured. Donetsk is one of the regions of Ukraine that Russia partially occupies and claimed to unilaterally annexe late in 2022.
Ukrainian special services have foiled an attempt by Russian hackers to penetrate the Ukrainian armed forces’ combat information system, the SBU security service said on Tuesday. “As a result of complex measures, SBU exposed and blocked the illegal actions of Russian hackers who tried to penetrate Ukrainian military networks and organise intelligence gathering,” Reuters reported the SBU as saying.
Roman Starovoyt, governor of Kursk in Russia, has claimed a Ukraine “kamikaze” drone fell at the Gornalsky St Nicholas monastery in the region, injuring a child.
Zelenskiy said in a video published on Tuesday that Ukraine would fight back against Russia in the Black Sea to ensure its waters were not blockaded and it could import and export grain and other goods. The comments, published on the president’s website, come days after Ukrainian maritime drones packed with explosives damaged a Russian warship near a major Russian port and struck a Russian tanker.
Reuters has reported that dozens of ships are backed up around critical Danube arteries close to Ukraine’s river gateways days after Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian ports. Shipping data showed at least 30 ships anchored around Musura Bay in the Black Sea, which leads into a channel that links up with Izmail further along the waterway.
Britain has said it is targeting Vladimir Putin’s access to foreign military supplies by imposing 25 new sanctions on individuals and businesses. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said: “Today’s landmark sanctions will further diminish Russia’s arsenal and close the net on supply chains propping up Putin’s now-struggling defence industry. There is nowhere for those sustaining Russia’s military machine to hide.”
The Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, labelled Russia an “aggressor” as he marked 15 years since the two countries fought a war over a breakaway region. “We have known for a long time that Russia was an aggressor, we know that and the whole world knows that.”
Putin signed a decree suspending Russia’s double taxation agreements with what it calls “unfriendly countries” – those that have imposed sanctions on Moscow – the state news agency RIA reported.
Two men were injured and hospitalised after Russian shelling in Kozacha Lopan in Kharkiv region, said Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of the region.
Interfax reported that a tanker hit in the Kerch strait by Ukrainian drones had a metal patch welded to its damaged hull and was ready to be towed to a shipyard.
Updated
