We are now closing this blog. The report on the devastating Odesa attack is here. You can also read our correspondent Pjotr Sauer on the foregone conclusions over the Russian elections.
Summary of the day …
It has just gone 6pm in Kyiv, and 7pm in Moscow. Here are the headlines …
A Russian ballistic missile attack hit civilian infrastructure in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa on Friday, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 70 in Moscow’s deadliest attack in weeks, Ukrainian officials said. Two Russian Iskander-M missiles fired from the Moscow-occupied peninsula of Crimea struck a residential area in Odesa, Oleh Kiper, the region’s governor said on national television. A medic and rescuer were killed by a second missile after rushing to the scene to treat people hurt in the initial strike, he added.
114 million Russians are eligible to vote in a presidential contest that began on Friday, and will end on Sunday with an almost inevitable victory for president Vladimir Putin. He is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova were barred from running by the electoral commission.
Voting is also taking place in the four occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia claims to have annexed despite its forces only partially controlling the territory. Ukraine has said the election there is illegal. Speaking at a meeting of Russia’s security council, Putin accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the voting process and people in the border regions with “a number of criminal armed actions”. Putin said the attempts to break into Russia did not succeed. He said the acts would not go unpunished.
The election has not been without incident so far. Authorities in St Petersburg “stopped a woman from throwing a molotov cocktail at a polling station sign” and in Moscow a woman was arrested after appearing to pour ink into a ballot box.
Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz, France’s president Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk met in Berlin. In a public briefing they promised Europe was united and determined in its support for Ukraine, and said they would use frozen Russian assets to purchase more weapons for Ukraine on the world market.
The regional governor of Belgorod announced on Telegram that one person has been killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian city of Grayvoron in the region. Earlier Russia claimed it had thwarted attempts by Ukraine to stage cross-border raids into the territory, while a senior Ukrainian intelligence official claimed that Kursk and Belgorod regions were “active combat zones”.
Ukraine claims it shot down all 27 “Shahed” drones with which the Russian army attacked overnight, however there were missile strikes in Kharkiv, Poltava and Donetsk regions, and two people were reported killed by shelling in Sumy region.
Ukraine claims to have attacked an oil refinery in Kaluga region with drones, causing damage. Russian authorities said air defences had shot down the drones, and there was “no infrastructure damage or casualties”.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday that a Russian national had been detained in Moscow on suspicion of treason and had confessed to assembling and launching drones on behalf of Ukraine.
The EU is set to agree sanctions on several people seen as involved in the mistreatment and death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony, three diplomats said on Friday.
