Odesa strikes leave three injured

Ukraine’s city of Odesa has endured another night of Russian drone and missile attacks, the latest of which have left at least three people injured, according to local officials.

The governor of the region on the Black Sea said falling rocket fragment had resulted in fires breaking out.

“Windows in buildings were blown out by the blast wave,” Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s armed forces command in the south said that its air defence forces destroyed all 15 drones and eight Kalibr-type sea-based missiles that Russia launched at the port.

The nearby port city of Mykolaiv was also targeted, with air alarms sounding throughout the night.

Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and naval base, has been repeatedly attacked with missiles and drones since Moscow last month pulled out of a UN backed agreement that allowed grain to be safely shipped from Ukraine’s ports.

Firefighters work to put out a fire in a supermarket after a Russian drone and missile strike on Odesa. Photograph: Defence Forces Southern Ukraine/Reuters

Opening summary

Hello, I’m Christine Kearney and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s defence ministry says its air defence systems destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod border region, which has been plagued by unclaimed attacks since the start of the conflict.

“There are no casualties and no damage,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, according to Reuters, who could not independently verify the report.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian military officials said on Saturday that Kyiv’s forces had made progress in the south, capturing unspecified territories and claiming partial success near the key village of Robotyne on the front line in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

In other key developments:

• Ukrainian forces fired three missiles at the bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, forcing Russian authorities to cover the structure in white smoke to deter further attacks and prompting a furious threat of retaliation.

• The Russian-appointed head of Crimea said Russian air defence was able to shoot down two missiles in the first attack, and then another one, and that there was no damage. Footage and photos show smoke billowing up from the bridge, which Russian officials said was a smokescreen for workers. An explosion in October shut down both the road bridge and rail bridge for months.

• The Russian foreign ministry decried Ukraine’s attacks on the Crimean Bridge as “terrorist attacks” on “civilian infrastructure” – even though Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion, conducting air strikes on power grids, dams, parks, schools, private homes, churches and hotels.

• The attacks on the Crimean Bridge took place hours after Russian forces said they had downed 20 Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea. This comes amid a new campaign of drone strikes targeting Moscow in recent days as Kyiv works to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of Russian elites and others who would prefer to ignore the invasion.

• A civilian was killed and six people were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl, following intense Ukrainian shelling in Donetsk, including cluster munitions, a Russian-installed official in the eastern Ukrainian region said on Saturday.

Ukrainian soldiers fire a mortar towards Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region. Photograph: LIBKOS/AP

• Two people were injured by Russian forces today in the Kherson oblast, where “the shelling has not stopped since morning”, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. A 70-year-old man suffered multiple injuries after a projectile hit a residential building in Poniativka, while a 72-year-old man was seriously injured from explosives dropped from a drone in Odradokamyanka, Prokudin said.

• A Su-30 fighter jet crashed during a training flight in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, killing the two pilots on board, according to the RIA news agency.

• Two people were killed in Russian attacks in the Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv oblasts. A police officer was killed and 12 people were injured in a guided Russian aerial bomb attack on Orikhov, while an elderly woman was killed early on Saturday morning due to shelling by Russian troops on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi village in Kupiansk district.

• In the village of Lazurne in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson oblast, residents will not be able to receive medicines like insulin or humanitarian aid if they do not apply for a Russian passport.

• Odesa, a Black Sea city famed for its beautiful shoreline, has opened several beaches for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Throughout the past year, suspicious objects and mines were routinely washing up along the coast, creating a hazard for beachgoers.

Ukrainian service members install a national flag on Snake (Zmiinyi) Island. Photograph: Ukrainian Armed Forces/Reuters

• Ukrainian border guards placed a new sign on Snake Island this weekend, recalling the early hours of Russia’s invasion when a comrade on the strategic Black Sea outcrop used a choice phrase to refuse to surrender to a warship. “The next border sign will be installed in our Ukrainian Crimea after its liberation by the defence forces of Ukraine,” a uniformed man said, standing before a post painted blue and yellow like the country’s flag, in a video shared on Facebook by the head of the border service, Serhiy Deineko.

• Russia sentenced activist Alexander Bakhtin to six years in jail for his criticism of Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine, a rights group and his allies said.

A summary of today’s developments

• Explosions were reported in Kerch near the Crimean Bridge that connects Russian-occupied Crimea with Russia. The Russian-appointed head of Crimea said Russian air defence was able to shoot down two missiles in the first attack, and then another one, and that there was no damage. Footage and photos show smoke billowing up from the bridge, which Russian officials said was a smokescreen for workers. This comes after an explosion in October shut down both the road bridge and rail bridge for months.

• The Russian foreign ministry decried Ukraine’s attacks on the Crimean Bridge as “terrorist attacks” on “civilian infrastructure” – even though Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion, conducting air strikes on power grids, dams, parks, schools, private homes, churches and hotels.

• The attacks on the Crimean Bridge took place hours after Russian forces said they downed 20 Ukrainian drones targeting the Crimean peninsula. This comes amid a new campaign of drone strikes targeting Moscow in recent days as Kyiv works to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion.

• Two people were injured by Russian forces today in the Kherson oblast, where “the shelling has not stopped since morning”, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. A 70-year-old man suffered multiple injuries after a projectile hit a residential building in Poniativka, while a 72-year-old man was seriously injured from explosives dropped from a drone in Odradokamyanka, Prokudin said.

• A Su-30 fighter jet crashed during a training flight in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, killing the two pilots on board, according to the RIA news agency.

• Two people have been killed in Russian attacks in the Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv oblasts. A police officer was killed and 12 people were injured in a guided Russian aerial bomb attack on Orikhov, while an elderly woman was killed early on Saturday morning due to shelling by Russian troops on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi village in Kupiansk district.

• In the village of Lazurne in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson oblast, residents will not be able to receive medicines like insulin or humanitarian aid if they do not apply for a Russian passport.

• Odesa, a Black Sea city famed for its beautiful shoreline, has opened several beaches for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Throughout the past year, suspicious objects and mines were routinely washing up along the coast, creating a hazard for beachgoers.

Explosions heard in Kyiv

Daniel Boffey is in Ukraine for the Guardian:

There have been four major explosions in the last few minutes in Kyiv. The blasts could be heard across the Ukrainian capital.

The source is as yet unconfirmed, but the official Telegram channel of the country’s air force had warned shortly before of the launch of Kh-47M2 ballistic missiles: “Stay in cover,” it wrote.

Car alarms are ringing out and people are running to their bunkers.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on Telegram: “Explosions in the city, stay in the shelters please.”

The city’s military authorities said their anti-rocket systems were working.

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.

Russian air defences shot down two drones targeting Moscow in the early hours of Thursday morning, the city’s mayor has said.

In the latest attack on the Russian capital, a drone was shot down in the Kaluga region south-west of Moscow and a second was shot down on Moscow’s central ring road, Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.

Meanwhile, Russian forces also downed 11 drones near Sevastopol, the city in Crimea which serves as Russia’s Black Sea navy base, the RIA news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying.

Russia usually blames such attacks on Ukraine, which usually refrains from commenting. However, drone strikes targeting Moscow and Russian occupied Crimea have recently increased in frequency and last month Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that “the war is returning to the territory of Russia”.

In other developments:

• An explosion on the grounds of a factory north of Moscow that previously made optical equipment for the Russian military killed one person, wounded 60 others and left at least eight people unaccounted for, officials said. No official explanation was given for the explosion in the city of Sergiev Posad, which produced a tall plume of black smoke and added to jitters over recent night-time drone attacks on Moscow.

• 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.

• Two people were killed and seven injured in an apparent missile attack by Russia on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian officials said Russia targeted a residential area and a video posted by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed smoke billowing from burning and badly damaged buildings next to a church.

• Thirty secondhand Leopard I battle tanks are to be refurbished by the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall at the orders of the German government and exported to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed. The tanks are part of a fleet of 49 vehicles that the Düsseldorf-based company bought from the Belgian private defence company OIP Land Systems.

• Germany and Ukraine have also agreed on the supply of two additional Patriot air defence missile systems to Kyiv, Zelenskiy said in his latest evening address. “This will definitely bring us closer to creating a full-fledged air shield for Ukraine. This will help people, cities, villages,” Zelenskiy said.

• German prosecutors meanwhile arrested an officer from the military procurement agency on suspicion of passing secret information to Russian intelligence, the federal prosecutor’s office 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.

• The US and Canada imposed new sanctions on Belarus over its human rights abuses and support for the war in Ukraine. The new US measures include action against the state carrier Belavia and target a tobacco mogul close to president Alexander Lukashenko as well as 101 officials accused of subverting democracy.

• 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”.

• One person was killed by Ukrainian shelling in the border village of Gorkovsky, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border, said. Belgorod has suffered frequent artillery and drone attacks in the last few months, and in May saw an armed cross-border
  incursion by a raiding party purportedly consisting of Russian nationals.

• Moscow accused Poland and Finland of threatening its security on Wednesday and vowed a response to multiplying “threats” on Russia’s western frontier from Nato members. “Threats to the military security of the Russian Federation have multiplied in the western and northwestern strategic directions,” defence minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with military officials. Those risks “require a timely and adequate response,” he added.

• Warsaw earlier announced it would send an additional 2,000 troops to its eastern border to join the 2,000 soldiers already stationed there, as it strengthens its border with Belarus after it became a new base for the Russian Wagner mercenary group. Last week Poland said Belarusian helicopters had violated its airspace and has warned of provocations from Belarus.

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.

Moscow launches missiles on Pokrovsk, killing eight

Two Russian missile strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, including on a residential building, killed at least eight people and wounded many more, a regional governor said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Moscow had struck an “ordinary residential building”, publishing footage of a typical Soviet-era five-storey building that had its top floor destroyed. Ukraine said rescue operations were ongoing.

The second missile hit the city 40 minutes after the first, the governor said, killing the first responders.

Pokrovsk lies 70 kilometres (43 miles) north-west of the city of Donetsk, held by Russia, and 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the frontline.

The head of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the strikes damaged two “private sector residential buildings, a hotel, catering establishments, shops and administrative buildings.”

Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat has appeared on Ukrainian television attempting to clarify media reports that missiles are fired into Ukraine from Belarus, by saying that while Russian planes are freely using Belarus airspace, missiles are being launched from within Russia.

Ukrinform reports he told viewers :

It [the missile] was launched from a MiG-31K aircraft from the Tambov area. As it flies along the route, at the crossroads of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, it enters Belarusian airspace, and there are no problems for the Russians here.

If a missile flies and enters Belarusian airspace, it appears somewhere over Belarus and flies in the direction of the Khmelnytskyi region, accordingly the person on duty will write ‘A Kinzhal is flying from the direction of Belarus.’ That’s all, and there is no need to manipulate the headlines that missiles are flying from Belarus.

Russia has been actively using Belarusian airspace since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Their troops, planes, Wagner forces are there, so there’s nothing new here.

Russia attacks Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones, says Kyiv

Russia launched a multi-wave overnight attack on Ukraine, using 70 air assault weapons, including cruise and hypersonic missiles and Iranian-made drones, Kyiv’s air force has said.

Reuters reports that the air force said Ukraine’s air defence destroyed 30 out of 40 cruise missiles and all 27 of the Shahed drones that Russia launched overnight.

In total, in several waves of attacks, from the evening of 5 August to the morning of 6 August 2023, the enemy used 70 means of air assault weapons.

It was not immediately clear whether there was any damage from the attack or what happened to the 10 cruise missiles that were not shot down. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said one of the key targets for Russia’s overnight attack was the Khmelnytskiy region. Russia had earlier targeted the Starokostiantyniv military airfield in the Khmelnytskiy region at the end of July.

Ukraine claims responsibility for attack on Russian tanker near Crimea

Ukraine has taken responsibility for the drone strike on a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, according to a security service source.

“Overnight the [Ukrainian Security Service] SBU blew up the ‘SIG’, a large oil tanker of the Russian Federation that was transporting fuel for Russian troops,” the source told Agence France-Presse.

It said the operation, which involved a naval drone and explosives, was carried out jointly with the Ukrainian navy in the country’s territorial waters.

The source described the targeted vessel as “one of the most powerful oil tankers of the Russian Federation”. “It was well-loaded with fuel, so the ‘fireworks’ could be seen from afar,” they said.

Russian authorities said the SIG had been hit late last night local time south of the Kerch Strait. The oil and chemical tanker is under US sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria supporting the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency said there had been no casualties in the attack, citing the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre of Novorossiysk.