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Ukrainian officials and a grieving mother have called for punishments over the shooting down of flight MH17, which killed 298 people, to go all the way to the top of Russia’s chain of command. Commenting on today’s ruling by a Dutch court that three men were guilty and sentenced to life in jail for the attack, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Holding to account masterminds is crucial too, as the feeling of impunity leads to new crimes”.
This was also the view of Silene Fredriksz, whose 23-year-old son Bryce was killed in the attack, and who told the BBC: “Putin has never been stopped, and still has not been stopped. And he will not stop until he is stopped,” adding that she hopes “the world wakes up now”.
Advisor to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Anton Gerashchenko, said: “The main culprit is Putin. His trial and sentence await him”.
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MH17 was shot down in 2014 (Image: GETTY)
The international deal allowing Ukraine to export its grain via the Black Sea in order to tackle global food shortages has been extended by four months.
However, Russia has claimed that its own needs are not being sufficiently met, as it seeks to export ammonia supplies.
As a key ingredient in fertiliser, ammonia is also vital for ensuring crops can be grown.
The agreement was initially reached in July and enables a protective transit for Ukrainian ships to leave from three ports.
The country, which has been under attack from Putin’s forces since February, is a prominent producer of grain and oilseeds.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny claimed that he has been permanently moved to solitary confinement.
The 46-year-old jailed leader accused Russia of “bestiality” and manually controlling his “entire incarceration”.
He stated that he was moved to the confinement cell days before a planned family visit, and was aimed at silencing him
Mr Navalny, the most prominent domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin, is already serving more than 11 years for fraud, contempt of court and parole violations, all of which he rejects as trumped-up charges intended to silence him.
A post shared by Mr Navalny stated that he has already being held in solitary confinement, also called a “punishment cell”, but he could only be held there for 15 days.
But in a series of tweets on Thursday, the high-profile Kremlin critic said he had been accused by prison officials of being an “egregious offender” and moved to a “cell-type room”.
A Russian soldier became a victim of friendly fire as he and other members of his battalion tried to sabotage boats on the river while they retreated from Kherson, eastern Ukraine.
The group was egging each other on to throw a grenade and shoot multiple rows of boats on the Dnipro River when gunfire began to explode around them.
The soldiers began to scream at fellow servicemen to stop shooting as they attempted to identify themselves as members of the Russian Army.
In the footage, one of the soldiers can be heard saying: “Throw it, come on, who has a normal grenade? Not in a bundle.”
The other Russian soldier took the pin out of the grenade and threw it at boats attached to the river deck a short distance away from theirs.
His fellow serviceman added: “Excellent! Shoot the small one, shoot the engine.”
Moments later, he can be seen picking up his rifle and starting to shoot multiple bullets at the boats.
Shots can be heard ringing out in the opposite direction as a group of Russian soldiers already across the river started targeting them after seemingly confusing them for Ukrainian troops.
A state-controlled television host has blasted suggestions that the Kremlin should launch a mass nationalisation of Russian infrastructure amid fears Moscow’s economy would collapse.
During a debate on the Kremlin-owned network Russia One, the anchor erupted at the prospect of widespread nationalisation as he declared the country would simply stop operating.
The shocking broadcast has highlighted an internal realisation within Russia that the state has relied largely on Western technologies to facilitate domestic industries.
This follows declarations from President Putin that the Kremlin had plans to further distance itself from the “collective West,” which he has blamed for the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Kherson in Ukraine came to an end after Putin’s forces announced their withdrawal from the Ukrainian city.
However, the remains of the horror episodes of the time when Ukrainian civilians were put into torture chambers by the Russian army still haunt the city.
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces when the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February.
However, in just a few weeks, the Ukrainian military recaptured territory in the north of the region and pushed as far as 30km (19 miles) south along the Dnieper, threatening to trap Russian troops.
A tweet shared by the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine displays a photo of the wall in one of the torture chambers in Kherson.
The wall has been scribbled by the civilians pleading “strength” from God as they rot in the torture chambers.
Russian soldiers are growing furious at Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin for the faulty equipment being provided with broken helmets and military gear.
Videos have emerged from Ukraine with troops rebelling against the army and others complaining about the lack of safety given by their equipment.
The latest footage from the battleground shows a plastic-like helmet through which a bullet could kill a soldier.
Filming his military gear, a mobilised Russian soldier said: “Here’s a plate, we took it apart. We don’t know what material this is, looks like ceramics.
“This is some rubber. Here it was pierced with a knife. A hit of about 50kg.
“[It] goes through with a knife. It is not marked. No markings.
“This is what the new one looks like. The boys were saying they shot it, it goes right through it.”
Radio host Ian Dale challenged Tory MP Ben Bradley for seemingly advocating for the “assassination” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tory MP Ben Bradley claimed that he would hold Vladimir Putin to account by sending in the SAS with sniper rifles and argued that most of the international community wanted the Russian leader gone.
Mr Dale explained to the Tory MP that he should not advocate for such actions as a member of Parliament, and claimed that Mr Bradley’s heart was ruling his head.
Mr Bradley stuck to his word and stated that things would be very different if Putin was not in power.
Kate, the Princess of Wales, shared adorable moments with Ukrainian children today during her visit to the Ukrainian Community Centre in Reading. The Princess held a five-year-old girl on her lap and the kid gave her a drawing that read ‘Kate I love you’.
The Princess of Wales also comforted a weeping Ukrainian mother and said “I wish we could do more” as she met families who have fled the war.
Kate toured the centre and paid tribute to the “bravery” of the displaced families as they described their experiences and the support they have received from the Berkshire organisation.
Galina Bolebrukh, 39, who arrived in the UK with her mother Iryne and three-year-old son Renat, wept as she told the princess how she fled Ukraine with her family and a few clothes.
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Some parts of Ukraine are predicted to reach freezing temperatures during the winter, making the coming months a particularly concerning prospect for many as Russia attacks civilian infrastructure.
Kyiv and its surrounding area is predicted to reach between -0.4 and -1.2 degrees.
Meanwhile the regions closes to Russia, which include the fiercely fought regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, will reach as low as -1.9 degrees.
A missile that landed in Poland near the Ukrainian border as Russia launched over 100 missiles into Ukraine’s cities has left Polish villagers at the scene fearful for the future.
Anna Grabinska, a Warsaw woman who has extended help to a Ukrainian mother of two small children said: “The thing that I dread most in life is war. I don’t want to ever experience that.”
One of the men killed in Przewodow was actively helping refugees from Ukraine who had found shelter in the area.
NATO and Polish leaders say the missile was most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.
Now shaken Poles fear for their future, and political commentators warn that the strike should not be allowed to hurt relations with Ukraine, which have recently grown closer through Poland’s solidarity.
“There is fear, anxiety for what will happen the next night or the next day,” villager Kinga Kancir said.
Ireland’s premier Micheal Martin has cast doubt on whether there is a list of Irish officials who are banned by Russia, calling the announcement “classic Russian propaganda”.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that 52 “key representatives” from Ireland had been placed on a sanction list for expressing what it claimed was Russophobic sentiment.
Six senior politicians were named – including Taoiseach Mr Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney – but the Kremlin claimed there were 46 others.
Asked if he knew was on the full list, Mr Martin said: “I’m not sure there’s a list of 52 out there. I haven’t got a readout from the meeting.
“There may not be a list of 52 drawn up. They’re saying there’s a list of 52, we haven’t seen that.
“But the key point is the nature of the action by the Russian Federation in sanctioning the Taoiseach of Ireland, and the Tanaiste and other ministers, it’s classic misinformation.
“I think it’s designed to try to undermine Ireland’s bona fides and the stance we’ve taken in relation to the war, the stance we’ve taken at European Union level, at the United Nations – where we haven’t pulled our punches in relation to the illegality and the immorality of this war – and that’s not to Russia’s liking.”
The missile launch into Poland’s border with Ukraine demonstrated Russia’s “readiness to lie and use anything” to forward their “agenda”, an expert has said.
Stepan Stepanenko, a senior research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, has said that, in spite of whether or not the missile was launch by Russia, the country was ultimately the reason why it “went astray” and found its way into Poland.
He explained that major allies of Ukraine outside of Eastern Europe failed to make strong, decisive statements of support for Poland in the wake of the crisis.
This silence, he says, will give Russia the “green light” to violate neighbouring territories.
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Sir John Sawers claimed that he did not believe that China would make the same mistake Putin had made by invading Ukraine.
The former MI6 head explained that it was possible for China to try and annex Taiwan but it was unlikely to happen as he explained that the Chinese president had seen the power of the global community’s sanctions which have been placed on Russia.
The former head of Secret Intelligence claimed that he was reassured by President Xi Jinping’s willingness to meet with US President Joe Biden earlier this week ahead of the G20.
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Two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian separatist were convicted by a Dutch court today for the murders of 298 people who died in the downing of flight MH17 in 2014.
One Russian was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.
Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said evidence presented by prosecutors at a trial that lasted more than two years proved that the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down by a Buk missile fired by pro-Moscow Ukrainian fighters on July 17, 2014. The crash scattered wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.
Steenhuis described the torment of family members who had to wait for the remains of their relatives. “A piece of bone from a hand. A piece of leg or a foot. In two cases, no parts of a loved one returned.”
The three men – Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko — did not attend the trial.
The court ruled that they worked together to bring the Buk missile system from a Russian military base into Ukraine and bring it into position for its launch.
Strategic policy expert Prof Alexey Muraviev suggested Vladimir Putin’s is to drain Western countries “militarily and emotionally.” The Curtin University academic claimed that Putin wanted the West to be limited when it came to supplying Ukraine with weapons supplies.
Prof Muraviev argued the Russian leader could be hoping for the winter to shift the West’s focus into supporting their own citizens through an energy shortage rather than on providing Kyiv with military aid.
Prof Muraviev told Sky News Australia: “I mean Putin is driving… Putin’s strategy in fighting this war is very clear.
“He wants to buy time, he wants to drain Ukraine, he wants to drain the West.
“He wants to drain the West militarily because there are growing problems with how much it can continue to supply Ukraine.
“Quite a few Western militaries are facing the reality that they need to start replenishing their arsenal.
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The expert suggest Putin was intentionally buying time to drain the West of resources (Image: Getty)
Relatives of those killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014 gathered at a Dutch courtroom today before the verdicts in the trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian charged in the aviation disaster.
The verdict comes more than eight years after the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was blown out of the sky on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew, amid a conflict between pro-Russia rebels and Ukrainian forces, scattering wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.
“The truth on the table — that is the most important thing,” said Anton Kotte, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and his 6-year-old grandson when MH17 was shot down. He said the hearing was a “D-Day” for relatives.
Robbert van Heijningen, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, called the downing “an act of barbarism” that he could never put behind him, regardless of the verdict.
He said: “I call it a stone in my heart, and stones … don’t disappear.”
Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities again toda as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv
At least four people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded in the drone and missile attacks, including one which hit a residential building, authorities said.
The Kremlin’s forces have suffered a series of setbacks on the ground, the latest being the loss of the southern city of Kherson. In the face of those defeats, Russia has increasingly resorted to aerial onslaughts aimed at energy infrastructure and other civilian targets in parts of Ukraine it doesn’t hold.
Thursday’s salvo appeared to be on a lesser scale than the nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people earlier this week. Tuesday’s strikes were described by Ukraine’s energy minister as the biggest barrage yet of the nearly nine-month-old invasion against the battered power grid.
A wartime agreement that allowed grain shipments from Ukraine to resume and helped temper global food prices will be extended by 120 days, the United Nations and other parties to the deal said Thursday.
The initiative established a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address Russian and Ukrainian concerns that cargo vessels traveling off Ukraine’s southern coast might carry weapons or launch attacks.
The deal that Ukraine and Russia signed in separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey on July 22 was due to expire on Saturday. Russia confirmed the extension but said it expected progress on removing obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers.
The news the deal would continue came amid a new barrage of Russian airstrikes that smashed into energy infrastructure, apartment buildings and an industrial site in Ukraine. At least four people were killed and 11 others wounded in drone and missile strikes around the country, authorities said.
The websites of four local authorities have been apparently been targeted by a cyberattack by Russian hackers.
The NoName05716 collective claims to have taken down four local council websites in UK including Airlie, East Cambridgeshire, Stirling, and Leicestershire.
The Princess of Wales has arrived at Reading Ukrainian Community Centre to meet displaced families from the eastern European country.
Kate will chat with families being supported by the centre in Berkshire and hear their stories, and later join children taking part in an art session.
The monthly art workshops allow the Ukrainian children to have fun, build friendships and express their emotions and experiences through a creative outlet.
The centre is home to the Berkshire branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the largest representative body for Ukrainians and those of Ukrainian descent in the UK.
Prince and Princess of Wales (Image: GETTY)
Mr Sunak said: “We are delivering a decisive response almost all G 20. Members called out Russia’s actions declaring that today’s era must not be one of war.
“We will work together to uphold international law and the United Nations Charter and we will act to protect our collective economic security the G20 agreed to use all available tools to support the global economy and ensure financial stability.
“That means international financial institutions mobilising more resources to support developing countries.
“It means continuing to call out those who exploit their lending power to create debt traps for emerging economies, and it means tackling the causes of rising inflation, head on, including by delivering fiscal sustainability.”
Mr Sunak added: “During the bombardment of Ukraine on Tuesday, an explosion took place in eastern Poland. The investigation into this incident is ongoing and it has our full support as we have
“But the Polish and American presidents say it is possible that the explosion was caused by a Ukrainian munition which was deployed in self defence.
“And whether or not this proves to be the case, no blame can be placed on a country trying to defend itself against the blame belongs solely to Russia.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, speaking in the Commons after his return from the G20 summit in Bali, has said Russia has “shown its barbarity” in Ukraine.
He told MPs: “President Zelinsky addressed the G20 with a plan to stop the war. Russia launched over 80 separate missile strikes on Ukraine.
“The targets were innocent people and civilian infrastructure that aim to cast the population into darkness and cold.
“Once again, Russia has shown its barbarity and given the lie to any claim that they are interested in peace.”
An engineer at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, has been arrested by the Russian special services after being accused of helping Ukrainian forces to shell the facility.
State-run news agency RIA claimed the man had admitted his culpability, quoting him as saying of an engineer at the plant: “As the Russian military entered the territory of Energodar and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, I called him and said that the Russian military and equipment were on the territory of Energodar and the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.”
The man claimed to have been told by the Kyiv special services to report on Russian forces on the territory of the ZNPP.
After that, he told representatives of Ukraine that the Russian servicemen were carrying out a check-and-pass regime at the station, disclosed their locations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
There is no independent corroboration of RIA’s version of events
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (Image: GETTY)
Harrowing pictures of a Russian “torture dungeon” in liberated Kherson have been released by Ukraine – with gas masks and bottles of unidentified liquid among the items discovered.
The disturbing discovery was made during a patrol of the city by Ukraine’s SBU secret service and national police officers, who were apparently tipped off by locals.
“Local patriots” who “refused to cooperate with the enemy” were interrogated at the facility, the Ukrainian government said
A spokesman added: “Kherson residents were interrogated and brutally tortured.
“During the inspection, torture law enforcement officers found objects that directly indicate signs of torture.”
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Gas masks found inside the apparent torture dungeon (Image: Will Stewart)
Massive blackouts that temporarily hit more than a half-dozen cities across Moldova have highlighted the impact Russia’s war in Ukraine is having on Europe’s poorest country.
The power outages happened Tuesday as the Russian military pounded infrastructure targets across Ukraine, which borders Moldova. Less than a week earlier, the European Union pledged £218millio (€250 million) to help the former Soviet republic tackle a severe energy crisis after Russia halved its natural gas supply.
Moldova became a candidate for EU membership in June, on the same day neighboring Ukraine did.
Speaking after Russia’s latest missile strikes caused the electricity to go out across the border, Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said: “Every deadly bomb dropped on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure has direct consequences for the people of our country.”
Ukrainian soldiers are shown rescuing a tiny puppy in a heartwarming clip uploaded to Twitter.
The small dog is shown being passed to a man in combat fatigures sitting on an armoured car.
The footage is captioned: “Every life matters.”
Russian strikes hit Ukraine’s southern Odesa region and the city of Dnipro for the first time in weeks this morning, and air raid sirens sounded all across the country amid fears that Moscow unleashed another large-scale missile attack.
An infrastructure target was hit on the Odesa region, Governor Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram, warning about the threat of a “massive missile barrage on the entire territory of Ukraine.”
Multiple explosions were also reported in Dnipro, where two infrastructure objects were damaged and at least one person was wounded, according to the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
Air defence systems were operating in the central Kyiv region, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said. Officials in the Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions urged residents to stay in bomb shelters amid the ongoing threat of missile strikes.
Russia has launched a fresh salvo of missiles on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, according to widespread reports.
The Ukraine Front Lines Twitter page posted: “2 cruise missiles were shot down.
“There are no data on victims and destruction, the information is being clarified. This is reported by the Kyiv City Military Administration.”
“#Russia fired around 50 missiles on #Ukraine – some of the missiles are still in the air.
“The head of the #Lviv RMA reported about the explosions in the Stryi district of the Lviv region!”
Ukraine Front Lines is reporting fresh Russian strikes on Kyiv (Image: Twitter)
Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has launched a fund to help rebuild Ukraine which is hoped to be worth $25bn (£21bn).
Mr Forrest and his wife have already committed $500m to the fund, which according to organisers, could eventually grow to $100billion.
Known as the Ukrainian Green Growth Initiative, it plans to invest in primary infrastructure such as energy and telecoms networks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the news, arguing that the money could be used to replace the energy infrastructure that Russia had destroyed.
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Meanwhile, in New York, the US and its Western allies clashed with Russia at the UN Security Council over responsibility for the missile strike
Respondong to US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s insistence that the tragedy was ultimately Russia’s responsibility given its war on Ukraine, Russian counterpart Vassily Nebenzia accused Ukraine and Poland of trying “to provoke a direct clash between Russia and NATO.”
The US and Albania had called for a council update on the situation in Ukraine last week, and the meeting was dominated by Tuesday’s missile strike in Poland that killed two farm workers.
Nebenzia pointed to statements by Ukraine’s president and Polish officials initially indicating Russia was responsible. NATO’s chief and Poland’s president said Wednesday there is no indication it was a deliberate attack, and was likely a Soviet-era projectile launched by Ukraine.
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN Ambassador (Image: GETTY)
Volodymyr Zelensky has dug his heels in over the missile strike which killed two people in Poland on Tuesday, insisting he had “no doubts” the projectile had not originated in Ukraine.
In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, the Ukrainian President sought to pin the blame on Vladimir Putin’s Russia – but NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg yesterday contradicted him by suggesting Kyiv’s air defence missiles were “most likely” to blame.
However, Mr Zelensky said he had been assured by his top commanders that “it wasn’t our missile”, adding that he had “no doubts”.
He also demanded that Ukrainian officials to be permitted to have access to the site, in eastern Poland, and to be part of the investigation.
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