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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.