A Ukrainian drone attack has hit a building in Moscow, Russian officials have said. The city’s airspace has been closed as a result. The Russian defence ministry also claimed a separate attempted assault on its Black Sea fleet.
Friday 18 August 2023 21:47, UK
More than 160,000 Ukrainians came to the UK after the outbreak of war – and many have settled here.
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Staying alert for Russian strikes has become a fact of daily life for many across Ukraine – the whole country was under air raid alerts this lunchtime.
Those sirens do occasionally precede missile strikes, as happened in the Kherson region this afternoon.
The regional prosecutor general’s office says one person was killed and two injured in damage to houses in village near Kherson city.
But rather unusually, prosecutors gave no further details about the incident, nor did they name the village.
One of the main aims of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has been to retake the southern city of Melitopol.
Once home to some 150,000 people, it’s been under Russian control since March 2022.
Its location within touching distance of the Sea of Azov, and almost in the exact centre between two critical cities – Kherson and Mariupol – mean it’s of huge strategic significance.
But after relatively slow progress in a three-month counteroffensive, US officials are reportedly sceptical Ukraine will make it.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US official told the Washington Post that Ukraine is unlikely to reach Melitopol, citing an intelligence report.
The official added that despite the report and limited progress towards Melitopol, Washington believed it was still possible to change the gloomy outlook.
Ukraine is slowly inching towards the Sea of Azov. This week’s victory in the small village of Urozhaine has been trumpeted as a leap forwards – but the fact remains that it was the first settlement Ukraine had reclaimed in 20 days, and it’s still over 90 miles from Melitopol.
We reported at 12.25pm that Russia has decided to ban dozens of Moldovan officials from entering the country, apparently in retaliation for Moldova’s decision to kick out some Russian diplomats over spying allegations.
Similar restrictions have been slapped on British nationals tonight. 54 will be barred from Russian territory, effective immediately.
Among them is Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner back in March, accusing them of illegally deporting children to Russia.
Moscow’s move is in response to British sanctions against Russian citizens and businesses, according to the foreign ministry.
Bans have also been imposed on British defence minister Annabel Goldie, who used to be the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, and the culture secretary Lucy Frazer.
Ros Atkins from the BBC, plus several journalists from the Guardian and the Telegraph have also been added to the ban list.
In the eastern Donetsk region, most of which is under Russian occupation, Ukraine’s counteroffensive involves brutal fighting, inch-by-inch.
The small city of Avdiivka is the latest site of intense warfare.
Its residents are coming to terms with destroyed homes. Its Ukrainian troops are launching anti-tank missiles by the hour.
We reported yesterday afternoon that Russian authorities had opened criminal investigations into Golos, the country’s last remaining independent election monitoring body.
Police raided the homes of 15 officials linked to the watchdog.
A spokesperson for Golos says police seized its members passports, bank cards and other documents. One person was taken to hospital after being stomped on the bank.
Well today, the co-chair of the group has been formally arrested for being involved in an “undesirable organisation”, according to state media.
A lawyer for Grigory Melkonyants says he could face up to six years in prison.
Under existing laws, being involved in a group considered “undesirable” by the state is a criminal offence. Golos has never been formally labelled undesirable, but it was once a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organisations, which was given the label in 2021.
Golos has said the crackdown by authorities is “a form of political pressure and an attempt to stifle our activities in Russia”.
Russians are to head to the polls next March in elections widely expected to hand Vladimir Putin another term. If he wins, he’ll have a mandate until 2030.
It’s next to impossible to know exactly how many troops are being killed or injured in Ukraine.
Kyiv does not publish official figures, and Russia is widely believed to significantly underestimate its figures.
But if US intelligence is to be believed, the number of casualties could be approaching a huge milestone.
US officials have told the New York Times that they estimate nearly 500,000 Ukrainian or Russian troops have been killed or injured in the first 18 months of the war.
Interestingly, Russian casualties are believed to be much higher than Ukraine’s.
The officials said Russia’s casualties are approaching 300,000, including around 120,000 deaths. The Kremlin maintains in its official count that just 6,000 Russians have been killed.
Ukraine, on the other hand, is nearing 200,000 casualties. That’s made up of 70,000 deaths and up to 120,000 injuries.
Yet those figures come with the caveat that Russian troops are understood to outnumber Ukrainians by around three to one. That means Kyiv is losing a higher proportion of its forces.
If you’re just joining us this Friday afternoon, today’s main developments so far have been two separate incidents reported inside Russia.
The first was an overnight drone attack on Moscow, which caused a blast that was reportedly heard across the capital’s business district. Russian officials blamed Ukraine and said they had shot the drone down, but videos show plumes of smoke rising afterwards.
Then hours later, a fire was reported at a cargo terminal in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk – the same port that Ukraine admitted to attacking a couple of weeks ago. Dozens of Russian firefighters were battling to get it under control.
Some other updates to bring you:
We’ve been putting your questions on the war in Ukraine to our analysts and foreign correspondents.
Today’s question comes from Emmanuel, who asks: “Can Ukraine effectively export grain to the world through neighbouring European territory to avoid Russian blackmail over the Black Sea? If not, what other options are there, other than negotiating with Putin over the Black Sea?”
Here’s what our international correspondent John Sparks said…
Good question Emmanuel, and it’s something that government officials in Ukraine and the rest of Europe are really thinking about right now.
You are probably aware that Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain initiative last month. The scheme allowed the Ukrainians to export grain through the Black Sea without fear of Russian attack. Food products like wheat have been shipped to countries in Africa and the Middle East that have been experiencing acute food shortages.
Since the collapse of that agreement, the Russians have been pounding Ukrainian ports – and Ukrainian grain stores – in an attempt to damage and destroy the largest sector in the Ukrainian economy. Agricultural products like wheat, corn and sunflower oil form the country’s biggest export.
The Ukrainians have tried using a work around in the form of a couple of ports on the Ukrainian-Romanian border.
These facilities on the Danube River, including one in a town called Izmail, have been used as hubs, where the Ukrainians put wheat and other grains onto barges, before moving them to the Romanian port of Constanța. At that point, the grain is put into ships by the Romanians and sent out via the Black Sea.
However, the Russians are now trying to shut this route down, unleashing multiple Shahed drone attacks on Izmail in particular.
The only option left is also the slowest – and most expensive – and that’s overland by road and rail.
It poses a major headache for the Ukrainians – and their neighbours – with more than 60 million tonnes of grain, seed oils and food products scheduled for export over the next year.
Getting this quantity of material out of the country is going to require completely new infrastructure. New roads and transhipment centres will be key.
But Ukraine is also going to have to build a new railway. The track gauge – or track size – in Ukraine is bigger than EU countries and Ukrainian officials accept that they will need to build a new EU-compatible network if they are going to overcome what is a major challenge.
Russia has banned entry to a group of unnamed Moldovan officials, according to state media.
Russian news agency RIA reported the move, citing the country’s foreign ministry.
Relations between Moscow and Chisinau have deteriorated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this week, 22 Russian diplomats flew out of the Moldovan capital over the breakdown in relations.
Moldova’s foreign ministry asked Russia to reduce its embassy presence in Chisinau last month due to fears about alleged Russian attempts to destabilise the small state, which borders Romania and Ukraine.
Witnesses said they heard an explosion as a drone reportedly hit a building in Moscow overnight.
Footage from the aftermath shows smoke rising from the area where the downed drone apparently fell onto the Russian capital’s Expo Centre.
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