Ukraine-Russia war live: More than 1,000 people evacuated from Krasnodar amid Kyiv’s drone barrage
Russia was forced to down 18 Ukrainian drones fired at Krasnodar overnight, authorities said
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More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from Krasnodar, Russia, as Ukraine launched dozens of drones over the border.
Russia evacuated 1,200 residents from the region as Vladimir Putin’s troops were forced to down 18 Ukrainian drones overnight, Krasnodar’s governor said.
It comes as Moscow fired 108 deadly glide bombs - KABs - at Ukrainian positions on Friday, Kyiv authorities said.
They are old-fashioned “iron” aerial bombs of the sort that were dropped by bombers during the Second World War.
In Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, a 12-year-old boy was killed alongside two elderly women after a separate Russian overnight missile attack.
“Again, a terrifying enemy attack on Kryvyi Rih. In the middle of the night, when the city slept,” the city’s governor Serhiy Lysak said.
The two women killed in the attack were 75 and 79. Mr Lysak also said two buildings were destroyed and 20 more were damaged.
It comes after leaked documents revealed more than 70,000 Russian soldiers have died since the invasion began in February 2022.
Lavrov vows Russia to defend its Arctic interests
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is prepared to defend its interests in the Arctic through diplomatic, military, and technical means.
His comments come in response to increasing US and Nato military exercises in the region, which Mr Lavrov sees as a potential threat. In comments quoted in Russian media, he emphasised that Russia is fully equipped to protect its interests amid rising tensions.
“We see how Nato is intensifying exercises in connection with possible crises in the Arctic,” Mr Lavrov was quoted as saying in a documentary series titled “Soviet Breakthrough”.
“Our country is fully ready to defend its interests in military, political and military-technical terms.”
His remarks follow a US Pentagon report highlighting intensified Russian activity in the Arctic, including the reopening of Soviet-era military sites and cooperation with China on shipping routes and minerals, which the US believes could affect polar stability.
Ukraine joins Nato drill to test anti-drone systems
Nato concluded a major anti-drone exercise this week, with Ukraine taking part for the first time as the Western alliance seeks to learn from the rapid development and widespread use of unmanned systems in the war there.
The drills at a Dutch military base, involving more than 20 countries and some 50 companies, tested cutting-edge systems to detect and counter drones and assessed how they work together. The 11-day exercise ended with a demonstration of jamming and hacking drones.
On Wednesday, an attack which Ukraine claimed was carried out by large drones triggered a major blast at a major Russian arsenal.
The following day, Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ramping up drone production tenfold to nearly 1.4 million this year.
The proliferation of drones in the war “to destroy targets and survey the battlefield” has prompted Nato to increase its focus on the threat they could pose to the alliance.
“Nato takes this threat very, very seriously,” said Matt Roper, chief of the Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Centre at the alliance’s technology agency.
“This is not a domain we can afford to sit back and be passive on,” he said at the exercise site, Lieutenant General Best Barracks in the east of The Netherlands.
Experts have warned Nato that it needs to catch up quickly on drone warfare. “Nato has too few drones for a high-intensity fight against a peer adversary,” a report from the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank declared last September.
“It would be severely challenged to effectively integrate those it has in a contested environment.”
EU chief travels to Kyiv with promise of fresh energy funds to get Ukraine through winter
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen travelled to war-ravaged Ukraine on Friday with the promise of 160 million euros ($180 million) in fresh energy funds to get the nation through the winter.
Von der Leyen told reporters that 100 million euros ($112 million) of the funds would come the proceeds of the Russian assets held in the EU because of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “It is only right that Russia pays for the destruction it caused,” she said.
The European Union estimates that about half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been destroyed, making the job of heating homes, hospitals and schools increasingly difficult as temperatures dip ahead of the third war winter that the nation will face.
Von der Leyen said Russia knew full well that bombing energy stations was hitting Ukraine where it really hurts. Morale to keep on fighting can be significantly sapped if millions shiver in the brutal winter for months on end.
US national tortured to death in Ukraine by Russian soldiers, Moscow says
Russell Bentley, a US national who went missing in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine early this year, is believed to have been tortured to death by Russian soldiers who are now set to go on trial, Russia’s top investigative body said.
Bentley died in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in April, Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia’s state media outlet RT, wrote at the time, saying he had been “fighting there for our guys” and working with Russia’s Sputnik news service.
Russian media outlets have suggested that the soldiers may have mistaken Bentley – the subject of a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone magazine titled “The Bizarre Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Became a Frontline Putin propagandist” - for a US spy.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement that it had completed its probe and accused three Russian servicemen of torturing Bentley to death in Donetsk on 8 April.
It said two of the soldiers had then put his body in a car and blown it up. A fourth soldier had been ordered the following day to move Bentley’s remains to another location in an attempt to conceal the crime.
The Committee’s statement said the accused soldiers, whom it named, were familiarising themselves with the allegations before the indictment was sent for approval.
Biden readies $375m arms aid package for Ukraine
The United States is preparing a $375m military aid package for Ukraine, breaking a months-long trend towards smaller packages for Kyiv for its military operations against Russia, two US officials said.
The latest package comes at a crucial time in the war, as Russia pummels Ukraine‘s energy grid ahead of the critical winter months.
The aid package, expected to be announced next week, includes patrol boats, additional ammunition for high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), 155 and 105 millimeter artillery ammunition, spare parts and other weapons, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The contents and size of the package could change in the coming days ahead of the president’s expected signature.
Australia looking to send decommissioned Abrams tanks to Ukraine
Australia is looking to send its decommissioned Abrams battle tanks to aid Ukraine in the war against Russia.
Officials from the Anthony Albanese administration are working on a plan with the US to send the retired battle tanks, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia’s former army chief Peter Leahy, who served from 2003 to 2008 in the top role, said he was baffled why the decision to send them hadn’t been made already.
“I’m bemused why the tanks aren’t on offer to Ukraine,” he said. “Although we are retiring them, they are a very competent tank, they should be well-maintained, there are spare parts available and the Ukrainians are very keen to get them,” the former army chief said.
Kremlin prisoner-swap exclusive: How I survived 11 months in Putin’s gulag
Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the faces of Russian opposition to Putin alongside Evan Gershkovich, sits down with The Independent for the first time since being freed in a historic prisoner swap. Tom Watling reports.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: How I survived 11 months of torture in Putin’s gulag
Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the faces of Russian opposition to Putin alongside Evan Gershkovich, sits down with The Independent for the first time since being freed in a historic prisoner swap. Tom Watling reports
Suspected Trump assassination plotter travelled to Ukraine in 2022
The erratic life of a struggling roofing contractor suspected of trying to shoot Donald Trump swerved from bounced checks to a weapon felony conviction and a quixotic plan to help Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion, before culminating in what appears to be a foiled assassination plot.
Ryan Routh, 58, was charged with two gun-related crimes in a federal court in Florida on Monday, a day after he was spotted with a rifle hiding in shrubbery on the property line of Trump’s golf course. More charges are expected.
Reuters found profiles on X, Facebook and LinkedIn for a Ryan Routh, and public access to the Facebook and X profiles was removed hours after the shooting.
The three accounts bearing Routh’s name showed he supported Ukraine in its war against Russia.
On 21 April, Routh directed an X message to Elon Musk, writing: “I would like to buy a rocket from you. I wish to load it with a warhead for Putins Black sea mansion bunker to end him. Can you give me a price please.”
The New York Times reported it had interviewed Routh in 2023 for an article about Americans who were volunteering to help the Ukraine war effort. Routh told the Times he travelled to Ukraine, spent several months there in 2022 and was trying to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine.
One current and another former US volunteer serving with the foreign legion of Ukraine’s army said they recalled Routh and believed that he spent time in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk. Both of them said he exhibited odd behaviour.
The downfall of Putin is inevitable, says freed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza
Akey British-Russian dissident who escaped death after being rescued from solitary confinement during a historic US-brokered prisoner swap has vowed the downfall of Vladimir Putin is “inevitable”.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, 43, served two years of a 25-year sentence for speaking out against the war in Ukraine before being freed from his Siberian penal colony in August.
As one of the most high-profile opposition figures to Putin, he is adamant that even if he – like Alexei Navalny – is killed, others will rise up against the regime.
In an exclusive sit-down interview with The Independent hours after arriving in the UK for the first time since being freed, Kara-Murza speaks at length about the future of Russia – and how those who object to the status quo cannot be stopped.
Tom Watling sits down with him:
The fall of Putin is inevitable, says freed dissident Vladimir Kara Murza
Exclusive: Key British-Russian activist tells Tom Watling that even if he and other opposition leaders are killed, others will come in their place to challenge Putin, as he thanked The Independent for reporting his plight
Russia says it will take back Kursk in ‘timely manner’
Russia says its army would regain control of its Kursk region “in a timely manner”, declining to say how soon this could be achieved.
“Our military is doing its job. They will accomplish it. Control will be restored,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that the army would obviously not discuss publicly how it planned to achieve that.
“The situation, of course, in those areas that are under the control of Ukrainian fighters - well, of course, it is extreme. This situation will be corrected in a timely manner,” he added.
Ukraine’s incursion on 6 August caught Russia by surprise and provided a morale boost for Kyiv’s forces after months of Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky claimed on Thursday that the operation had succeeded in diverting Russian troops, relieving some of the pressure on Ukraine’s Donbas region.
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