Category Archives: Ukraine

Canada offers air defense support for Ukraine as Zelenskyy visits

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Canadian PM Mark Carney hosts president in Calgary, where he grew up alongside large Ukrainian community

Canada offered support on Thursday to boost Ukraine’s air defenses and help replenish its drone stocks, as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mark Carney hosted the president of Ukraine in Calgary in the western province of Alberta, where the Canadian prime minister grew up among a large community of people with Ukrainian heritage.

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Orthodox church sends medieval prince’s remains to Russian troops in Ukraine

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Part of Dmitry Donskoy’s right hand sent to ‘spiritually strengthen’ soldiers

The Russian Orthodox church has sent a fragment of a medieval warrior prince’s remains to troops fighting in Ukraine, saying the relic would “spiritually strengthen” soldiers and help them achieve victory.

A reliquary containing part of the right hand of Dmitry Donskoy, the 14th-century prince revered in Russia for his victory over the Mongolian Golden Horde in 1380, has been taken to Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine and is now being transported along the frontline.

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Ukraine seeks to seize water company owned by billionaire family of British theatre mogul

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Dispute centres on stake held by Patarkatsishvili family in bottled water firm it jointly owns with Russian oligarch

A British theatre impresario and her billionaire family are embroiled in a bitter dispute with Ukrainian authorities seeking to seize a water company they jointly own with a Russian oligarch.

The row centres on a 34% stake held in the producer of Ukraine’s biggest bottled water brands by the Patarkatsishvili family, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, who recently worked on an immersive show with Toby Jones and Meera Syal.

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‘Nobody will win’: Zelenskyy adviser warns of mutual destruction if war with Russia continues

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Serhii Beskrestnov says deadlock on frontline and increasing use of deep strikes is placing civilians and infrastructure at greater risk

Russia and Ukraine are locked in an escalating war of long-range strikes with a growing risk to civilians in which neither side can entirely prevail, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser.

Serhii Beskrestnov, widely known by his call sign, Flash, said he was worried about the prospects for Kyiv this winter, and suggested elderly people should be evacuated in case Russian bombing were to knock out the capital’s energy supply.

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Europe would not be able to sustain war of attrition with Russia, defence officials say

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Security experts fear Putin may be winning hybrid war with the west amid rise of pro-Kremlin, far-right parties

Defence planners working with Nato fear that if war broke out with Russia, Europe could not currently sustain a prolonged war of attrition owing to a public lack of war readiness, a conference on the future of European military coordination heard this week.

The pessimism reflects concern that Russia may be winning a so-called hybrid war with Europe, weakening the options available to Nato war planners in the event of military conflict.

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Deadly escalation in Black Sea attacks prompts fears of even higher food prices

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Russian and Ukrainian strikes in July killed more crew than in whole war to that month, preventing grain exports

A summer of hostilities in the Black Sea proved deadly for seafarers, as Russia and Ukraine attacked each other’s ships and port infrastructure, preventing vital grain exports and prompting concerns that the conflict will push global food prices even higher.

More crew were killed in the Black Sea in July than during the entirety of the war before that month as the conflict has intensified, making the body of water the most dangerous in the world for commercial shipping. This is despite the conflict between the US and Iran, with vessels still being targeted in the strait of Hormuz, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

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Europe weighs solutions to curtail Russia’s growing hybrid warfare

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Governments now moving faster to impose costs on Moscow for its increasing attacks over support for Ukraine

Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign across Europe appears to be gathering pace again, confronting governments with a problem they have struggled to solve since the start of the war in Ukraine: how to impose a meaningful cost on Moscow for attacks that remain deliberately below the threshold of conventional war.

Over the past month alone, an explosives-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport, Poland has faced suspected acts of sabotage, and a string of unexplained explosions and fires have hit defence facilities supplying Ukraine across Europe.

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Russia targets Ukraine’s rail network as war enters deadly new phase

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Six employees killed on Tuesday after Moscow escalates attacks on infrastructure and Ukrainian capital

Russia has opened a deadly new phase in its war against Ukraine by deliberately targeting the country’s railway network, with six employees killed on Tuesday in the latest strikes on Kyiv.

Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said its workers died when a ballistic missile plunged into a locomotive depot. The Russians hit other railway facilities, it added, during a massive bombardment of Kyiv and the Kyiv region. At least 12 people died, with a dozen wounded, including three children.

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Russia kills at least 12 on sixth night of drone attacks on Kyiv

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Zelenskyy says Moscow is capitalising on shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors to lower morale in capital

At least 12 people have been killed in and around Kyiv overnight as Ukraine’s capital endured a sixth consecutive night of Russian drone and missile attacks aimed at shattering infrastructure and lowering the morale of the city.

Eight of the dead were reported killed in Kyiv, including seven at a railway depot on the city’s left bank, and four were killed in Boryspil, to the east of the city, in a wave of strikes at about 2.30am after hours of air alerts.

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Germany poised to identify suspect in Leipzig drone attack on Ukrainian plane

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Berlin expected to outline response to incident this month widely speculated to have been coordinated by Russia

The German government is imminently expected to announce who it believes was behind a suspected drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane earlier this month and to outline its response to the incident in coordination with its European and Nato partners.

The chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told the public broadcaster ARD in an interview on Sunday evening: “We are in the process of concluding the investigations; we have reached a broad agreement within the federal government on how we will respond, and we will make this clear in the coming days. It won’t take much longer.”

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Russian drone strike on Kyiv warehouse storing weapons kills at least 37

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Ukrainian prosecutors open investigation into why munitions were stored so close to residential buildings

At least 37 people have been killed after a Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv’s western suburbs that was storing “explosive objects”.

The attack damaged at least 50 residential buildings, including a care home for elderly and disabled people, and sparked a huge fire and explosions in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region. The regional governor, Tymur Tkachenko, said a further 42 people, including four children, had been injured in the strike.

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Russia ‘losing 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit’

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Moscow recruits an estimated 1,000 people a day but western officials say it cannot keep up with casualty level

Russia is losing about 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit, western officials have said.

While Russia is still acquiring new battlefield recruits at speed, with an estimated rate of 1,000 a day, in the last two months even this has not been sufficient to replace those killed or injured.

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UK officials prepare for potential Trump talks as Burnham plans New York trip

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PM known to be keen to attend UN general assembly after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine

UK officials are making preparations for a potential meeting between Andy Burnham and Donald Trump after the prime minister said he hoped to attend next month’s UN general assembly in New York.

Burnham is known to be particularly keen to attend the annual gathering after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, when he pledged to help drum up more international support for Ukraine.

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UK officials prepare for potential Trump talks as Burnham plans New York trip

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PM known to be keen to attend UN general assembly after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine

UK officials are making preparations for a potential meeting between Andy Burnham and Donald Trump after the prime minister said he hoped to attend next month’s UN general assembly in New York.

Burnham is known to be particularly keen to attend the annual gathering after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, when he pledged to help drum up more international support for Ukraine.

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‘Fix that little spot’: Danish PM hits back at unsolicited beauty tip from cosmetic surgeon

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Mette Frederiksen, who received message on returning from Ukraine, advises women to embrace self-acceptance

Sick of getting unsolicited beauty tips on social media, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, rebuffed a male cosmetic surgeon’s offer to “fix” her and advised women in similar situations to embrace self-acceptance.

Frederiksen, a Social Democrat and Denmark’s second female prime minister, posted on Instagram that she had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, where she was subjected to air raid sirens, when she found a message proposing some help with her appearance.

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Russia withdraws ambassador to UK as Kremlin raises pressure over Ukraine support

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Embassy in London says Andrey Kelin left last month after seven years in diplomatic post

Russia has withdrawn its ambassador to the UK, it has emerged, as the Kremlin continues to try to put pressure on Britain over its support for Ukraine.

Andrey Kelin left last month after seven years in the diplomatic post, according to the Russian embassy in London.

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Holding election in wartime would risk destroying Ukraine, says Zelenskyy

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President sharply criticises proposal, saying ‘elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said holding elections in Ukraine during wartime would risk splitting the country at a time when Russia is amassing ballistic missiles and considering whether to mobilise an extra 300,000 soldiers.

The Ukrainian president, responding for the first time to a demand made by the sacked former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, sharply criticised an idea that he said was impractical given Russia appeared to have no interest in a ceasefire.

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The ‘ordinary’ woman accused of assassinating a Russian commander in Crimea

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Friends close to Margarita Reutt are shocked she could allegedly plant bomb that killed Ukrainian defector Robert Shageev, while others recall a stubborn grit to see any plan through

It was just after dawn in Sevastopol when a powerful explosion tore through a quiet square in a residential district of the Russian-occupied Crimean port city.

Hidden inside a rubbish bin, a bomb containing the equivalent of about 500g of TNT detonated on 13 August as Robert Shageev, the deputy commander of a Russian Black Sea fleet submarine brigade, walked past in naval uniform. He was killed on the spot.

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Attack on Ukraine shopping centre that killed 16 is ‘terror by design’, says EU foreign policy chief

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Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, threatens harshest sanctions yet on Russia after strike on Kryvyi Rih, the home town of Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Russian drones have slammed into a busy shopping centre in central Ukraine, killing 16 people in an attack that Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “cynical and despicable”.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, condemned Friday’s attack on Kryvyi Rih – the president’s home town – as “terror by design” and said she was “putting forward the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings since the start of the war” when ministers meet in Ireland next month.

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More than 16 killed as Kyiv comes under intense Russian bombardment

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Missile and drone attack one of heaviest since war began, with children’s hospital and residential areas hit

A heavy Russian missile and drone bombardment has killed at least 16 people in and around Kyiv in one of the most intense aerial attacks on Ukraine’s capital since the start of the war.

Vitali Klitschko, the city’s mayor, said homes, a school and a children’s medical centre were among the buildings damaged overnight in an attack that began at about midnight and was continuing into the early afternoon.

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