Russian strike at Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant but reactors not damaged – as it happened

Reactors not damaged after Russian strikes at nuclear power plant in southern Mykolaiv region. This live blog is now closed.

Russia is highly likely to have lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to about 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the British military said on Monday.

There is a realistic possibility that the increase in losses was partially a result of the Russian air force accepting greater risk in a move to provide close air support to Russian ground forces under pressure from Ukrainian advances, the defence ministry said in its daily intelligence on Twitter.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin – under a travel ban to the UK due to sanctions – had already said he would not attend.

But not inviting any Russian representative to the Queen’s funeral was “particularly blasphemous towards Elizabeth II’s memory” and “deeply immoral”, the foreign ministry spokeswoman in Moscow said on Thursday.

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Russia no longer has full control of Luhansk as Ukraine recaptures village

Small but symbolic victory in suburb of Lysychansk undermines one of Putin’s key war aims

Ukraine has recaptured a village close to the eastern city of Lysychansk, in a small but symbolic victory that means Russia no longer has full control of the Luhansk region, one of Vladimir Putin’s key war aims.

Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Ukraine’s armed forces were in “complete control” of Bilohorivka. “It’s a suburb of Lysychansk. Soon we will drive these scumbags out of there with a broom,” he said. “Step by step, centimetre by centimetre, we will liberate our entire land from the invaders.”

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Origin Energy to quit Beetaloo gas project but green groups warn environmental threat remains

Sale will come at a loss but distance company from both environmental controversy and Russian oligarch

Origin Energy will sell its stake in its Beetaloo Basin gas project at a loss and review all its other exploration permits in a move that will distance it from an environmental controversy and end its association with sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Chief executive Frank Calabria said gas remained “a core part of our business” but getting out of gas exploration would free up money to “grow cleaner energy and customer solutions, and deliver reliable energy through the transition”.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 208 of the invasion

Russian-backed mayor says Ukrainian shelling killed 13 in Donetsk; Ukraine reports Russian strike on nuclear plant

Thirteen people were killed by artillery shelling on Monday in the east Ukrainian separatist-held city of Donetsk, the city’s Russian-backed mayor said.

Russian forces struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region early on Monday, but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Ukraine’s state nuclear company, Energoatom, said.

The Kremlin has said that beefing up ties with Beijing is a top policy goal, a Russian security official said on Monday during a visit to China.

Germany’s Die Linke could split into two parties over the Ukraine war, as the ailing leftwing outfit’s indecisive stance on economic sanctions against Russia triggered a series of high-profile resignations this week.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will visit Saudi Arabia and meet the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as part of a Gulf trip, his spokesperson said on Monday, as Germany rushes to secure energy supplies.

The German central bank said on Monday it was increasingly likely that Europe’s largest economy would shrink for a “prolonged” period as Russia throttled energy supplies to the continent.

The Kremlin has rejected allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province as a “lie”.

Russia is urging Uefa to ban the manager of the Ukraine men’s national team after he expressed a wish to fight Vladimir Putin’s invading forces, the Guardian has revealed.

The US president, Joe Biden, has warned Vladimir Putin that the use of nuclear or other nonconventional weapons against Ukraine would prompt a “consequential” response from the US.

Russia is highly likely to have lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to about 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the British military said on Monday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added it to the small group of countries excluded from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London today, which includes Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The Institute for the Study of War thinktank said Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was “increasingly relying on irregular volunteer and proxy forces rather than conventional units” in its latest update on the Russian campaign.

The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson region in the south, where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed there would be no letup in fighting to regain territory lost to Russia.

In an intelligence update, Britain’s defence ministry said Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure, including a power grid and a dam, had intensified.

Ukrainian forces are refusing to discard worn-out US-provided arms, with many reverse engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva speaks out against war in Ukraine

Singer who shot to fame in Soviet era asks to be labelled ‘foreign agent’ after husband denounced conflict

The Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has spoken out against the war in Ukraine and the “death of our boys for illusory goals”.

The remarks are the first time that the pop star, an icon in Russia, has publicly criticised the conflict.

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West wavers on Ukraine proposals to seize Russian assets as reparations

Exclusive: Ukraine lobbying UN and allies to clear legal path for extracting Russian compensation for war damage

Ukraine is facing a battle to persuade its western allies, including the UK, to back its proposal for any peace settlement with Moscow to include multibillion reparations by Russia, in part using seized Russian state and oligarch assets.

Ukraine is lobbying the UN general assembly to adopt a resolution that will become the basis for the creation of an international compensation mechanism that could lead to the seizure of as much as $300bn (£260bn) of Russian state assets overseas.

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‘No way I could work for the Russians’: The Ukrainian teachers resisting occupation

Staff forced to choose between collaborating or fighting against Russian takeover of schools

At the beginning of summer, several months after the Russians had taken over a large chunk of southern Ukraine in the first days of the war, the headteacher of a school in an occupied town gathered his teaching collective for a meeting.

The school would cooperate with the Russian occupation authorities, he told them, and reopen for the new school year in September, teaching the Russian curriculum.

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Russia’s underperforming military capability may be key to its downfall

Despite superior firepower, Russian forces have failed to fulfil their potential and face a dispiriting battle to regain the upper hand over Ukraine

Viewed purely in terms of the size of their formations and equipment, Russian ground forces in Ukraine still pose a serious threat on a number of axes. In practice, however, it is highly unlikely the Russian military can recover from its increasingly terminal trajectory on the battlefield, though its defeat will take time and bitter fighting. To understand why, it is necessary to examine the force beyond its equipment and personnel.

The US assesses military capability through the abbreviation DOTMLPF. That senior US officers regularly try to roll this off the tongue as an acronym may exemplify military absurdity, but the abbreviation is somewhat redeemed by being fairly comprehensive. It stands for: doctrine, organisation, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities. Looking at the Russian military across these categories reveals why it is underperforming its potential and struggling to regenerate.

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Australia won’t ban Russian tourists but is considering reopening embassy in Kyiv

Acting prime minister Richard Marles also flags further military aid after Ukraine’s ambassador requests Hawkei four-wheel drive vehicles

Australia won’t ban Russian tourists from entering the country as requested by Ukraine’s ambassador but is “assessing” whether to reopen the Australian embassy in Kyiv.

The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, also said on Sunday that Australia was considering sending further military aid to Ukraine to bolster existing commitments.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 207 of the invasion

Czech Republic calls for ‘special international tribunal’ after Izium mass grave found; Turkish and Indian leaders urge end to war at Asia summit

The Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, have called for a “special international tribunal” after a mass grave was discovered in Izium, a town in north-eastern Ukraine. “In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” said Jan Lipavský, foreign minister of the Czech Republic. More than 440 bodies have been discovered by Ukrainian officials, with some found with their hands tied behind their backs.

Satellite imagery has emerged of the recently discovered mass grave site near Izium. The images, released by Maxar Technologies, show the “Forest Cemetery” entrance from March to August of this year.

One of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant’s four main power lines has been repaired and is supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, the UN nuclear watchdog has said. Even though the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, have been shut down, the plant needs electricity to keep them cool.

US president Joe Biden urged Russian president Vladimir Putin to not use tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in the wake of setbacks in Ukraine. Asked by CBS what he would say to Putin if he was considering using such weapons, Biden said: “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. It would change the face of war unlike anything since world war two.” Biden said the US response would be “consequential,” but declined to give detail.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi told Putin on Saturday that “today’s time is not a time for war” when the pair met during a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin told Modi he knew of India’s “concerns” about the conflict, echoing language he had used with Chinese president Xi Jinping the day before. “We will do our best to end this as soon as possible,” Putin said, while accusing Kyiv of rejecting negotiations.

Speaking to reporters later, Putin vowed to continue his attack on Ukraine despite Kyiv’s latest counteroffensive and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country’s vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia. Associated Press reported that the Russian president said the “liberation” of Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region remained Russia’s main military goal and that he saw no need to revise it. “We aren’t in a rush,” he said after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Samarkand.

Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told leaders at the summit that efforts were being made “to finalise the conflict in Ukraine through diplomacy as soon as possible”. Putin told Erdogan, who has been a key broker in limited deals between Russia and Ukraine, that Moscow was keen to build closer ties with Turkey and was ready to “significantly increase” all exports to the country.

Activists from environmental group Greenpeace on Saturday blocked a shipment of Russian gas from unloading at a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in northern Finland, the terminal owner and Greenpeace said. The activists demanded Helsinki stop importing Russian gas after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

The security service of Ukraine said that Russia’s federal security service (FSU) officers tortured residents in Kupiansk, a city in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. The Kyiv Independent reports that when FSU officers were in then-occupied Kupiansk, they tortured residents and threatened to send them to minefields and kill their families.

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Izium: after Russian retreat, horrors of Russian occupation are revealed

As the Ukrainian city’s five-month ordeal ends, the evidence of dead bodies and survivors’ testimonies suggests Izium could be another Bucha

Standing in the gloom, Maksim Maksimov pointed to the spot where he was tortured with electric shocks. Russian soldiers took him from his cell in the basement of Izium’s police station. They sat him on an office chair and attached a zig-zag crocodile clip to his finger. It was connected by cable to an old-fashioned Soviet military field telephone.

And then it began. A soldier cranked the handle, turning it faster and faster. This sent an excruciating pulse through Maksimov’s body. “I collapsed. They pulled me upright. There was a hood on my head. I couldn’t see anything. My legs went numb. I was unable to hear in my left ear,” he recalled. “Then they did it again. I passed out. I came round 40 minutes later back in my cell.”

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EU calls for war crimes tribunal after mass graves found in Ukraine

Attacks against civilians ‘abhorrent’, says Jan Lipavský, of Czech Republic, which holds EU presidency

The EU presidency has called for the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes after new mass graves were found in Ukraine.

“In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” said Jan Lipavský, foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

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Russia-Ukraine war: discovery of mass grave in Izium prompts call for war crimes tribunal – as it happened

Czech foreign minister says attacks by Russians on civilian population are ‘unthinkable and abhorrent’. This blog is now closed

President Zelenskiy’s senior adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has urged European countries to provide Ukraine with “modern and effective” missile defence systems.

His tweet comes after Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country’s vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia.

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Ukraine depends on morale and Russia on mercenaries. It could decide the war

Ukrainian soldiers feel they are fighting for national liberation, while the Russians appear to lack camaraderie. This contrast is critical

The Ukrainian video begins with the Dunkirk beach scene from the film Atonement, the soldiers’ stirring rendition of Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. Until it transitions to several hundred Ukrainian troops, singing the country’s national anthem in the open air, ahead of last week’s successful Kharkiv offensive.

Life may be trying to imitate art, but in this case there is no clearer demonstration of Ukrainian national morale as the war heads towards the end of its seventh month. The unprovoked attack by their larger neighbour has unleashed a patriotic mobilisation that is having a transformational effect on the battlefield.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 206 of the invasion

UN to permit Zelenskiy video address despite Moscow’s objections; 99% of bodies exhumed from Izium site had signs of violent death, says Ukraine

United Nations member states have voted to make an exception to allow Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address next week’s general assembly by video, despite Russian opposition. Of the 193 member states, 101 voted on Friday in favour of allowing the Ukrainian president to “present a pre-recorded statement” instead of in-person as usually required. Seven members voted against the proposal, including Russia. Nineteen states abstained.

Virtually all the exhumed bodies in Izium had signs of violent death, Ukraine’s regional administration chief said of the mass burial site discovered after Kyiv’s forces recaptured the east Ukrainian town. Exhumers had uncovered several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs, and one “with a rope around his neck”, Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv regional administration, said on Friday. “Among the bodies that were exhumed today, 99% showed signs of violent death,” he said on social media.

The European Union was “deeply shocked” at the mass graves discovered by Ukrainian officials in Izium, said the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. “We condemn these atrocities in the strongest possible terms.” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, also condemned what he described as the “atrocities” committed in Izium, joining growing outrage in western countries over the burial site.

Ukrainian armed forces have hit four areas held by Russian troops, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces. The military also targeted an unloading station, it said, in turn preventing Russian forces from deploying additional reserves.

Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out targeted strikes in the cities of Kherson and Luhansk against top local officials who have been collaborating with Moscow. At least five Himars missiles crashed into the central administration building in Kherson, which Russian troops have occupied since March after arriving from Crimea. Video from the scene showed smoke pouring out of the complex. In the eastern city of Luhansk, a pro-Russian prosecutor died with his deputy when their office was blown up. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s senior adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, said Ukraine was not behind the blast.

Further south, the Russian-backed separatist authority in Berdiansk also blamed Kyiv for the “double murder” of a deputy head of the military civil administration and his wife, who headed the city’s territorial election commission for the referendum.

In the southern oblast of Zaporizhzhia there were also reports on Friday of a “powerful explosion” in the Russian-occupied Melitopol, said Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol. “I hope the Russian fascists have suffered losses, among their personnel and equipment,” he said. “Awaiting good news from the armed forces of Ukraine.”

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, made his first public comment since his troops were forced to withdraw from the territories they held in the north-east, a move that prompted unusually strong public criticism from Russian military commentators. Putin said he invaded Ukraine because the west wanted to break up Russia. He grinned when asked about Ukraine’s recent military success, saying: “Let’s see how it develops, how it ends up.” Putin said nothing had changed with the ultimate goal of Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, which was to capture the Donbas.

The United States department of defence has announced it is providing an additional $600m in military assistance to Ukraine to meet the country’s “critical security and defence needs”. In total, the Biden administration has committed about $15.8bn in security aid to Ukraine – $15.1bn since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February.

Switzerland on Friday aligned itself with the European Union in suspending a 2009 agreement easing rules for Russian citizens to enter the country. “The suspension of the agreement does not mean a general visa freeze for Russians but rather they will need to use the ordinary visa procedure to enter Switzerland,” the country’s federal council said in a statement. The EU took a similar step earlier, suspending a visa facilitation deal with Russia but stopping short of a wider visa ban in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Sister of oligarch Alisher Usmanov removed from EU sanctions list

Saodat Narzieva was added to the list in April, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The sister of the oligarch and former Arsenal football club shareholder Alisher Usmanov has been removed from the EU’s sanctions list, which was compiled in response to the war in Ukraine.

Usmanov’s sister, Saodat Narzieva, was among a number of relatives of Russian officials and oligarchs added to the list in April.

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Russia accuses Ukraine of targeting pro-Moscow officials

Sergei Gorenko and deputy killed in their offices as Kherson also comes under bombardment from Ukraine forces

Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out targeted strikes in the cities of Kherson and Luhansk against local officials who have been collaborating with Moscow.

At least five Himars missiles crashed into the central administration building in Kherson, which Russian troops have occupied since March after arriving from Crimea. Video from the scene showed smoke pouring out of the complex and debris.

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Russia-Ukraine war: senior pro-Russian officials reported killed; Ukraine says mass grave found at Izium – as it happened

Officials in Russian-occupied areas reported dead; hundreds of bodies said to have been found in retaken Ukraine city. This live blog is now closed

Further to that report on the German government assuming control of Rosneft’s German operation, state secretary Jörg Kukies has tweeted that move was “a further step to assuring our energy security”.

Germany is taking control of Russian oil company Rosneft PJSC’s German unit, Bloomberg has reported.

The federal network regulator will take over RN Refining & Marketing GmbH and Rosneft Deutschland GmbH, which accounts for around 12% of Germany’s oil processing capacity, the economy ministry said Friday.

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US announces new $600m arms package for Ukraine

The aid is expected to contain munitions including HIMARS ammunition and funding for military education and training

The Biden administration announced a new $600m arms package to help the Ukrainian military battle Russia, as the US rushes more weapons to fuel Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive in the country’s east.

The package will include more of the same types of ammunition and equipment that have helped Ukrainian forces beat back the Russian forces in portions of the east and south.

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