Russia is preparing for the next stage of its offensive in Ukraine, military officials say – as it happened

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Today is the anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Donetsk in 2014, which killed 298 people onboard, including 196 Dutch nationals and 38 Australians.

With the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, this year’s anniversary has hit the international community even harder. Russia denied involvement in the downing of MH17, despite the findings of an international investigation that found multiple witnesses who saw an anti-aircraft missile launcher that had secretly crossed into Ukraine from Russia in the hours before it shot down the commercial flight.

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Ukraine mourners bury four-year-old Liza as Russian attacks intensify

Rockets and missiles continue to pound Ukrainian towns amid fears of renewed Russian offensive

Mourners in central Ukraine have buried a four-year-old girl who was killed by a Russian missile strike in the city of Vinnytsia last week, as officials and analysts warned that Moscow’s operational pause of recent days had come to an end, signalling further death and pain to come.

Twenty-three people were killed in the attack, and one person is still missing.

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Family of captured Ukrainian human rights activist plead for help

Campaign launched to highlight plight of Maksym Butkevych amid fears he is being singled out over ties to UK

Family and friends of a prominent Ukrainian human rights activist who signed up to fight Russia and was captured have launched a public campaign to highlight his plight over fears he is being wrongly accused of being a “British spy” due to his ties to the UK.

Maksym Butkevych, 45, a former BBC Ukrainian service producer who studied at Sussex University and who sits on the board of Amnesty International’s Ukraine section, is well known as a human rights defender due to his work with refugees in Ukraine.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Russian forces ‘preparing new offensive’ – live

Representative of Ukraine’s defense ministry says ‘preparations for next stage of offensive actions are under way,’ Kyiv Independent reports

Two people were killed in Nikopol on Saturday when heavy Russian shelling hit the southern Ukrainian town, the emergency services and regional governor said.

The regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Russia fired 53 Grad rockets at the town, Reuters reports.

We assess [that] an official Russian delegation recently received a showcase of Iranian attack-capable UAVs.

We are releasing these images, captured in June, showing Iranian UAVs that the Russian government delegation saw that day.

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‘Russia stole our history’: Ukraine’s bitter struggle to keep memory alive

Beyond the frontlines, academics are fighting to counter the fake tales of their country’s past that are peddled by the Kremlin

At the entrance to Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, a bronze relief of the face of Mykhailo Hrushevsky stares out towards the red-painted portico. A historian by training, and a key figure in Ukraine’s national revival in the early 20th century, Hrushevsky served briefly as the head of Ukraine’s revolutionary rada – or parliament – in 1918.

Taras Pshenychnyi, deputy dean of the history department, pauses to examine the image of his distinguished forebear, and to reflect on the extraordinary times the university is seeing since the Russian invasion.

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Ukraine braces for further Russian missile strikes as civilian death toll rises

At least 37 deaths across country since Thursday as residential areas appear to be targeted

Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine on Friday evening, as the country braced itself for another string of intensified long-range missile strikes on cities and towns across the country.

At least 37 people have been killed in missile attacks since Thursday that appear to have targeted busy civilian areas and crowded buildings, a tactic Russia has repeatedly denied employing.

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Russia escalating attacks on civilians, says top Ukrainian official

Head of national security council says ‘more and more civilian targets’ being hit, after deadly Vinnytsia attack

A top Ukrainian official has accused Russia of deliberately escalating its deadly attacks on civilian targets, after recent missile strikes including this week’s targeting of the crowded city centre of Vinnytsia, which killed 23 people, including three children.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the Guardian that monitoring of Russian strikes suggested an increased emphasis in recent weeks on terrorising Ukraine’s civilian population.

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British aid worker held by Russian-backed Ukraine separatists reported dead

Paul Urey, who was captured and accused of being a mercenary, has died, Donetsk official says

The British aid worker Paul Urey, 45, has died while being held hostage by pro-Russia separatists in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), a local official in the rebel-held territory has said.

His mother, Linda Urey, said she was “absolutely devastated” and described the separatists as “murderers”.

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Russia confirms it carried out Vinnytsia strike as fears grow in east Ukraine

Moscow claims missile attack on civilian area was directed at building where Ukraine air force officials were meeting suppliers

Russia has confirmed it carried out a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, the latest in a string of deadly attacks on civilian areas, as worries in Ukraine grow that Russia is preparing a new assault in the east.

The Russian defence ministry claimed in a military briefing on Friday that Thursday’s cruise missile attack was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine’s air forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow accused of targeting civilians with missile attacks; UK summons Russian ambassador

Ukraine says up to 70% of Russian missile attacks are deliberately inflicted on “peaceful” Ukrainian cities

Russian and pro-Russian Luhansk People’s Republic separatist forces claim to have entered the outskirts of Siversk in Ukraine’s Donbas, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

Acknowledging that reports have not corroborated, the ministry said Russian forces have been slowly advancing westwards and probing assaults towards Siversk from Lysychansk to open a pathway onward to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Bakhmut is likely to be the next objective, once Siversk is secured,” the report read.

The simple truth is that, as we speak, children, women and men, the young and the old, are living in terror.”

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Social media posts chart life and death of girl in Russian strike

Liza Dmitrieva, four, was killed in a strike in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday

The life and death of four-year-old Liza Dmitrieva in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday is a symbol of a conflict where death often comes without warning and from above.

A series of video and still images posted on social media appear to track the last hours of Liza, who turned four in March in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Her mother, Iryna, lost a leg in the strike, which was condemned by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “an open act of terrorism”.

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Zelenskiy calls Russian missile attack on Vinnytsia an ‘open act of terrorism’– as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Images of Ukrainian territorial defence troops having dinner outside the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, have dropped over the wires this morning.

Hot meals were served to servicemen after a combat tactic training exercise.

It is going to be a tough 2022—and possibly an even tougher 2023, with increased risk of recession.

The human tragedy of the war in Ukraine has worsened. So, too, has its economic impact especially through commodity price shocks that are slowing growth and exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis that affects hundreds of millions of people—and especially poor people who cannot afford to feed their families. And it’s only getting worse.

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Zelenskiy condemns Russian ‘terrorism’ as Vinnytsia attack kills more than 20

Three children among dead and dozens of people injured after missiles hit civilian buildings in Ukrainian city

Russian missiles have struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine, killing at least 23 people – including three children – and wounding dozens more in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called “an open act of terrorism”.

The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s frontlines, occurred in mid-morning when the streets were full of people. It appeared to hit a business centre, setting cars on fire and sending plumes of thick black smoke over the city.

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Europe could face energy rationing as ‘really tough winter’ looms, Shell boss warns

Ben van Beurden says Ukraine war fallout means big rise in bills and possible need to ration supplies

European consumers could face the prospect of energy rationing this winter as costs continue to soar amid the risk of Russia cutting off gas supplies, Shell’s chief executive has said.

“It will be a really tough winter in Europe,” said Ben van Beurden, speaking at the Aurora spring conference in Oxford on Thursday. “We will all face very significant escalation in energy prices. In the worst case, Europe will need to ration its energy consumption.”

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More than 130 grain ships stuck in Black Sea as talks start in Istanbul

Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine, the UN and Turkey seek deal to enable exports to pass on to the Danube

A traffic jam of more than 130 cargo ships loaded with Ukrainian grain is waiting in the Black Sea to pass into the Danube as negotiators from Moscow, Kyiv, the UN and Turkey hailed progress at talks in Istanbul on easing Ukrainian agricultural exports.

The ships are waiting to access exit routes through the Sulina and Bystre estuary canals to reach a series of ports and terminals in Romania from where the grain can be transported on around the world, amid mounting global concern about the Russian blockade on Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Turkey announces deal with Ukraine, Russia and UN aimed at resuming grain exports– live

Turkey to monitor grain exports and establish coordination centre; Zelenskiy says ‘several hundred thousand children’ taken to Russia against their will

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency is reporting that the Russian delegation has arrived in Turkey for talks over the export of grain from Ukraine. They cite a diplomatic source.

The source told them there was “high confidence” of progress in today’s talks, at which military delegations from Turkey, Russia and Ukraine will meet with a UN delegation at a secret location.

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Bakhmut bombarded in wake of Ukraine attack on Russian air defences

Heavy shelling thought to be reprisal for Ukraine attack or preamble to renewed offensive on Donetsk cities

Russian artillery and rockets pounded the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut overnight and into Wednesday morning in what some sources speculated was a reprisal for a Ukrainian attack using a US-supplied Himars missile system on a Russian air defence site in Luhansk.

Others suggested the shelling could signal a renewed Russian offensive aimed at cities in Donetsk province.

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Halt use of biofuels to ease food crisis, says green group

RePlanet calls on EU to ditch organic targets and for governments to lift bans on genetically modified crops

Governments should put a moratorium on the use of biofuels and lift bans on genetic modification of crops, a green campaigning group has urged, in the face of a growing global food crisis that threatens to engulf developing nations.

Ending the EU’s requirement for biofuels alone would free up about a fifth of the potential wheat exports from Ukraine, and even more of its maize exports, enough to make a noticeable difference to stretched food supplies, according to analysis by the campaign group RePlanet.

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Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar reels from deadly Russian rocket strike

Residents say they have nowhere to go nor the means to leave as frontline encroaches on civilians

In the small town of Chasiv Yar, not far from Ukraine’s eastern frontlines, rescue workers were still searching through the wreckage left by Saturday’s multiple rocket strike. At least 43 people died, one of the biggest losses of life in Ukrainian-controlled Donbas since a single Russian rocket killed at least 52 people at the train station in the nearby town of Kramatorsk in April.

The rescuers had managed to pull nine people out of the rubble but by Tuesday, they told the Guardian, they expected to recover only corpses.

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Russia ‘doesn’t have the courage’ to admit defeat, says Zelenskiy – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Russia’s Tass news agency is reporting that “dozens of people were injured as a result of the strike of the armed forces of Ukraine at Novaya Kakhovka”.

Novaya Kakhovka is on the Dnieper river in an area of Kherson occupied by pro-Russian forces in the south of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, there are casualties, a large number of injured, dozens of people were left homeless. The victims were admitted to both the city hospital and the military hospital. We still have to assess the damage, because the situation is still ongoing.

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