Kyiv strikes: three die in early morning attack by Russia

Girl and her mother reportedly among the dead from falling debris after short-range missiles intercepted

Three people including a child were killed and at least 11 people were injured in an early morning missile attack on Kyiv that hit apartment buildings, two schools and a children’s clinic, according to city authorities.

The attack, on what is International Children’s Day in many post-Soviet countries, reportedly involved 10 Iskander short-range missiles, and there was only a few minutes’ warning before they hit. Most of the damage appeared to be from falling debris after the incoming missiles were intercepted by the capital’s air defences.

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Ukrainian sanctions on media tycoon Alexander Lebedev revealed

The Russian businessman is the father of Evgeny Lebedev, who was given a peerage by Boris Johnson

Ukraine has imposed sanctions on Alexander Lebedev – the former KGB intelligence officer whose son Evgeny sits in the House of Lords – in connection with Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

The national security and defence council in Kyiv imposed sanctions on Lebedev Sr last October. The decision – first reported by Tortoise media – emerged on Thursday and follows a decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

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Australian government loses bid to cancel lease for new Russian embassy site

Canberra’s National Capital Authority terminated lease on block of land in Yarralumla but federal court rules the move was ‘invalid and of no effect’

The Australian government has made an embarrassing backdown in its attempts to turf the Russian government off the site of its new embassy in Canberra.

The National Capital Authority (NCA) last year announced a decision to terminate the Russian government’s lease on a block of land in the wealthy suburb of Yarralumla, where it was building its new embassy.

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US announces $300m arms package for Ukraine – with a caveat

The shipment comes with a warning that the weaponry should not be used to attack within Russia

The United States has announced a new $300m arms package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition – but warned Kyiv that US weaponry should not be used to attack within Russia.

“We have been very clear with the Ukrainians privately – we’ve certainly been clear publicly – that we do not support attacks inside Russia. We do not enable and we do not encourage attacks inside Russia,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

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Moldova to press for accelerated EU membership process at leaders’ summit

Meeting in Chișinău is opportunity to show country is ‘fit for EU membership’, foreign minister says

Moldova wants to start formal talks on becoming a EU member state and will use the a summit of all 50 EU and non-member European leaders in its capital, Chișinău, on Thursday to underline its desire to accelerate the accession process, the country’s foreign minister said.

Along with Ukraine, Moldova has official accession candidate status since last year but believes, like its larger neighbour, it can accelerate the years-long process to get a seat in Brussels in the face of continuing threats from Russia.

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Russia-Ukraine war: only 500 of 70,000 residents left in Bakhmut, mayor says – as it happened

This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

The drone attacks targeting Moscow early on Tuesday, which have been blamed on Kyiv, were by far the largest wave launched against Russia since the start of its war against Ukraine.

There has been speculation that at least one of the drones involved was a UJ-22 produced by the Ukrainian Ukrjet company, which Russia claims has been involved in at least one previous attack. Some other experts disagree, suggesting it is another model of drone, citing differences in appearance.

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Treasury’s sanctions police ‘reviewing’ finances of Everton FC owner, Guardian understands

Farhad Moshiri reportedly a ‘person of interest’ at special unit over links to sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usman

The Treasury’s sanctions police have been reviewing the finances of the Everton Football Club owner, Farhad Moshiri, the Guardian understands.

Moshiri appears to have become a person of interest to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) because of his links to Alisher Usmanov, the Russian-Uzbek billionaire who was sanctioned by the UK, the EU and the US after last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, defects to Russia

Former Senate staffer who made claim in 2020 appears on Russian media alongside convicted Russian agent in US Maria Butina

Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who in 2020 accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, said on Tuesday she had defected to Russia.

“I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good,” Reade told Sputnik, a Russian press outlet supportive of President Vladimir Putin, while sitting with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian agent jailed in the US but now a member of parliament in Russia.

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Ukrainian woman trying to reach godson detained in Russia and deported to Belarus

Olga Guruli was heading to occupied Kherson province to arrange repatriation of boy and his brother

A Ukrainian woman who travelled to Russia hoping to arrange the repatriation of her godson and his brother from Russian-occupied Kherson province was arrested, interrogated for two days and threatened with being sent to a penal colony before being deported to Belarus.

The detention of Olga Guruli was initially reported by Russian media outlets who wrongly suggested she was an employee of Save Ukraine, an NGO that has been helping relatives recover children illegally deported by Russia.

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Nato to send 700 more troops to Kosovo to try to quell violence

Nato chief announces further measures as situation in Serb-majority north remains ‘fragile’

Nato has said it will send 700 extra troops to try to curb the violence in Kosovo a day after 30 alliance-led peacekeeping soldiers and more than 50 ethnic Serbian protesters were injured in clashes.

On Monday, Nato peacekeepers in riot gear had secured a town hall in the town of Zvecan as the situation remained tense.

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South Africa grants Putin and Brics leaders diplomatic immunity for summit

ICC warrant for Russian president’s arrest issued in March over alleged war crimes in Ukraine

South Africa has issued blanket diplomatic immunity to all leaders attending an August summit, meaning Vladimir Putin might be able to travel to Johannesburg and not fear the country acting on an international criminal court warrant for his arrest.

South African officials insisted the broad offer of immunity, issued in a government gazette, may not trump the ICC arrest warrant. As an ICC member, South Africa would be under pressure, and possibly under a legal requirement, to arrest Putin. The court issued a warrant for his arrest in March over the alleged forcible deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

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Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 461 of the invasion

Eleven Russian missiles aimed at Kyiv shot down in rare daytime attack; Russia puts US senator Lindsey Graham on wanted list

Eleven Russian missiles aimed at Kyiv were shot down by the Ukrainian air defence on Monday morning. One person was hospitalised as a result of the attacks. The local authority reported that the roof of a two-story building caught fire in the district as a result of falling debris, but that the fire was contained.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that using US-provided Patriot anti-missile systems ensured a 100% interception rate and would play a role in pushing forward against Russia’s invasion. “When Patriots in the hands of Ukrainians ensure a 100% interception rate of any Russian missile, terror will be defeated,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Any peace settlement acceptable to Ukraine would include a demilitarised zone extending between 100km and 120km into Russia, the adviser to the head of the office of Ukraine’s president, Mykhailo Podolyak, has suggested. The key topic of the postwar settlement should be the establishment of safeguards to prevent a recurrence of aggression in the future, he said.

US president Joe Biden said that in a call on Monday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan repeated Ankara’s desire to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States, while Biden responded that Washington was keen to see Ankara drop its objection to Sweden’s joining Nato. The exchange took place when Biden called Erdogan to congratulate him on his victory in Turkey’s presidential election on Sunday.

Two people were killed and eight were wounded in a Russian attack on the city of Toretsk on Monday morning, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said. Kyrylenko said Russian forces had used high-explosive aerial bombs in the attack at about 11:30 am local time which damaged a gas station and a multi-storey building in the city.

Russia’s interior ministry has put US senator Lindsey Graham on a wanted list after the Investigative Committee said it was opening a criminal probe into his comments on a Ukrainian state video. In an edited video released by the Ukrainian president’s office of Graham’s meeting with Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Friday, Graham was shown saying “the Russians are dying” and then saying US support was the “best money we’ve ever spent”. Russia said Graham should say publicly if he believes his words were taken out of context in the video edit.

Polish president, Andrzej Duda, said that he would sign a bill to allow a panel to investigate whether the opposition party Civic Platform (PO) allowed the country to be unduly influenced by Russia and as a result become too dependent on its fuel when it was in power. The PO party rejects the claims and says the law is designed to destroy support for the party in the lead up to the elections being held at the end of the year.

The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said that her government planned to increase spending on military aid to Ukraine by $2.6bn over this year and next year. Earlier this year, Denmark set up a $1b fund for military, civilian and business aid to Ukraine. Danmarks Radio, the Danish public-service broadcaster, reported that the new funds were earmarked for military aid.

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a bill that sanctions Iran for 50 years. The bill was put forward by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The bill will stop Iranian goods transiting through Ukraine and ban use of its airspace, as well as imposing trade, financial and technology sanctions against Iran and its citizens.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin “appears to have again indirectly undermined Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authority and regime”, the Institute for the Study of War wrote in its latest analysis of the conflict. The US-based thinktank based its assertion on the response given by Prigozhin to a journalist asking about Russian state media’s ban on any discussion of Wagner.

Foreign investors who left Russia after selling their businesses there between March 2022 and March 2023 withdrew about $36bn from the country, the state RIA news agency reports, citing analysis of data from the Central Bank.

The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a medical facility in Dnipro on Friday rose from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.

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Suspected Russia-trained spy whale reappears off Sweden’s coast

Beluga whale was first spotted in Norway wearing a harness marked ‘Equipment St Petersburg’ in 2019

A beluga whale that turned up in Norway wearing a harness in 2019, prompting speculation it was a spy trained by the Russian navy, has reappeared off Sweden’s coast.

First discovered in Norway’s far northern region of Finnmark, the whale spent more than three years slowly moving down the top half of the Norwegian coastline, before suddenly speeding up in recent months to cover the second half and move on to Sweden.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: morning explosions in Kyiv after Ukraine claims to have downed 37 missiles overnight

Capital’s mayor warns residents to take shelter after explosions reported in central area

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this roundup of overnight events in the skies over Ukraine:

At night, Russia launched up to 40 cruise missiles and about 35 drones over Ukraine: air defence managed to shoot down 37 missiles and 29 “Shahed” drones. Debris fell in several districts of Kyiv and the region. There are no dead or injured.

Russia attacked targets in the Khmelnytskyi region: one of them is a military one. Five aircraft were disabled, and fires broke out in fuel and lubricant warehouses. Fires are being extinguished and the runway is being restored.

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Russia launch morning missile strikes on Kyiv after overnight barrage

Residents run for shelter during attack that appears to have been part of effort to exhaust air defences

Russian forces have launched an intense and unusual daytime missile barrage at Kyiv, forcing residents to flee to bomb shelters, in what appears to be an effort to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences.

The Ukrainian military said it had intercepted all 11 of the ballistic and cruise missiles fired at the city in the attack that began at 11am. One person was reported to have been injured. Residents who had become accustomed to a string of night-time attacks ran to Kyiv’s metro stations and other shelters after a succession of loud bangs as incoming missiles were intercepted and bursts of smoke from air defences dotted the clear morning sky.

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West caught between fear and hope as Erdoğan extends 20-year rule in Turkey

Re-elected president could take Nato country further towards Russia, or may instead be more open to alternatives

Western capitals remained silent through Turkey’s presidential campaign – privately hoping Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s erratic 20-year rule would come to a surprise close – but now he has been handed a decisive mandate to serve a third term, the west is caught between fear and hope.

It fears he will exploit the result to take this Nato founder member further from the liberal secular west, but hopes against hope that, not being eligible to run again and thus freed from the need to pander to a nationalist electorate for the rest of his political life, he may at least be open to persuasion and base his foreign policy on something other than self-preservation.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: ‘We haven’t started yet to act very seriously,’ says Kremlin ambassador – as it happened to UK

Andrei Kelin tells BBC: ‘It is an idealistic mistake to think that Ukraine will prevail’

The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a clinic in Dnipro has risen from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.

In a post on Telegram, Serhii Lysak said further analysis had confirmed that three missing people had been killed in the attack on Friday.

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