Russia hopes for its first successful lunar landing mission in nearly 50 years

The Luna-25 mission will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, seeking signs of water or its components

Russia hopes to launch its first successful lunar landing mission for nearly 50 years, with a long-delayed takeoff from the far east of the country scheduled for early on Friday morning that the Kremlin aims to tout as a new achievement in space exploration.

The Luna-25 mission will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area, and sending back data for signs of water or its building blocks, which could raise the possibility of a future human colony on the moon.

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Turning food into a weapon: how Russia resorted to one of the oldest forms of warfare

With Russia blockading Ukraine’s eastern ports, an alternative route to the west is possible but faces serious problems

After failing to conquer Ukraine by conventional means, Russia tried an energy war, trying to hobble the power grid and freeze the nation into submission. Now it has launched a food war.

The mining of the Kakhovka dam in June threatens to turn southern Ukrainian farmland into a dustbowl. Since Moscow pulled out of an UN-brokered deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea last month, it has announced a naval blockade of the country’s ports, and directly targeted food (destroying 220,000 tonnes of cereals awaiting export in silos) on the sea coast but also inland with attacks over the past two weeks on the Danube ports of Reni and Izmail.

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Ukrainian forces cross Dnipro River in bid to breach southern frontline

Up to seven boats landed east of Kherson city and broke through defensive lines, say Russian military bloggers

Ukrainian forces have made an attempt to cross the Dnipro River dividing liberated and occupied Kherson, in a potential breach of what has for months served as the frontline in the south of Ukraine.

Russian military bloggers reported that up to seven boats, each carrying six to seven people, had landed near the village of Kozachi Laheri, east of Kherson city, on Tuesday and broke through Russian defensive lines.

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Russia-Ukraine war: factory explosion near Moscow injures 45 but cause remains unclear – as it happened

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

Local authorities in Dnipropetrovsk region report that overnight an 18-year-old boy was killed and three men were wounded in a Russian strike in the area of Nikopol. A church and private houses were damaged.

The claims have not been independently verified.

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Dozens injured in explosion at factory near Moscow said to hold fireworks

Plant in Sergiev Posad previously made military equipment but officials downplay speculation blast was result of Ukrainian drone attack

An explosion has ripped through a factory said to house fireworks in the Moscow region, injuring at least 40 people and raising questions as to whether the blast was the result of an accident or of a targeted attack.

The explosion took place at about 10:40am local time on Wednesday at a factory workshop in Sergiev Posad, about 40 miles (65km) from central Moscow. Video of the blast showed a mushroom cloud of smoke rising into the air over the Zagorsk optical mechanical plant, which in the past has manufactured night-vision goggles and other imaging equipment for the Russian military. Factory officials ordered a “total evacuation” of the area.

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EU country buys 49 secondhand Leopard tanks for Ukraine, arms dealer says

Freddy Versluys says he has sold the former Belgium main battle tanks, which could be in combat in six months

Dozens of secondhand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by a major European country for the Ukrainian army fighting Russia, according to the arms trader who sold them.

Freddy Versluys, CEO of the private defence company OIP Land Systems, told the Guardian that he sold 49 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause. He said he also could not disclose the price. Versluys added it could be up to six months before they were on the battlefield in Ukraine.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv claims to have foiled Russian hacking of armed forces combat system – as it happened

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

Suspilne has this news roundup for the morning in Ukraine, gathering together casualty figures from across the country. It reports:

It is now known that nine people were wounded as a result of yesterday’s attack on Kruglyakivka in Kharkiv region, among them two rescuers and two policemen. Two other people died.

In the last 24 hours, Russian troops shelled Kherson oblast 68 times. In Kherson, residential areas and a “point of invincibility” were targeted. One person died, thirteen were injured.

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Ukraine creates database of art linked to sanctions-hit Russians

Corruption agency hopes portal will ‘make it difficult for Russian oligarchs to sell such assets’

From Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi to Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, it amounts to an art collection that could grace any gallery in the world.

But rather than being the highlights of a blockbuster exhibition at a major gallery, these are just some of the 300, and counting, pieces known to have been recently owned by Russian nationals under western sanctions that have been entered into a searchable database set up by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP).

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Tensions rise as Belarus begins military drills near Poland and Lithuania

Leaders of the two Nato countries say they expect provocations from their neighbouring Russian ally and Wagner fighters

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, as tensions heighten with the two Nato members over Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries who moved to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia.

Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Russia-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to avoid criminal charges.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine detains informer accused of helping Russia plot attack on Zelenskiy, says security service

SBU security service says detained woman was gathering intelligence on Ukrainian president’s itinerary as he visited Mykolaiv region

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, has said that travel by road in the region is safe, despite Ukrainian attacks on key bridges.

“At the moment, there are no queues, the situation is fully controlled, it is safe to move through the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic along the land corridor, relatively, as far as possible, quickly and comfortably,” Tass reports he said on Russian television.

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Moscow targets Kharkiv region in effort to regain ground from Ukrainians

Russia seeks to exploit situation as Kyiv’s counteroffensive concentrates on south and east of country

Russian forces claimed to have pushed the frontline back two miles in the north-east region of Kharkiv as a minister in Kyiv said the Kremlin was trying to take back the oblast almost a year after it was famously liberated by Ukrainian forces.

In the latest strikes on the border region, including the bombing of villages near the city of Kupiansk, two people were said to have been killed and three wounded, while a woman was reported to have died in an attack in Kherson in southern Ukraine.

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US dispatches warships after China and Russia send naval patrol near Alaska

Combined naval patrol appeared to be largest such flotilla to approach US territory and ‘highly provocative’, expert says

The US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week.

The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Three dead in overnight shelling across Ukraine – as it happened

Kyiv says 70 drones, cruise and hypersonic missile were used in attacks by Russia

Japan’s prime minister has hit out at Russian threats to use nuclear weapons as the country marked the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima today.

Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and 74,000 in Nagasaki three days later, when the US dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities days before the end of World War II.

Japan, as the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings in war, will continue efforts towards a nuclear-free world. The path towards it is becoming increasingly difficult because of deepening divisions in the international community over nuclear disarmament and Russia’s nuclear threat.

Given this situation, it is all the more important to bring back international momentum towards realisation of a nuclear-free world. Devastation brought to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear weapons can never be repeated.

There is a real risk that the government’s general licence – or ‘free pass’ – for the legal sector encourages UK lawyers to adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach and keep profiting from working for clients sanctioned in relation to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Four killed in Russian strikes on Ukraine that destroyed blood transfusion centre

Multi-wave overnight attack said to be in retaliation for successful strikes against Russian naval vessels

A multi-wave overnight assault on Ukraine said to be in retaliation for successful strikes against Russian naval vessels killed four people and destroyed a blood transfusion centre even as the country’s air defences shot down 30 out of the 40 cruise missiles and tens of Shahed drones.

Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the regional military administration in the eastern Kharkiv oblast, said that along with two fatalities in his region, four people had been injured, while Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned a “guided air bomb” strike against a medical facility as a war crime of “beasts”.

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Ukraine replaces Soviet symbol on Motherland monument in Kyiv

National trident has replaced the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle on the shield of 62-metre tall monument

Ukraine’s national trident was installed on a monument depicting the Motherland in Kyiv on Sunday, replacing Soviet symbols in one of the most visible examples of breaking away from the past and Moscow’s influence.

The monument, a 62-metre tall (200ft) steel statue of a female warrior, was built in 1981 on top of a hill on the right bank of the Dnipro River. Gazing sternly east, the figure holds a sword in her right hand and a shield in her left.

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China ‘backs further Ukraine peace talks’ after Saudi Arabia summit

Senior officials from about 40 countries met in Jeddah in attempt to draft key principles on ending war

China is said to be in support of a third round of talks to find a framework for peace in Ukraine after a meeting of senior officials from about 40 countries in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.

The two-day summit in Jeddah was the second of its kind, after a similar forum in Copenhagen earlier this summer, and aims to draft key principles on how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Russia spreading false claims about Qur’an burnings to harm Nato bid, says Sweden

Defence agency says Moscow is using the protests in Stockholm to stir tensions between Arab countries and the west

The Swedish authorities have accused Russia of trying to influence how Qur’an burnings are viewed around the world through disinformation campaigns written in Arabic. It is believed to be part of an attempt to disrupt Sweden’s Nato membership process, which is still waiting for approval by Turkey and Hungary.

Sweden’s psychological defence agency, part of the Ministry of Defence, said that the Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik had published a series of articles in Arabic, falsely claiming that the Swedish government supported Qur’an burning. Since the end of June, the authorities have logged about a million similar posts in Arabic and other languages. The warning from the agency – a cold war-era body brought back last year to fight foreign disinformation as tensions with Russia escalated – follows another burning in a spate of such desecrations in Sweden.

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Russia ally Kim Jong-un demands more North Korean weapons output

Dictator tours factories making drone engines and rocket launchers and calls for ‘rapidly expanding production capacity’

Kim Jong-un visited several major North Korean arms factories this week, including facilities making engines for strategic cruise missiles, and called for increased weapons production, state media has reported.

The three-day inspection of the factories comes less than two weeks after the dictator attended a major military parade with Russian and Chinese officials, showcasing North Korea’s newest weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles and spy drones.

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Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 529 of the invasion

Zelenskiy condemns attack on blood transfusion centre as ‘war crime’; Moscow vows retaliation over strike on Russian tanker in Kerch Strait

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says Russia has attacked a blood transfusion centre in the country as he condemned the fatal strike as a “war crime”. A separate attack struck a key factory, both incidents coming just hours after Kyiv hit a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait. Russian forces struck the blood transfusion centre in the Kharkiv region of north-east Ukraine, Zelenskiy said, adding that “dead and wounded are reported”. A “guided air bomb” hit the centre in Kupiansk, a city a few dozen kilometres from the Russian border, he said.

Ukraine carried out a drone strike on a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, a day after one of Moscow’s warships was hit in the Black Sea. A video released by Ukrainian authorities appeared to show an unmanned sea drone striking the side of the 141-metre Russian-flagged Sig under the darkness of night. The strike was the second such naval attack in a 24-hour period, after the scuppering of a Russian landing ship on Friday outside the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said Moscow would retaliate.

Russia says it has captured the settlement of Novoselivske in north-eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv has reported increased attacks. Footage from the Russian army showed Novoselivske completely destroyed, with white smoke billowing over crumbling buildings. Ukrainian army spokesperson Ganna Malyar said Russian troops were aiming to draw Ukrainian resources to the east, as Ukraine pursues its counter-offensive in the south.

There were reports of explosions in several cities including Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia with air alerts. Ukraine said Russia fired ballistic and Kinzhal missiles into cities with some reports indicating Russian forces were firing missiles from inside Belarusian territory. Zelenskiy’s spokesperson Iuliia Mendel tweeted: “Right now the missile attack is at Kyiv, Vinnutsia, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy regions. But the alert is all over Ukraine.”

Zelenskiy has promised a fresh round of institutional “cleaning”, a reference to his campaign to show western partners that Kyiv has moved on from a history of deep-rooted corruption. “Next week will be a continuation of our work on cleaning state institutions of those who tried to drag from the past all those old habits, old schemes that weakened Ukraine for a very long time, for decades,” he said. Zelenskiy gave no details about who might be a target.

Talks have started in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement to Russia’s war in Ukraine. It is hoped this weekend’s meeting of national security advisers and other senior officials from about 40 countries – but not Russia – will reach agreement on principles of how to end the conflict. Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office and his main envoy for the talks in Jeddah, said: “I expect that the conversation will be difficult, but behind us is truth, behind us goodness.”

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