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Summary
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Three people died in a night of intense shelling across Ukraine, according to officials. Two people were reportedly killed in Kharkiv and four more were injured following a Russian air strike. A woman in her 80s also reportedly died amid Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk.
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Russia launched a multi-wave overnight attack on Ukraine, using 70 air assault weapons, including cruise and hypersonic missiles and Iranian-made drones, Kyiv’s air force said.
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The official symbol of Ukraine has begun to replace the Soviet Union coat of arms on the shield of the Motherland Monument in the centre of Kyiv as part of derussification efforts. This morning in Ukraine, workers started to install a trident in place of the removed USSR hammer and sickle symbol.
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A hostile drone was destroyed by air defences as it approached Moscow, city mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Temporary restrictions that had been introduced at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport were lifted, Russian-state run news agency RIA Novosti reported.
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Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, whose family comes from Hiroshima, hit out at Russian threats to use nuclear weapons as the country marked the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Key events
The Chonhar bridge to Crimea was damaged by a Ukrainian missile strike today, the RIA news agency cited the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, as saying.
Ukraine previously struck the same bridge, one of a handful of links between Crimea and mainland Ukraine, in June.
The acting governor of the Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, said on his Telegram channel that the bridge across the Tonky strait next to Crimea was also damaged along with a school.
In total, the Kyiv terrorists fired 12 missiles, 9 were shot down by our air defence. One civilian was wounded, passing over the bridge at the time of arrival. The gas pipeline from the Strelkovskoye field to Genichesk, which ran next to the bridge, was also interrupted. More than 20 thousand residents of the city were left without gas supply.
The bridge has no important military significance. Having switched to state terrorism, as always, vilely and lowly hits civilian infrastructure in order to disrupt the peaceful life of people.
The information about the strikes on two bridges in Crimea appeared today:
🔹The bridge over the Tonkyi Strait near Henichesk, which connects the town of Henichesk with the Arabat Spit. The gas pipeline next to the bridge was damaged.
🔹 Chongar Bridge, which connects the… pic.twitter.com/njIxs9y66s
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 6, 2023
Angela Giuffrida has the full story on the overnight Russian missile strikes.
Ukraine’s air force shot down 30 out of the 40 cruise missiles and all Shahed drones launched by Russia during a multi-wave overnight assault, which included a deadly attack on a blood transfusion centre condemned by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as a war crime of “beasts”.
We have a few more comments from president Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, who we quoted cited earlier as saying there were currently no grounds for a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire or peace.
He told the New York Times that Russia did not seek any more territory in Ukraine than the four provinces now annexed: “We just want to control all the land we have now written into our Constitution as ours.”
On next year’s presidential election, he was frank: “Our presidential election is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy … Mr Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90% of the vote.”
The lengthy piece also quotes Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy chair of the State Duma. Asked how Russia could fund an extended war, he said: “We pay for it all from our sales of oil to Europe via India.” The Times writer wrote: “This was bravado, but it had some truth to it.”
Tolstoy added: “Our values are different. For Russians, freedom and economic factors are secondary to the integrity of our state and the safeguarding of the Russian world.”
Polish pipeline operator Pern has said it had halted pumping through a section of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Russia to Europe, after detecting a leak in central Poland yesterday, but expects flows can be resumed on Tuesday.
There was no indication as to the cause of the leak, which follows a series of attacks on pipelines carrying Russian oil and gas since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, reports Reuters.
“Pern services have reached the damaged section of one of the lines of the western section of the Druzhba pipeline in the commune of Chodecz,” Pern said this afternoon. “It is the main line that transports crude oil from sea deliveries to the west. Repair work on the oil pipeline is currently underway. The expected time for pumping to resume is Tuesday morning.”
Pern did not say what the impact on supply to Germany was but a spokesperson for the federal economy ministry in Berlin said: “We are in contact with the operators of the East German refineries. The security of supply is still fully guaranteed.”
Russia is to discuss the results of talks in Saudi Arabia with fellow Bric states who attended the meeting, according to the deputy foreign minister of Russia, Sergey Ryabkov, as quoted in Tass.
From the point of view of conveying common sense to the sponsors of the Kiev regime, I think the participation of Brics colleagues in this event may have brought some benefit. But we still need to figure out what happened in Jeddah.
President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dimitri Peskov said, according to the state-owned news agency, citing a New York Times article: “There are no grounds for an agreement at the moment. We will continue the operation for the foreseeable future.”
Moscow has said that weekend talks in Saudi Arabia including the US, China and India aiming to establish principles for a peaceful end to Russia’s war in Ukraine were a doomed western attempt to align the global south behind Kyiv.
Senior officials from about 40 countries have attended the two-day meeting, part of a push by Ukraine to build support beyond its core western backers among countries that have been reluctant to take sides, reports Reuters. Russia was not invited.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, was quoted by the state news agency Tass calling the meeting “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts to mobilise the international community, and more precisely, the Global South, even if not entirely, in support of the so-called Zelenskyi formula, which is doomed and untenable from the outset”.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Wednesday he hoped the initiative would lead to a peace summit of leaders from around the world this autumn to endorse principles for a settlement based on his own 10-point formula. At its heart is a withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Miranda Bryant
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 came about as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is still waiting for approval by Turkey and Hungary.
Sweden’s psychological defence agency, part of the ministry of defence, said 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.
Lisa O’Carroll
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 following a similar forum in Copenhagen earlier this summer and aims to draft key principles on how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he hoped the initiative would lead to a “peace summit” of world leaders this autumn to endorse the principles, based on his own 10-point formula for a settlement.
The talks, which excluded Russia, were attended by the US, India, the EU and China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui. “We have many disagreements and we have heard different positions, but it is important that our principles are shared,” Li was reported by Reuters as saying before the meeting.
A Russian missile strike yesterday hit a facility of the Ukrainian aeronautics group Motor Sich, one of several companies requisitioned by the government since Moscow’s invasion, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
“Today there was another Russian missile attack against our country. Kinzhals, Kalibrs. They hit Motor Sich,” and the Khmelnytskyi region in western Ukraine, around 190 miles south-west of Kyiv, Zelenskiy said in his evening address.
Motor Sich, which makes plane and helicopter engines and other components, was among the “strategic” firms taken over by Ukraine‘s defence ministry last November.
Zelenskiy said the strikes included Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal weapons, which are designed to elude air-defence systems, though he added that “some of the missiles were shot down”.
The Khmelnytskyi region, hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, has been regularly targeted by Russian strikes. The region is home to a major Ukrainian airbase.
Russia has said its forces struck military airbases in the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions in western Ukraine and that “all targets were hit.”
“Overnight Russia’s armed forces carried out strikes … on Ukrainian armed forces airbases around the settlements of Starokostiantyniv in the Khmelnytskyi region and Dubno in the Rivne region,” the Russian defence ministry said.
Ukraine has said it faced several waves of attacks overnight, downing 30 out of 40 cruise missiles. It also said Russia launched three hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which are harder to intercept, but did not provide information on whether or not they were destroyed.
The Game4Ukraine, led by legendary Ukrainian football player Andriy Shevchenko and Arsenal defender Oleksandr Zinchenko who captained two teams of former and current footballers, ended in a 2-2 draw yesterday.
The charity football match took place on yesterday evening at London’s Stamford Bridge stadium.
The singer Jamala performed the Ukrainian national anthem of Ukraine before kick-off. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky then addressed the players and spectators prior to a minute’s silence to honour the memory of those who have died following the Russian invasion.
Shevchenko’s Dynamo teammate Sergei Rebrov also played in the match, as well as Gerard Pique, Patrick Vieira, Petr Cech and Gianfranco Zola. Ukrainian Mikhail Mudryk, purchased this year by Chelsea, made a brief cameo.
The sides were coached by Chelsea women’s team boss Emma Hayes and former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, who now works for Fifa.
Three people dead after overnight shelling across Ukraine
Three people have died in a night of intense shelling across Ukraine, according to officials.
Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the local regional military administration in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region said that two people were killed and four more were injured following a Russian air strike.
The Moscow-appointed mayor of Russian-held Donetsk, Alexei Kulemin, said a woman in her eighties also died amid Ukrainian shelling of the city, AP reports.
Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of Ukraine’s Khmelnytsky region military administration, said that Russian missiles had damaged several buildings in the area, injuring a worker at a grain silo and sparking a fire in a warehouse, according to AFP.
Yuriy Savchuk, the general director of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, has celebrated the raising of the trident on the Kyiv monument.
“It’s really nice that we’ve completed a certain stage of the work,” he said. “It’s a beautiful, sunny day, the Dnieper [river] is sparkling, there is no air alert. The trident is on the shield, Glory to Ukraine.”
The trident’s sculptor, Oleksiy Pergamenshchyk, waving a Ukrainian flag at the base, said: “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! Glory to the Armed Forces!”
He later told AFP: “I’m happy because it’s just right – it’s not too big, not too small, not too thin – it’s just right … I’m grateful that I was put on this task and I hope the Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian people will be happy with it.” He said he was planning to go up later and work from a cradle to perfectly centre the trident and finish the steel surface so “it will look as [if] it was there originally”.
The total cost of replacing the hammer and sickle with the trident has been reported as $758,000, paid for by donations and sponsorship rather than state funds, AFP reports. A survey by the culture ministry last year found that 85% of Ukrainians backed removing the hammer and sickle.
Russia ‘destroys’ hostile drone approaching Moscow, says mayor
A hostile drone was destroyed by air defences as it approached Moscow today, city mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said.
Sobyanin wrote on messaging app Telegram: “Today at around 11 am a drone attempted to make a breakthrough toward Moscow. It was destroyed while approaching by air defence forces.”
The Russian defence ministry said the Ukrainian drone was destroyed over the Podolsky district in the Moscow region. “There were no casualties or damage,” the ministry said.
Temporary restrictions that had been introduced at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport were lifted, Russian-state run news agency RIA Novosti said.
Russia accused Ukraine of two drone attacks on its capital last week. A skyscraper in Moscow was attacked twice in two days over the past week, according to Sobyanin. Several drones had been shot down but “one flew into the same tower at the Moskva City complex” that was targeted last Sunday.
Ukraine replacing Soviet crest on Kyiv monument with national symbol
The official symbol of Ukraine has begun to replace the Soviet Union coat of arms on the shield of the Motherland Monument in the centre of Kyiv as part of derussification efforts.
This morning in Ukraine, workers started to install a trident in place of the removed USSR hammer and sickle symbol that had been there since its installation in 1981 until Tuesday. Strong winds had prevented the work from taking place yesterday on the 102-metre-high structure.
The former Ukraine minister of culture Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram:
It happened! Ukrainian trident in its place. It was a complex, responsible, historical project. I thank everyone who made this happen – donors, designers, builders, a sculptor, employees of the War Museum, everyone who supported and cheered for these changes.
It is hoped the trident will be fully installed by Independence Day on 24 August. The coat of arms of the USSR will be sent to the museum for storage, BBC Russia reports.
The idea of the transition arose when Russian-backed separatists took power in eastern Ukraine. But due to costs and fears that the monument’s stability could become compromised, the plans were shelved.
The fire that had engulfed a university building’s wooden roof in Donetsk following Ukrainian shelling last night has been contained, according to Russian-state news.
Officials from the regional ministry of emergency situations said on Telegram:
Open burning in the building of the Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade named after M Tugan-Baranovsky has been eliminated. At the moment, the structures are being dismantled and poured.
The Russia-installed minister of Donetsk, Alexei Kostrubitsky, had said Ukrainian forces used cluster munitions in the shelling that caused the blaze. Reuters could not independently verify the information. Both sides have used cluster munitions in the course of Russia’s 17-month invasion of Ukraine.
Kostrubitsky said there were no people inside the building during the shelling. Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Kostrubitsky and emergency services as saying the fire spread to an area of about 1,800 sq metres before being contained early today.
At least 10 missiles appear to have got through air defences following Russia’s multi-wave overnight attack on Ukraine.
The deputy governor of the Khmelnytskyi region in western Ukraine, Serhiy Tiurin, said a military airfield in Starokostiantyniv was among the targets. Tiurin said explosions had damaged several private houses, a communal cultural institution and the bus station and that a fire had broken out at a grain silo.
The Starokonstiantyniv airfield is on the enemy’s mind. There was a series of explosions in Starokonstiantyniv and Khmelnytskyi communities. Most of the missiles were shot down by air defence forces.
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