Ukraine-Russia war – live: Kyiv tells Putin and Moscow to expect ‘daily’ attacks after latest drone shot down

A spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence has said Moscow should expect ‘daily attacks’, after the Russian government announced a drone headed towards the capital was shot down on Friday. The MoD said a Ukrainian drone was jammed, causing it to crash, as it flew towards its target in Moscow Andriy Yusov told Kyiv Post that ‘the concept of security is increasingly distant from the residents of Moscow’, adding that the Russian air defence system is ‘ineffective, outdated, and cannot adequately respond to modern challenges’. The airspace over two Russian airports was also temporarily closed on Friday, in a move that the RIA state news agency said was caused by suspected drone flights. It was not immediately known whether the two incidents were related. The news of a foiled drone attack on Moscow comes one day after Russia’s emergency service reported a warehouse near Vladimir Putin’s official residence and the Vnukovo airport was on fire. According to a report by TASS news agency, the warehouse is located 6.5 kms (4 miles) away from Putin’s presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo. Key Points One killed as Russian missile hits hotel used by UN in Zaporizhzhia Russia claims two Ukrainian drones downed near Moscow New Wagner ‘tent city’ being built 15 miles from Belarus-Ukraine border, Kyiv group claims Independent TV: Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska’s interview with Bel Trew Drones targeting Moscow shot down as Putin ramps up border defences Putin ‘considers coming face to face with world leaders’ at G20 summit and break through some of Russia’s defences 14:35 , Maanya Sachdeva Ukrainian forces broke through Russia’s defensive lines after launching a surprise raid across the Dnipro River. The river divides liberated Ukrainian territory on one bank and Russian-occupied land on the other, and for months it has served as part of the front line in southern Ukraine . Russian military bloggers suggest some of Moscow’s soldiers were either killed or captured in the raid. Chris Stevenson has the full story: Ukraine’s troops launch surprise raid across Dnipro River Kyiv tells Putin and Moscow to expect ‘daily attacks’ 14:34 , Maanya Sachdeva A spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence has said Moscow should expect ‘daily attacks’, after the Russian government announced a drone headed towards the capital was shot down on Friday. The MoD said a Ukrainian drone was jammed, causing it to crash, as it flew towards its target in Moscow Andriy Yusov told Kyiv Post that ‘the concept of security is increasingly distant from the residents of Moscow’, adding that Russian air defence system is ‘ineffective, outdated, and cannot adequately respond to modern challenges’. Mr Yosov added: ‘Perhaps this trend will lead the residents of Moscow to some correct conclusions – whether or not to believe Russian television and Russian propaganda, and whether or not to continue to support the criminal regime.’ What Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska wants the world to know 14:05 , Maanya Sachdeva In a rare interview the First Lady of Ukraine , Olena Zelenska, has spoken to Independent TV about her work rebuilding Ukraine in the middle of war , the pressures on her family and concerns for the future of her country . From the presidential palace, she told The Independent ‘s Bel Trew about the need to reconstruct cities despite the fighting raging on , about building cutting-edge facilities to treat the country’s’ war-wounded and fighting stigma on trauma around the country. Follow the story here: What Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska wants the world to know Ukraine downs one out of four Russian hypersonic missiles in air strike, military says 13:35 , Maanya Sachdeva The Ukrainian air force shot down one out of four hypersonic missiles fired by Russia on Friday at a military airfield in the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk, the military said. ‘One X-47 (hypersonic) missile was destroyed within the Kyiv region. The rest hit near the airfield. Civilian infrastructure was damaged, and one of the missiles hit a residential area,’ it said on the Telegram messaging app. Wagner tracker: Charting Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenary group through the Ukraine war 13:05 , Maanya Sachdeva From Bucha to the battle for Bakhmut, we track Wagner’s bloody role in Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Maryam Zakir-Hussain reports: Charting Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group through the Ukraine war Russia says it hit mercenary quarters in Zaporizhzhia 12:15 , Maanya Sachdeva Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its forces hit a location where ‘foreign mercenaries’ were quartered in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, after Kyiv said a Russian missile struck a hotel on Thursday evening, leaving one dead and 16 injured. Local media reported the damaged building was Reikartz Hotel in the Zaporizhzhia city centre on the bank of the Dnipro River. Child killed in Russian air strike in western Ukraine, governor says 11:45 , Maanya Sachdeva A Russian missile strike crashed into the grounds of a house in the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk on Friday, killing an eight-year-old boy, the governor and state prosecutors said. ‘There are wounded (people) including a child who was brought to hospital in critical condition. Medics did everything possible, but unfortunately the child’s life could not be saved,’ governor Svitlana Onyshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Moscow says crashed drone was headed for a facility in capital 11:12 , Maanya Sachdeva New photographs from Moscow showed police have cordoned off the area where a Ukrainian drone, headed for the Russian capital, reportedly crashed on Friday. Russia’s ministry of defence said the air force on Friday downed a Ukrainian drone as it flew towards an unspecified target in Moscow, marking the latest in a flurry of drone attacks on the Russian capital. The mionistry said the drone was jammed and crashed in a forest west of Moscow, calling it ‘… an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a facility in Moscow’. Ukraine has not addressed the alleged attack, as Kyiv refrains from commenting on who is behind attacks on Russian territory. Russian law enforcement officers gather near the accident scene following a reported Ukrainian drone crash in Moscow, Russia, August 11, 2023. (REUTERS) Police tape blocks off the accident scene following a reported Ukrainian drone crash in Moscow, Russia (REUTERS) ICYMI: Warehouse near Putin’s home on fire 10:32 , Maanya Sachdeva Russia’s emergency service said on Thursday a warehouse in Odintsovo, a town to the west of Moscow between Vladimir Putin’s official residence and the Vnukovo airport, was reportedly on fire. According to a report by TASS news agency, it bwas not immediately clear how how the fire had started in the warehouse, located 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) away from Putin’s presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo. As of around midnight Moscow time, the size of the fire was 21,500 sq ft, TASS said citing an emergency service statement. Ukrainian drone jammed over Moscow, Russia says 10:15 , Maanya Sachdeva A Ukrainian drone was jammed as it flew towards its target in Moscow, causing it to crash, Russia’s defence ministry said. The airspace over two Russian airports was also temporarily closed on Friday, with all arrivals and departures suspended, in a move that the RIA state news agency said was caused by suspected drone flights. It was not immediately clear if the two incidents were related. The airspace over Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and over Kaluga airport, some 150 km (95 miles) southwest of the Russian capital, later reopened, TASS news agency reported. ‘From 10.50 a.m. (0750 GMT) the restrictions on flights were removed. At the current time the airport is working normally,’ TASS quoted a source at Vnukovo airport as saying. Earlier, the airport had said it was compelled to suspend all flights ‘for reasons beyond the control of the airport’, adding that some flights had been redirected to other airports in the Moscow region. It gave no further information. Germany ‘in talks with MBDA over delivery of cruise missiles to Ukraine’ 10:00 , Maanya Sachdeva Germany is reportedly considering supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles. A security source told Reuters the government is talks with arms maker MBDA about the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, echoing a report by Spiegel magazine. Kyiv has been pushing Berlin to supply it with the Taurus, a missile with a range of more than 500 km (311 miles) that is launched by fighter jets such as the Tornado, the F-15 or the F-18. Cruise missiles are hard to detect by air defence radars as they fly at low altitudes. They are mainly used to hit high-value targets behind enemy lines such as command bunkers, ammunitions and fuel dumps, airfields and bridges. While Britain and France have supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles, Berlin has been reluctant to follow in their footsteps amid concerns over the long range of the weapon and its potential use against targets inside Russia. Technically, it is very easy to limit the range of a Taurus cruise missile, according to experts. The talks between the German government and MBDA are focusing on such a modification as Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to prevent at all costs any Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory with the weapon, Spiegel reported. In June, the Kremlin warned France and Germany that delivering cruise missiles to Kyiv would lead to a further round of ‘spiralling tension’ in the Ukraine conflict. Russia has been using long-range missiles to destroy targets in Ukraine including civilian infrastructure, and Ukraine has no easy way to respond to that. The German military has some 600 Taurus missiles in its inventories, with some 150 among them ready for use, according to media reports. Spain and South Korea also operate the Taurus. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport rsuspends flights due to suspected drone 09:30 , Maanya Sachdeva The airspace over Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was temporarily closed on Friday, with all arrivals and departures suspended, and Russia’s RIA news agency said the move was due to a suspected drone flight in the area. The airport has reportedly since reopened. ‘For reasons beyond the control of the airport, temporary restrictions on the landing and take-offs of aircraft were introduced in Vnukovo,’ the airport said in an earlier statement. ‘For safety reasons, some of the flights were redirected to other airports of the Moscow aviation hub,’ it said, without commenting further. There has been a number of drone attacks in the Moscow area in recent weeks that Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years takes off 09:00 , Maanya Sachdeva A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft has blasted off on Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft. The launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna-25 craft to the moon is Russia’s first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union. The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Russian lunar lander is expected to reach the moon on August 23, about the same day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14. The Russian spacecraft will take about 5.5 days to travel to the moon’s vicinity, then spend three to seven days orbiting at about 62 miles before heading for the surface. Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon’s south pole. The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel. Russia Moon Lander (Roscosmos State Space Corporation) A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface. ‘The moon is largely untouched and the whole history of the moon is written on its face,’ said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. ‘It is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.’ The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon’s environment ahead of building any base there, ‘otherwise we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted’, Mr Bloomer said. Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said it wants to show Russia ‘is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon’, and ‘ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface’. Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting upon its space programme. Multiple explosions in Kyiv, reports say 08:27 , Maanya Sachdeva There have reportedly been multiple explosions in Kyiv within a few minutes, according to news reports. The city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram that a Russian rocket had hit a children’s hospital in the capital, reporting that there were ‘no casualties’. Shortly before, he had urged people to ‘stay in the shelters please’ in a message on Telegram, the Guardian reported. Blasts were also reportedly heard in the western city of Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia, in the western central region. Ukraine announces ‘humanitarian corridor’ in Black Sea 08:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Ukraine has announced a ‘humanitarian corridor’ to let dozens of cargo ships trapped in its ports since the outbreak of war last year sail into the Black Sea. At least initially, the corridor appears to apply to vessels such as container ships that have been stuck in Ukrainian ports since the February 2022 invasion, and were not covered by the deal that opened the ports for grain shipments last year. But it could be a major test of Ukraine’s ability to reopen sea lanes at a time when Russia is trying to reimpose its de-facto blockade, having abandoned the grain deal last month. ‘Today a new temporary humanitarian corridor has started to work,’ Oleh Chalyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s navy, told Reuters. ‘The corridor will be very transparent, we will put cameras on the ships and there will be a broadcast to show that this is purely a humanitarian mission and has no military purpose,’ he said. Biden will ask Congress for $13bn to support Ukraine 07:23 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar President Joe Biden will ask Congress to provide more than $13bn in emergency aid to Ukraine, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces. The last such request from the White House, made in November, was met and then some – Congress approved more than what Biden had requested. But there’s a different dynamic this time. A political divide on the issue has grown, with the GOP-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. And American support for the effort has been slowly softening. The White House also is expected to ask for $12