Ukraine-Russia war live: Mass drone attack on Russian arms depot sparks huge fire as war casualties reach 1m
Massive explosion at ammo depot forces evacuations and closure of schools in western Russia
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A “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on an arms depot in Russia’s Tver region which sparked huge fires and caused a blast picked up by earthquake monitors has led to evacuations, power cuts and school closures.
The attack caused an “extremely powerful detonation” at a Russian defence ministry warehouse in the 1,000-year-old town of Toropets, containing Iskander and Tochka-U tactical missile systems, guided aerial bombs and artillery ammunition, a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said.
Russian state media had suggested in 2018 that the site at the 1,000-year-old town of Toropets – which sits northwest of Moscow, and 65 miles from the Belarus border – was home to a major arsenal for conventional weaponry.
It came as fresh estimates from Western intelligence suggested the total number of casualties from Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine may have exceeded one million.
The figure includes 80,000 Ukrainian troops killed and 400,000 wounded, according to a confidential estimate from Kyiv reported by the Wall Street Journal. Estimates of Russian casualties vary but are expected to number around 200,000 killed and 400,000 wounded.
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Finland’s president says Israeli arms needed to bolster security
Finland’s president Alexander Stubb defended his country’s decision to buy arms from Israel despite the war in Gaza, saying it had no link to Finland’s unwillingness to recognise an independent Palestinian state at the present time.
Finland is acquiring a ground based, high altitude, missile defence system called David’s Sling from Israel. Helsinki considers the system a high priority for its own defence due to neighbouring Russia’s ongoing missile attacks on civilian and military targets in Ukraine.
Mr Stubb, who took office in March, has defined his and Finland’s new foreign policy stance as “values-based realism”, which he has said was about “achieving things in the world as it is”, instead of “promoting only the world how I want to see it”.
He added: “I only look at realism, in other words, the fact that we need those weapons. So that’s when I look at Finnish security.”
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Top US diplomat says Zelensky’s victory plan ‘can work’
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said last month that his recently announced plan for victory includes not only battlefield goals but also diplomatic and economic wins.
The plan has been kept under wraps but the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters on Tuesday that Washington officials have seen it.
“We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she said, adding that the United States will raise the plan with other world leaders next week at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Mapped: Russia launches counterattack in Kursk after sending ‘significant’ forces to the region
Russia has brought in “significant” reinforcements to carry out a sweeping counterattack on the western flank of Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, maps and analysis have revealed.
Russia’s initial response appeared muted as Vladimir Putin’s interest remained trained on an offensive towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region despite Kyiv’s hopes that their Kursk incursion would force Moscow to relocate troops away from that fight in the east.
But footage last week of a column of Russian tanks, believed to belong to a specialist Russian airborne forces (VDV) unit known to be among some of Moscow’s more elite troops, towards the western flank of Ukraine’s attack has presaged a rapid counteroffensive in that direction.
Vadym Mysnyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Operational Command “Siversk”, told Ukrainian TV late last week that Moscow had bolstered its Kursk forces from 11,000 at the time of the Ukrainian incursion to up to 45,000.
Fronteligence Insight, a Ukrainian group that tracks the war and is known to have close ties to the military, added that those forces have been bolstered by numerous anti-aircraft and air defence systems.
While territorial defence units are being used to “contain Ukrainian forces”, the group wrote in an update, more mobile units such as tank battalions and air-assault regiments, supported by motor rifle units, are likely being tasked with “breaking through ad-hoc Ukrainian defences”.
Our foreign affairs reporter Tom Watling has more details:
Mapped: Russia launches Kursk counterattack after sending ‘significant’ forces
Ukraine says Russia has ‘quadrupled’ it’s force personnel in the Kursk region in time for a counterattack
Ukraine boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk released after brief detention in Poland
Heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk has been released after being briefly detained at Krakow airport in Poland, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“I was disappointed by this attitude towards our citizen and champion,” Mr Zelensky said, following a phone call with Usyk. “Our champion has been released, and he is no longer being detained.”
He posted a photo of Usyk with Ukraine’s Consul General in Krakow after the athlete was released.
It was not immediately clear why the 37-year-old was detained. He is one of Ukraine’s most prominent athletes known abroad, and has organised and participated in different projects aiding his country’s efforts to resist Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk released after brief detention in Poland
Heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk has been released after being briefly detained at Krakow airport in Poland, says Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Nato must respond to Russian breaches of alliance’s airspace, Romania says
Nato must respond to incidents in which Russian missiles or drones fired at Ukraine enter the alliance's airspace, Romanian defence minister Angel Tilvar has warned.
His remarks come just days after Romania reported once again that a Russian drone had breached its airspace during overnight attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube River in Ukraine.
Kremlin labels Nato chief comments about Putin ‘extremely provocative and dangerous’
The Kremlin has criticised “dangerous” comments by Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg that allowing Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons to strike Russia would not be a red line that would prompt an escalation by Moscow.
In an interview with The Times, Mr Stoltenberg dismissed a warning by Vladimir Putin last week that letting Ukraine use such weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory would mean the West was directly fighting Russia.
“There have been many red lines declared by him before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” said Mr Stoltenberg, whose tenure as head of the military alliance ends in October.
“He has not done so, because he realises that Nato is the strongest military alliance in the world. They also realise that nuclear weapons, nuclear war, cannot be won and should not be fought. And we have made that very clear to him several times.”
Claiming Mr Stoltenberg’s comments were “extremely provocative and dangerous”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “This ostentatious desire not to take seriously the Russian president’s statements is a move that is completely short-sighted and unprofessional.”
Russia has not detected elevated radiation in atmosphere, Kremlin says
Russian services have not issued any alerts on higher levels of radiation in the atmosphere, the Kremlin has said, after Norway reported having detected elevated levels of radioactive caesium (Cs-137) near the Arctic border with Russia.
The Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) said on Tuesday it had measured “very low” levels of radioactive caesium at Svanhovd and Viksjoefjell.
The authority detected elevated levels of radioactive caesium (Cs-137) at Svanhovd during the week to Tuesday and at Viksjoefjell between 5 and 12 September, it said, adding that the levels did not pose a risk to humans or the environment.
Asked about the statement, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “There were no warnings from our relevant services about an increased level of certain isotopes in the atmosphere, there were no warnings about threats to human health either, so I have nothing to say here.”
Church that survived Second World War destroyed in Russian aerial bombardment
The sound of broken brick and glass could be heard underfoot as Ukraine’s special “White Angel” police officers walked through a destroyed church in Donetsk on Tuesday, reports Oliver Browning.
The church was built more than 110 years ago, Gennadiy Yudin, the major of the special police unit said, walking through the debris in Novoeconomichne, a small village a few kilometers from the frontline in eastern Ukraine. The dome was completely destroyed and several icons of Jesus Christ left in ruins.
“Locals are saying that this church survived the Second World War, but was destroyed by the Russian army,” Mr Yudin said. Russian forces destroyed the church with aerial bombardment on 8 July, according to Ukrainian officials.
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