Russia-Ukraine war live: strikes reported in several Ukrainian cities; Russian plane crash death toll rises to 13

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Here is a selection of some of the images that are coming through from Mykolaiv, the scene of Russian strikes this morning.

Other images sent to us over the newswires, which are too graphic to use, show the body of at least one victim on the ground at the scene.

Ukraine’s president has responded to this morning’s Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities. Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted to Telegram to say:

Ukraine is under fire by the occupiers. They continue to do what they do best – terrorise and kill civilians. In Mykolaiv, the enemy destroyed a residential building with S-300 missiles. A person died. There was also a strike at the flower market, the chestnut park. I wonder what the Russian terrorists were fighting against at these absolutely peaceful facilities?

The terrorist state will not change anything for itself with such actions. It will only confirm its destructive and murderous essence, for which it will certainly be held to account.

Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, has posted to Telegram to report “explosions again in Kyiv in the morning.”

He said that the target was an object of critical infrastructure in the Desnianskyi district.

James Heappey, minister for the armed forces in the UK, has been interviewed on Sky News in the UK. While there has been considerable focus on domestic policies and the future of beleaguered UK prime minister Liz Truss, he had this to say about Ukraine and British defence spending:

There are some very hard choices to make. And we have to be very clear on why we are doing what we’re doing in Ukraine. Why it is so important to be supporting the Ukrainian armed forces. Why it is so important to be investing in our own defence forces at the moment.

And that is because the cost of not doing those things is that we will be living in a Europe, in a world, whereby it has been shown that if you are willing to be belligerent, and use force to threaten the sovereignty of another country, you can succeed.

That if the international community loses patience, that if you get your way, what that does is set the trajectory for the rest of this century, whereby we will be having to spend a lot more on our defence and security and where our economy will be profoundly impacted by that insecurity.

So this is about investing now in the Ukrainians, so that they can do the right thing, in order to draw a line underneath Putin’s aggression, to show that a rules-based international system still applies in this century.

Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, has provided an update on Telegram, saying that “today at around 8.30 am, the enemy launched eight rockets at Kharkiv from the Russian city of Belgorod” but there were no casualties.

He reported that in the last 24 hours there were three elderly people injured in the region from shelling, and that “the state emergency service defused 1,428 explosive objects during the day.”

He also said “during the past day, the Russian occupiers from tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery shelled the settlements located near the contact line.”

There are as yet unconfirmed reports that there has been a strike at electrical infrastructure in the Zhytomyr region. Video being shared on social media purports to show smoke rising into the sky in the area, and residents report that electricity is off. The Zhytomyr region is to the west of Kyiv.

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the latest for the next few hours.

A fresh wave of explosions is being reported in several cities across Ukraine, a day after Russia launched drone strikes on multiple cities in Ukraine.

It is shortly before 9am Kyiv time, and strikes have been reported by authorities in Kryvyi Ri, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv.

In Mykolaiv, the attack has totally destroyed one wing of an apartment building. At least one man died in the attack, according to a witness who spoke to Reuters.

In Dnipro, strikes targeted energy infrastructure, causing “serious damage” according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.

There were few details about the attacks on Kryvyi Ri and Kharkiv, but we will have more on the situations in these cities soon.

A Russian missile struck an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian port city Mykolaiv, in one of three explosions heard there in the early hours of Tuesday, a Reuters witness said.

The missile completely destroyed one wing of the building in the downtown area, leaving a massive crater. A fire crew pulled the dead body of a man from the rubble, the witness said.

Russian strikes on Dnipro have hit energy infrastructure causing “serious damage”, Deputy Head of President’s Office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, has just said on Telegram.

The head of the Kharkiv regional military administration has announced that Russia is launching strikes on the city of Kharkiv, as well as the region. He has ordered residents to remain in shelters, saying:

“Attention, residents of Kharkiv and the region: the Russian occupiers are striking. Stay in shelters!”

The US warned on Monday it would take action against companies and nations working with Iran’s drone programme after Russia used the imports for deadly kamikaze strikes in Kyiv, AFP reports.

“Anyone doing business with Iran that could have any link to UAVs or ballistic missile developments or the flow of arms from Iran to Russia should be very careful and do their due diligence – the US will not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions against perpetrators,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.

“Russia deepening an alliance with Iran is something the whole world – especially those in the region and across the world, frankly – should be seeing as a profound threat,” he said.

Ukrainian officials said that the strikes killed four people in Kyiv – including a couple expecting a baby – and knocked out electricity to hundreds of towns and villages as the country prepares for winter.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the drone strikes showed the need to provide “everything possible” to Ukraine as its forces gain ground against Russian invaders ahead of winter.

The Russians are “attacking critical infrastructure like power plants, hospitals, the things that people need in their daily lives that are not military targets,” Blinken told reporters at Stanford University in California.

“It is a sign of increased desperation by Russia, but it’s also a sign of the levels that they will stoop to and that we’ve seen repeatedly when it comes to targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Blinken said.

The head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, has just posted on Telegram confirming an explosion in the city – Zelenskiy’s home town – on Tuesday morning. He said:

Around 06:30 in the morning, the occupation-terrorist forces struck the northern part of Kryvyi Rih. As for the consequences of the explosions, I will not comment on the situation yet.

The anxiety continues. Repeated attacks are possible – you are in shelters during an air alert.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, he issued an air raid alert and announced that missiles were incoming.

Kyiv’s statues – sandbagged by the city authorities for protection – are one of only a few reminders, along with an 11pm curfew and the regular wailing of air raid sirens, that this bustling city is at war. Boxed up, muffled, veiled and hidden, they also give Kyiv a strange new look – as if the sculptures have been replaced by contemporary artworks:

Speaking to the press at Stanford University on Monday, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said that the war in Ukraine had brought the “post-Cold War world to an end“. Blinken went on to say that what would come to define competition between world powers now was technology:

We are at an inflection point. The post-Cold War world has come to an end, and there is an intense competition underway to shape what comes next. And at the heart of that competition is technology. Technology will in many ways retool our economies. It will reform our militaries. It will reshape the lives of people across the planet. And so it’s profoundly a source of national strength.

Asked about Russia’s use of Iranian drones, he said that it was a “sign of increased desperation”:

We’re seeing these drones, as you said. What are they doing? They’re attacking civilians. They’re attacking critical infrastructure like power plants, hospitals, the things that people need in their daily lives that are not military targets. And it is a sign of increased desperation by Russia, but it’s also a sign of the levels that they will stoop to and that we’ve seen repeatedly when it comes to targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. We want to make sure we’re doing everything possible to help Ukrainians defend themselves against this aggression, even as they’re pushing the Russians back from territory that Russia seized.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday urged his troops to take more prisoners, saying this would make it easier to secure the release of soldiers being held by Russia, Reuters reports.

Zelenskiy made his remarks hours after the two sides carried out one of the biggest prisoner swaps so far, exchanging a total of 218 detainees, including 108 Ukrainian women.

“I thank everyone involved in this success, and I also thank all those who replenish our exchange fund, who ensure the capture of enemies,” he said in an evening address.”The more Russian prisoners we have, the sooner we will be able to free our heroes.

Every Ukrainian soldier, every front-line commander should remember this.”

Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy chief of staff, said there were 12 civilians among the freed women.

“It was the first completely female exchange,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that 37 of the women had been captured after Russian forces took the giant Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol in May.

One of the women, medic Viktoria Obidina, said that up until the last moment the group had no idea they would be exchanged. Obidina had been with her young daughter when Mariupol fell but the two then became separated.

“I will go to see my daughter. I want to see her so bad,” she told reporters.

Separately, Ukraine’s interior ministry said some of the women had been in jail since 2019 after being detained by pro-Moscow authorities in eastern regions. Earlier, the Russian-appointed head of one of the regions said Kyiv was freeing 80 civilian sailors and 30 military personnel.

The death toll from a Russian military jet that crashed into a residential building shortly after taking off near the border with has reportedly climbed to at least 13 people, according to Russian news agency Interfax, which cited a senior official.

Video and photographs uploaded to social media on Monday showed a residential building engulfed in flames in Yeysk, a port and resort town in Russia located just south of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol across the Sea of Azov.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be taking you through the latest for the next few hours.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday urged his troops to take more prisoners, saying this would make it easier to secure the release of soldiers being held by Russia.

Meanwhile the death toll from a Russian military jet that crashed into a residential building shortly after taking off near the border with has reportedly climbed to at least 13 people, according to Russian news agency Interfax, which cited a senior official.

Moscow stepped up attacks across Ukraine on Monday, killing four people and cutting off power in a series of kamikaze drone strikes in the capital. Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmygal, said Russia launched five strikes in Kyiv, as well as attacks against energy facilities in Sumy and the central Dnipropetrovsk regions, knocking out electricity to hundreds of towns and villages.

Ukraine announced that more than 100 prisoners have been swapped with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow after nearly eight months of war. “The more Russian prisoners we have, the sooner we will be able to free our heroes. Every Ukrainian soldier, every frontline commander should remember this,” Zelensky said.

In the south, Ukrainian troops have been pushing closer and closer to the large city of Kherson, just north of Crimea. Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.

Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the European Union to sanction Iran for providing Russia with kamikaze drones that killed at least four civilians in Kyiv on Monday.

Iran said again on Monday that it had not provided Russia with drones to use in Ukraine. “The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and it is circulated by western sources. We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said. The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc would look for “concrete evidence” about the participation of Iran in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The European Union has agreed to create a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers. It will also provide a further EUR500m to help buy weapons.AnEU foreign ministers meeting on Monday approved the two-year training mission, which will involve different EU forces providing basic and specialist instruction to Ukrainian soldiers, in Poland and Germany. Officials hope the mission, which is expected to cost EUR107m, will be up and running by mid November.

Israeli officials refused to comment on comments from Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, that Tel Aviv is preparing to supply military aid to Ukraine. In a Telegram message on Monday, Medvedev, currently deputy chair of Russia’s security council, warned Israel against arming Kyiv, calling it a “a reckless move” that would “destroy relations between our countries”. Israel has tried to maintain a neutral stance, as it relies on Russia to facilitate its operations against Iranian-linked actors in Syria.

Marina Ovsyannikova, the former Russian state TV journalist who staged an on-air protest against the war in March, has fled the country, according to her lawyer.