Russia-Ukraine war: 13 Russian missiles hit Kirohovrad, says governor; Lithuania lifts Kaliningrad rail ban – live

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Heavy fighting has been taking place in the last 48 hours as Ukrainian forces continued their offensive against Russia in Kherson province, west of the Dnipro River, British military intelligence said on Saturday.

Reuters reports:

Russian forces are using artillery fire along the Ingulets River, a tributary of the Dnipro, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.

“Supply lines of the Russian forces west of the river are increasingly at risk,” the ministry said in an intelligence update.

It added that additional Ukrainian strikes have caused further damage to the key Antonivsky Bridge, though Russia has conducted temporary repairs.

Russian rockets targeted a town and nearby villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region of central-eastern Ukraine, the region’s governor, Valentyn Reznychenko, said on Saturday.

In the country’s north-east, “several powerful strikes” hit the centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Saturday morning, Reuters reported the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, as writing on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment outside regular hours.

Kyiv hopes that its gradually increasing supply of western arms, such as Himars (high mobility artillery rocket systems) from the US, will allow it to recapture territory.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its forces had destroyed four Himars systems between 5 July and Wednesday, a claim the US and Ukraine rejected.

Isonew Koshiw has written some analysis of how the war has robbed Ukraine’s oligarchs of political influence.

“Ukraine’s richest people, known in the country as oligarchs, are used to dominating political and economic life. But in the five months since Russia’s full-scale invasion started, they have gone quiet.

Political analysts and experts attribute this loss of influence to the fact that oligarchs and their businesses – like all Ukrainian citizens – need protection in the form of the military and diplomacy, state functions they have no control over.

Mykyta Poturyaev, an MP and former election campaign adviser to several Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians including the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said oligarchs are in the unusual position of not being able to influence the country at the moment.”

Boris Johnson has told Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the UK support will “not waver” regardless of who becomes the next leader of Britain.

In a call between the UK and Ukrainian leaders on Friday, Johnson “stressed the UK’s ongoing determination to support the Ukrainian people and said that resolve will not waver, no matter who becomes the next UK prime minister”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

PA Media reported Johnson also welcomed news of the deal to get grain out of Ukraine, amid hopes the agreement can avoid a global food crisis.

Johnson also spoke with Zelenskiy about plans to host Eurovision and the treatment of UK prisoners being held by Russian-backed forces.

In the southern Ukrainian town of Nikopol on the Dnipro river, continued Russian shelling killed at least one person, a Ukrainian official said on his Telegram channel.

“A 60-year-old woman died,” said Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine.

Reuters reported him as saying the Russian attack on Nikopol in the south – the target of more than 250 rockets in the past week – damaged 11 homes and farm buildings, cut off gas and water pipes and destroyed a railway track.

Thirteen Russian missiles hit a military airfield and railway infrastructure in Ukraine’s central Kirohovrad region on Saturday, killing and wounding a number of people, the local governor said.

Andriy Raikovych wrote on Telegram that rescue teams were working at the impact sites, and that one small district of the regional capital, Kropyvnytskyi, had been left without electricity by the strikes.

Wheat prices have fallen to levels last seen before Russia invaded Ukraine four months ago after Friday’s mediated deal between Kyiv and Moscowto allow the export of Ukrainian grain from blockaded ports in the Black Sea.

But Agence France-Press reports that despite the price drop, analysts expressed scepticism about the agreement’s ability to sidestep the realities of the grinding Russia-Ukraine conflict amid doubts over Moscow’s willingness to implement the accord.

Michael Zuzolo, president of Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting, said: “I’m still sceptical and I don’t think I’m alone in that in questioning that it will actually move much grain.”

But he said wheat prices might not have much further to fall, given that drought conditions were hitting output in some other parts of Europe.

On Euronext, wheat prices for delivery in September dropped 6.4% to $325.75 a ton, while in Chicago those prices fell 5.9% to $7.59 a bushel – equivalent to about 27kg – in the lowest close since Russia’s invasion on 24 February.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says the United Nations is responsible for guaranteeing the landmark deal between Ukraine and Russia aimed at unblocking Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports and alleviating a global food crisis.

“Russia could engage in provocations, attempts to discredit the Ukrainian and international efforts,” Agence France-Presse reported him as saying on Friday in his daily video address. “But we trust the United Nations. Now it’s their responsibility to guarantee the deal.”

Russia and Ukraine signed the grain exports agreement in Istanbul on Friday, with Turkey and the UN as co-guarantors, in a deal potentially averting the threat of a catastrophic global food crisis.

The warring parties signed two separate but identical texts, with Ukraine refusing to sign the same document as the Russians.

Zelenskiy said about 20m tonnes of produce from last year’s harvest and the current crop would be exported because of the deal, estimating the value of Ukraine’s grain stock at around $10bn.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Adam Fulton and it’s approaching 10am in Kyiv. Here’s a summary of the latest developments.

“Several powerful strikes” hit the centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Saturday morning, the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, wrote on Telegram. Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment outside regular hours.
Lithuania has lifted a ban on the rail transport of sanctioned goods into and out of the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, Russia’s RIA news agency said on Friday. The Baltic state had stopped Russia from sending sanctioned goods via rail to Kaliningrad in June, triggering a promise from Moscow of swift retaliation. RIA cited Mantas Dubauskas, a spokesperson for the state railway company, as saying it had informed customers they could ship goods again. “It is possible that some goods will be transported today,” he was quoted as telling Lithuanian TV.
Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Friday, one of a string of attacks as Russia claims its forces destroyed four Himar (high mobility artillery rocket) systems. The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, that killed at least three people and wounded 23.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said he had little confidence in Russia fulfilling its side of a bargain reached with Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations on resuming grain shipments from Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported.”Canada’s confidence in Russia’s reliability is pretty much nil,” Trudeau said on Friday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine had about $10bn worth of grain available for sale in the wake of the deal. “This is another demonstration that Ukraine can withstand the war,” he said in a late-night address on Friday, Reuters reported. Ukraine would also have a chance to sell the current harvest, he said.
Wheat prices tumbled to levels last seen before the Russian invasion after the deal on resuming grain exports from Ukraine. In Chicago, the price of wheat for delivery in September dropped 5.9% to $7.59 a bushel, which is equivalent to about 27kg and the lowest close since Russia’s invasion on 24 February. On Euronext, wheat prices for delivery in September fell 6.4% to $325.75 a ton.
The US is exploring whether it can send American-made fighter jets to Ukraine, the White House said on Friday. Joe Biden’s administration had started making explorations into the possibility of providing the jets to Ukraine but the move was not something that would be done immediately, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
The US signed off on an additional $270m in military aid to Ukraine, including four new Himar systems. Kirby said on Friday that Russia had “launched deadly strikes across the country, striking malls, apartment buildings, killing innocent Ukrainian civilians”.
A new statement from Europol said the organisation had no records of weapons being smuggled out of Ukraine. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said it has full confidence in Ukraine, especially because the country had started to implement new measures to monitor and track weapons, Euromaidan reports.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused $5.5bn in damage to Ukraine’s environment, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to Ruslan Strelets, Ukraine’s minister of environmental protection and natural resources, there have been 2,000 recorded cases of damage to nature since Russia invaded on 24 February.