Russia-Ukraine war live news: Odesa struck by Russian missiles again, regional military chief says

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A residential area in Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv has also reportedly been hit this morning.

Kharkiv mayor, Igor Terekhov, said the attack by Russian forces was made on the city centre.

Another nighttime shelling of the city. I flew to a part of Kharkiv closer to the centre. Traditionally a hit next to a building unrelated to military infrastructure,” he wrote.

The head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, Oleg Synegubov, said the attack occurred around 5am on Tuesday.

In a Telegram post written just after 7.30am, he said:

At around 5 o’clock in the morning, the occupiers attacked the civilian infrastructure of Kharkiv’s Slobid district.

As a result of the shelling, the roof of the car showroom was on fire. A few more shells hit open areas.”

The nearby city of Chuhuiv was also reportedly hit, Synegubov added.

At the same time, the occupiers struck Chuguiev again. There are hits on critical infrastructure.”

A major fire broke out at an oil depot in the Budyonnovsky district of Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian troops shelled the province, according to local media reports.

No casualties or injuries have been reported so far due to the fire, which was tens of meters high, Russia’s Tass news agency reported on Tuesday, quoting a reporter at the scene.

Ukrainian media also shared footage purported to be from the scene.

Ukraine says it hopes to start exporting grain from its ports this week with the first ships potentially moving from its Black Sea ports within a few days.

Details of the procedures will soon be published by a joint coordination centre that is liaising with the shipping industry, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

Turkey’s President, Tayyip Erdogan, said that Turkey expects Kyiv and Moscow to keep to their responsibilities under the recently signed grain export deal.

Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, has said Ukraine would continue preparations to export grain and food, starting with Chornomorsk port, then the ports in Odesa and Pivdennyi along its south-western coast, which it still controls.

Ukraine signed the agreement with the United Nations and Turkey and requested Russia sign the same, but separate agreement.

Kubrakov, who signed on behalf of Kyiv, said although Ukraine did not trust Russia “it trusts its allies and partners, which is why the agreement … was signed with the UN and Turkey and not Russia”.

A little more detail is beginning to emerge surrounding the claimed Russian missile attack on Odesa this morning.

The region’s military administration head, Serhiy Bratchuk, said the port city was struck just after 6am this morning with Russian strategic aircraft.

The enemy launched a missile attack on Odesa.”

Ukraine’s armed forces said in a separate update that “several rockets were shot down by air defence”.

Russian forces have once again struck Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa in the early hours of this morning, local officials are reporting.

The region’s military administration head, Serhiy Bratchuk, said he would release more details in a Telegram post just after 6am this morning.

Odesa missile attack using strategic aircraft,” he said.

On Saturday, barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Kyiv to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports, Russia targeted Odesa with cruise missile strikes.

Zelenskiy called the attack blatant “barbarism”, showing Moscow could not be trusted to implement the deal.

Shipments exporting Ukrainian would take place through Odesa.

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments for the next short while.

In a concerning new development this morning, Ukrainian officials are reporting that Russian forces have once again struck Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa.

The alleged attack comes as Ukraine says it hopes to start exporting grain from its ports this week with the first ships potentially moving from its Black Sea ports within a few days.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Gazprom is set to reduce gas supplies further after announcing a drastic cut to gas deliveries through its main pipeline to Europe from Wednesday.

It is 8am in Kyiv and here is where things stand:

Ukraine says it hopes to start exporting grain from its ports this week with the first ships potentially moving from its Black Sea ports within a few days. Details of the procedures will soon be published by a joint coordination centre that is liaising with the shipping industry, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, said that Turkey expects Kyiv and Moscow to keep to their responsibilities under the recently signed grain export deal.
Russia’s Gazprom is set to reduce gas supplies further after announcing a drastic cut to gas deliveries through its main pipeline to Europe from Wednesday. The company said it was halting the operation of one of the last two operating turbines due to the “technical condition of the engine”, cutting daily gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s capacity.
German group Siemens Energy disputed Gazprom‘s reasoning, saying it saw “no link between the turbine and the gas cuts that have been implemented or announced” in a statement to Agence France-Presse. Siemens Energy has been charged with maintaining the turbine.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Europe to hit back against Russia’s “gas war”. “This is an overt gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe … And that’s why it is necessary to hit back,” he said, adding Europe should boost its sanctions against Moscow.
Russia’s top diplomat said Moscow’s overarching goal is to topple Zelenskiy’s government. Speaking to envoys at an Arab League summit in Cairo on Sunday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow is determined to help Ukrainians “liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime”.
Lavrov arrived in Uganda on the third stop of a four-day tour of African countries. According to the Russian Tass news agency, Lavrov is due to hold talks on Tuesday with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni.
Ukraine said it destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots using the US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars) on Monday. The systems, delivered late last month, have turned the war in Ukraine’s favour by dismantling Russia’s logistics and slowing down its offensive, say Ukrainian authorities. “This cuts [Russian] logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and hit our armed forces with heavy shelling,” Ukraine’s minister of defence, Oleksii Reznikov, said.
The appeal of Ukraine’s first war crimes conviction was adjourned on Monday, as prosecutors keep pushing to hold Russia legally accountable for atrocities. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old captured Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a civilian and was sentenced in May by a Ukrainian court to life in prison, sat in a glass box in the courtroom as he faced news cameras.
Two Americans who were killed while defending Ukraine earlier this month have been identified. Luke Lucyszyn and Bryan Young were the US citizens killed during an ambush by a Russian tank on 18 July, their Ukrainian commander Ruslan Miroshnichenko said on Facebook. Lucyszyn was reportedly knocked unconscious by an artillery strike and fatally shot by a Russian tank, Miroshnichenko said.
Russian authorities briefly detained a 72-year-old liberal politician and Kremlin critic who recently returned to Moscow from abroad on Monday. Leonid Gozman was detained after the Russian interior ministry issued a warrant for his arrest alleging he failed to notify authorities about his Israeli citizenship within the required time, according to the Associated Press.
The Eurovision song contest will be hosted in the UK next year after Ukraine’s public broadcaster dropped its objections and agreed to work with the BBC on the event. Ukraine won this year’s Eurovision with the song Stefania by Kalush Orchestra, earning the right to host the 2023 edition. However, organisers concluded this could not be done safely while the country was at war. The UK will produce a programme that – in the words of the BBC – has “glorious Ukraine at its heart”.