Ukraine war: Russia hits civilian targets as Putin ‘losing Black Sea control’ – live

Russian drones reportedly struck civilian targets, sparking a fire in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukrainian officials said.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov, in a Telegram message, revealed that the attacks specifically targeted civilian infrastructure in the city’s northeast and also affected a nearby locality.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov indicated that efforts were underway to control the fire but did not provide further details.

Ninety minutes after the initial reports, the air raid alert in Kharkiv and other central regions was lifted, and there have been no subsequent updates on the situation on the ground.

Meanwhile, alerts remain in place in western regions, with the Ukrainian air force reporting the presence of Russian drones in three different areas.

Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of the Lviv region near the Polish border, noted the activation of anti-aircraft units in response to the situation.

The attacks came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Moscow was losing control of Black Sea.

He expressed gratitude for efforts to maintain Ukraine’s maritime export corridor, which has yielded positive results following a conference with military, intelligence, security forces, and government officials

He said it suggested that Russia’s influence in the Black Sea is diminishing, with a plan to pursue them further in the eastern waters.

The Russian Orthodox Church is calling for an apology from Alla Pugacheva, the country’s most renowned pop singer who returned home this week, over her criticism of Russia’s war on Ukraine:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that some Western weapons supplied to Ukraine were finding their way to the Middle East and falling into the hands of the Taliban.

Ukraine says it keeps tight control over any weapons supplied to it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is considering the “pros and cons” of holding presidential elections next spring, his foreign minister said on Friday.

“We are not closing this page. The president of Ukraine is considering and weighing the different pros and cons,” Dmytro Kuleba told a briefing, adding that holding elections during the war with Russia would entail “unprecedented” challenges.

Russia has unleashed a wave of night-time drone and missile attacks across 10 of Ukraine‘s 24 regions, Ukrainian authorities said as they prepare for another winter of infrastructure bombardment by the Kremlin’s forces.

Ukraine‘s air force said it intercepted 24 of 38 Shahed drones and one Kh-59 cruise missile launched by Russia.

The attacks caused fires in homes and public buildings, especially in the southern region of Kherson which Moscow has increasingly targeted in recent weeks, emergency services said.

Authorities reported that two people were injured.

“We understand that as winter approaches, Russian terrorists will attempt to cause more harm,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram after the attacks, employing his usual choice of words for the enemy’s forces.

Last winter, Russia took aim at Ukraine‘s power grid in an effort to deny civilians light and heating and chip away at the country’s appetite for war. Ukrainian officials accused the Kremlin of weaponising winter.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia had learnt to adapt to Western sanctions imposed on it over Ukraine but that such measures did cause extra problems.

It was commenting after the United States on Thursday imposed sweeping new measures.

“We have learnt to overcome them,” Peskov said, referring to Western sanctions.

The Independent has not been able to verify claims of the battlefield casualties.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni told Russian pranksters posing as African diplomats that there is “a lot of fatigue” over the war in Ukraine.

In a 13-minute recording released by pranksters “Vova and Lexus”, Ms Meloni claimed that Kyiv’s counteroffensive “didn’t change the destiny of the conflict” and that the time is approaching when Europe will “need a way out”.

The Italian PM believed she was speaking to senior African Union officials in the call on 18 September, a day before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, but her office later admitted that she “had been deceived”.

Russia on Friday dismissed new U.S. sanctions over the war in Ukraine, saying that the United States would never defeat Moscow, while the boss of Russia‘s fastest growing natural gas company quipped the sanctions were a badge of success.

The United States on Thursday targeted Russia‘s future energy capabilities, sanctions evasion and a suicide drone that has been a menace to Ukrainian troops and equipment, among others, in sanctions on hundreds of people and entities.

“This is a continuation of the policy of inflicting as they call it – a strategic defeat on us,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, told Russian state television when asked about the new sanctions.

“They will have to wait in vain forever before that happens.”

The U.S., itself a large LNG producer that exports to Europe, is also trying to reduce Russia‘s LNG shipments to Europe, which has only banned Russian gas sent via pipeline.

The Arctic-2 LNG project – targeted by the new sanctions – had been expecting to start exporting soon and it is uncertain how much Russian LNG will now be blocked.

The largest Russian LNG producer Novatek NVTK.MM said in September it would start shipments from Arctic-2 LNG early next year.

Leonid Mikhelson, the head of Russian natural gas producer Novatek, told a conference in the Uzbek city of Samarkand that the U.S. sanctions were a badge “of our professionalism”.

The timing could not be worse. Just as Ukraine is fighting to repel one of the fiercest Russian onslaughts since the war began, so fears emerge that US support to Kyiv could be severely undermined by Republicans loyal to the former president, says Askold Krushelnycky:

Ukraine is seeing some of the fiercest fighting since Moscow’s full-blown invasion began, with Russia going all-out to smash through several Ukrainian frontline positions despite sustaining enormous casualties.

Ukraine’s soldiers, also taking numerous casualties, have so far prevented any significant Russian breakthroughs.

The Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, has said the conflict has reached a stalemate which he compared to the bloody parity that obtained on the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War.