Russia-Ukraine war live: civilian deaths reported after strikes in Kryvyi Rih, Kherson and Donetsk
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Ukraine defence minister says Moscow has intensified strikes on military infrastructure; Kremlin says Ukraine counteroffensive ‘not working out as planned’
20 people in hospital and over 60 injured after Russian strike on Kryvyi Rih apartment block
The reported number of people injured in the strike on an apartment block in Kryvyi Rih keeps rising. The latest figure reported in Ukraine by Suspilne is 64 injured.
The regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, has stated that the injured include “two boys and three girls, aged from four to 17 years old”.
Suspilne adds in its report: “Most of the wounded will be treated at home. More than 20 remain in hospitals.”
Four people have been reported dead in the attack.
It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv. Here is a summary of the day’s events so far:
At least six people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 50 people injured when Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih. Authorities said people were trapped under rubble. Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, called for revenge, saying: “Every day, Ukrainian cities are under fire from Russian terrorists. Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv. This is only for the last few days.” He said targeting civilians was a sign of “the despair and defeat of the Russian Federation at the front”.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said “This is how the week begins in a Ukrainian city that just wants a quiet, normal life. Russia wants to take peace and life away”, and offered condolences to the victims and their families. The city is the home town of both Zelenska and her husband.
On Telegram, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said more than 350 people are working on the rescue mission in Kryvyi Rih after what he said were two Russian ballistic missiles hit the city.
Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza on Monday lost an appeal against his 25-year jail sentence, the RIA state news agency reported. Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship, was jailed for 25 years in April for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters reports. Britain added six new designations to its Russia sanctions list, an update to the government website showed on Monday, targeting judges and officials involved in the trial of Kara-Murza.
According to Reuters, Ukraine and Croatia have agreed on the possibility of using Croatian ports on the Danube and the Adriatic Sea for the export of Ukrainian grain, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after talks with his Croatian counterpart on Monday.
Russian airstrikes destroyed an estimated 180,000 metric tonnes of grain crops in the space of nine days this month, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said Russia lost 87 units of equipment last week, including 33 strongholds, 26 armored combat vehicles and 15 tanks. These claims have not been independently verified.
The Kremlin on Monday described a recent drone attack on Moscow as an “act of desperation” by Ukraine after setbacks on the battlefield. AFP reports that Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said it has been “very difficult” for Ukrainian forces on the frontline since it launched its counteroffensive in June. He added: “It is obvious that the counteroffensive is not a success. In an act of desperation, the regime in Kyiv is turning to such terrorist attacks. All possible measures have been taken to defend civil infrastructure [against Ukrainian strikes].”
Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 15 sq km (5.8 sq miles) of land from Russian troops in the east and south over the past week during their counteroffensive, a senior defence official said on Monday. Kyiv’s forces have now retaken 204.7 sq km in the south since they launched a major push back against Russian forces early last month, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “not working out as planned” and that Nato resources supplied to Kyiv had been “wasted”, during the course of a two month-long operation that has seen limited gains for Ukraine.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has claimed that at least two people have been killed and at least six injured after a Ukrainian strike hit a bus in the city which had been capital of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014, and which Russia claimed to have annexed last year.
Three Ukrainian drones that were shot down over Moscow damaged a high-rise building containing government offices and briefly shut an international airport, according to reports. Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said nobody was hurt and there was only minor damage to the facade of two office buildings in the Moscow City business district early on Sunday. Russia’s state news agency Tass reported a security guard had been injured. One of the damaged buildings – several kilometres from the Kremlin – was home to three Russian government ministries as well as residential apartments, according to Russian media, in the third such attack on the capital region in a week.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was “not working out as planned” and that Nato resources supplied to Kyiv had been “wasted”. On a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said separately that Russia would take additional measures to defend against Ukrainian drone strikes.
“War is returning to the territory of Russia,” Zelenskiy warned after the drones were downed over Moscow. The Ukrainian president said that was “an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process” and that Russia’s symbolic centres and military bases would be targeted.
Suspilne reports that as a result of morning shelling in Kherson, a 60-year-old employee of a utility company was killed, and four more people were injured. The Russian army also shelled Kramatorsk with rockets at night, and an industrial zone was hit. There were no casualties or injuries reorted.
Alexey Kulemzin, the Russian-imposed mayor of the occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, has reported that “facades, balconies, roofing and glazing” have been damaged in Kuibyshevskyi district in the city by overnight shelling.
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have said in a voice message published on Monday that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future. Prigozhin said in the voice message that “unfortunately” some of his fighters had moved to other “power structures”, but he said they were looking to return. “As long as we don’t experience a shortage in personnel, we don’t plan to carry out a new recruitment,” Prigozhin said. “However, we will be extremely grateful to you if you keep in touch with us, and as soon as the Motherland needs to create a new group that will be able to protect the interests of our country, we will certainly start recruiting.”
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would be “forced” to use a nuclear weaponif Kyiv’s counteroffensive was a success and its forces “tore off a part of our land”. Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said that in that situation “there would simply be no other option”.
Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organised peace summit in early August seeking a way to start negotiations over the war, the Associated Press has reported, citing Saudi officials. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was not invited to the talks in Jeddah. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, later confirmed the talks would be held in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has not acknowledged the summit nor responded to a request for comment. The Kremlin said on Monday it needed to find out the purpose of upcoming talks.
Thank you for following along. Come back tomorrow for more live coverage and in the meantime you read our reporting on the war here.
Ukraine’s defence ministry signed an agreement with Turkish company Baykar Makina to build a service centre for the repair and maintenance of drones in Ukraine, a ministry official said on Monday.
The ministry’s state secretary, Kostiantyn Vashchenko, said in a statement:
The creation of a service centre will be a significant contribution to strengthening Ukraine’s defence capabilities and will help bring our victory closer.
According to Reuters, more than 10,000 drone operators have been trained with 10,000 more in training, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister in charge of the “Army of Drones” said last week.
Anton Gerashchenko, Ukraine’s internal affairs ministerial adviser, shared a photo of the mother and daughter who reportedly died in the missile attach in Kryvyi Rih.
Mom and daughter killed by a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih today. RIP.
Search and rescue operation in Kryvyi Rih is finished - head of National Police.
Britain has added six new designations to its Russia sanctions list, an update to the government website showed on Monday, targeting judges and officials involved in the trial of Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, Reuters reports.
Here are some more images of from the news wires of the aftermath of the missile attack in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine.
The missile strike killed at least six and wounded dozens, according to officials. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images
An apartment is seen damaged after the missile strike in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Photograph: Libkos/AP
Rescuers work in a nine-storey residential building partially destroyed as a result of Russian missiles strike in Kryvyi Rih. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s former press secretary, Iuliia Mendel, said there has been a lot of shelling in Kherson today.
In a tweet, she said":
The regional authorities explain the intensity of the shelling by the rotation of Russian troops on the left bank.
‘Russia has replenished its forces that had previously defeated our Armed Forces. They will destroy these too, but we have to wait a bit!’ the statement reads.
A lot of shelling of Kherson today. The regional authorities explain the intensity of the shelling by the rotation of Russian troops on the left bank.
"Russia has replenished its forces that had previously defeated our Armed Forces. They will destroy these too, but we have to…
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Monday called for an end to the “irrational” war in Ukraine, urging upcoming peace talks in the Middle East to include representation from both Ukraine and Russia.
López Obrador said Mexico would only take part in the talks scheduled to be held over the coming weekend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia if both sides were present, Reuters reports.
At a press conference, the president said:
If there’s acceptance from both Ukraine and Russia to look for solutions to achieve peace, we’ll participate.
We don’t want the Russia-Ukraine war to continue, it’s very irrational.
The only thing that benefits from it is the war industry.
Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said the death toll has risen to six and at least 75 people have been wounded after a missile attack in Kryvyi Rih by Russian forces.
On Telegram, Lysak said:
It’s already six dead in Kryvyi Rih.
Nearly 150 of the building’s residents managed to get out by themselves and 30 were helped out by rescuers, he added.
Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza on Monday lost an appeal against his 25-year jail sentence, the RIA state news agency reported.
Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship, was jailed for 25 years in April for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
At least five people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 50 people injured after the missile attack in Kryvyi Rih by Russian forces. A video posted by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed smoke billowing from a gaping hole smashed in the side of a nine-story residential building. Authorities said people were still trapped under rubble.
Russian missile strikes high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, killing four people – video
According to Reuters, Ukraine and Croatia have agreed on the possibility of using Croatian ports on the Danube and the Adriatic Sea for the export of Ukrainian grain, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after talks with his Croatian counterpart on Monday.
Zelenskiy: five dead in Kryvyi Rih and 350 people involved in rescue operation
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted to Telegram to state that more than 350 people are working on the rescue mission in Kryvyi Rih after what he said were two Russian ballistic missiles hit the city. He said that the death toll was now at five.
On Telegram, Ukraine’s president posted:
Rescue operation continues in Kryvyi Rih on the site of Russian missiles’ hits. Preliminary, two ballistic missiles. Floors four through nine of the residential building have been completely destroyed. The work is difficult – parts of the building’s structure were falling down. The terrorists also targeted the university building and the administrative building. As of now, five people are reported dead, including a child and her mother. My condolences. Dozens of people are injured and traumatised, all of them are being provided with the necessary assistance.
More than 350 people are involved in the rescue operation – I thank everyone who is saving lives and helping people.
A view of a site of an apartment building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Kryvyi Rih. Photograph: State Emergency Service Of Ukraine/Reuters
Interfax in Russia reports that parliament in Moldova has extended the national state of emergency for a further 60 days.
Moldova, which borders Ukraine, first declared the state of emergency on 24 February 2022 in response to the full-scale Russian invasion of its neighbour. It has expressed concerns about the possibility of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the impact on gas supplies which might affect the country.
The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, in which Russian troops are stationed, is sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldovan-controlled territory. Early in the war a string of explosions hit government buildings in Transistria, prompting fears Moldova could be dragged into the conflict.
