Russian-Ukraine latest news today: Moscow skyscraper hit by second drone attack in two days

Officials in Kharkiv, Ukraine‘s second-largest city, said on Tuesday that drones hit populated areas of the city and one drone destroyed two floors of a college dormitory.

The chief of police in Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, Volodymyr Tymoshko, said there were two night-time strikes – one on the college and one on the city centre.

“One of the drones destroyed two floors of a dormitory,” mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending,” he added.

“Very difficult night in Kharkiv. Indeed, there were three hits,” he told Ukrainian television, adding that the dormitory was not being used.

Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said a sports complex in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district was hit, damaging a two-storey building. A 63-year-old security guard had been injured and was in hospital.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram that Russia attacked the city with five Shahed drones.

A video posted on social media showed the top of a building ablaze and smoke billowing upwards. The Independent could not immediately confirm the attack or determine the location of the site in the video.

Ukraine has thwarted an overnight attempt by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northern border, interior minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“Last night, in the Chernihiv region, border guards stopped an attempt by an enemy saboteur-reconnaissance group to cross the state border of Ukraine within the Semenivka community,” he said.

Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that four armed people attempted to cross the border but were repelled by Ukrainian fire.

Klymenko said the four people were detected moving from Russian territory. He added that reserves of the State Border Guard Service and Ukraine’s armed forces were deployed to strengthen the area.

Ukraine has strengthened its northern military sector following the arrival of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus.

We have photographs of the reported drone attack in Moscow’s business district this morning, as the same skyscraper was targeted twice in two days.

Members of security services investigate a damaged office building in the Moscow City following a reported Ukrainian drone attack.

Investigators examine an area next to damaged building early Tuesday.

A view of the damaged building is seen here.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia‘s armed forces, has visited Russian troops in Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday.

It said Gerasimov inspected a command centre and underscored the importance of preemptive strikes against Ukrainian forces. An accompanying video showed him poring over a map, receiving briefings and climbing into a helicopter.

Gerasimov was for many months the target of savage criticism from Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and some Russian military bloggers over Russia‘s failings in the war.

After Wagner staged a brief mutiny against the defence establishment on June 24, there were questions as to whether Gerasimov would keep his job. More than two weeks elapsed before he was first seen again in public, on July 10.

Tuesday’s statement and video seemed designed to show that he not only remains in his post but is actively engaged with troops on the front line. The Zaporizhzhia region has seen some of the fiercest fighting of recent weeks, since Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in early June.

Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army (58 CAA), deployed in southern Ukraine where intense fighting is taking place, is up against Ukrainian troops but also facing fatigue and attrition, the British Ministry of Defence said today.

The ministry said intense fighting continues to be focused in two sectors in southern Ukraine, of which South of Orikhiv, the focus of Ukrainian assaults have been against Russia’s 58th CAA.

“58 CAA is highly likely struggling with battle fatigue and attrition in forward deployed regiments which have been in intense combat for over eight weeks. Further east, south of Velyka Novosilka, the defending Russian force is drawn from both the Eastern and Southern military districts, likely creating problems of co-ordination,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.

It added: “Elements of the 5th Combined Army are likely to be under particular pressure, and probably also feel that they are long overdue for a rotation out of the front-line.”

“Across the south, common problems for Russian commanders are highly likely to include shortage of artillery ammunition, a lack of reserves and problems securing the flanks of units in the defence,” the ministry said.

Three Ukrainian sea drones attacked two Russian Black Sea navy ships 340km (211 miles) southwest of Sevastopol and were destroyed, TASS cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying today.

The ministry said the ships were in the area to control the passage of other vessels.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine’s military needs enough long-range weapons after he accused Russian forces of firing two ballistic missiles from occupied Crimean territory.

“According to preliminary data from our military, these two missiles were fired at Kryvyi Rih from the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, from the area of Dzhankoy. And this proves again and again that for the safety of our cities, for the protection of the normal life of Ukrainians and our children, our military must have enough long-range weapons, enough means to defeat terrorists,” he said in his nightly address.

He also called for a “significant increase” in world’s sanctions pressure against Russia.

“…And we must respond with determination – determination to supply Ukraine with the necessary modern weapons, including long-range missiles, so that we can remove this terrorist threat that Russia is creating against our people, against our children,” Mr Zelensky said after an attack in central Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, which is his hometown, killed six.

With Moscow facing a flurry of drone attacks in recent weeks – the latest over the weekend – Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the war in Ukraine is “returning to Russia“.

While Kyiv is always very cagey about claiming direct responsibility for attacks on Russian soil, the number of incidents has coincided with the Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake territory occupied by Moscow’s forces. All while the Kremlin is still dealing with the fallout from a mutiny last month by the battle-hardened mercenaries of the Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Askold Krushelnycky speaks to Ukranian officials about the ongoing counteroffensive and how Kyiv is seeking to exploit the extended fallout of Wagner’s short-lived mutiny:

Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his Wagner Group is not currently recruiting fighters.

In an audio message published on a Telegram channel associated with the Wagner chief, Mr Prigozhin said the company had suspended recruitment as there is currently “no shortage of personnel.”

He had previously agreed with Western estimates that he lost more than 20,000 men in the long battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

Last month, Mr Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny against Moscow, demanding a leadership change in the Russian military.

In an attempt to control him, Russian authorities insisted that Wagner fighters can only return to Ukraine if they join Russia’s regular army.

The $3.9bn worth humanitarian appeal for war-torn Ukraine is less than 30 per cent funded as the country starts preparing for a second winter with more residential buildings damaged and destroyed and thousands of people homeless following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, the country’s UN humanitarian coordinator said.

Denise Brown told a virtual news conference from Kyiv that 17 million Ukrainians need aid and the UN is targeting between 11 million and 12 million — but funding is becoming a serious issue.

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