Russia Ukraine war latest: Missiles hit Odesa hotel as Putin targets ports

A overnight Russian air strike on the key Ukrainian grain exporting port of Izmail injured two people and damaged infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region said on Tuesday.

A port building, storage facilities and more than 30 trucks and cars were damaged in the attack, which lasted more than two hours, Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian military reported shooting down 26 of the 38 Iranian-made attack drones it said were launched by Russia, Reuters reports.

Moscow has intensified its air attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube River, including Izmail and Reni, after it quit a grain deal in July that ensured the safe export of Ukrainian grains.

Separately on Tuesday, a Russian missile strike also damaged a local enterprise in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Ukraine has fought back courageously against Mr Putin’s warped bid to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

Russian textbooks praising Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine are an attempt to encourage “self-sacrifice” among schoolchildren, experts have warned.

One chapter claims that Ukrainian membership of Nato could have led to a catastrophic war and “possibly the end of civilisation”, an outcome it says Russia had to prevent.

Alexander Butler reports:

Ukraine has launched a fresh missile attack on a military airfield in Crimea’s Sevastopol, officials said.

Sevastopol, a vulnerable Russian target in Crimea where Moscow parks its Black Sea Fleet, has come under repeated targeting in recent months as Ukraine looks to destroy Vladimir Putin’s logistics and infrastructure on the peninsula that Russia had illegally annexed in 2014.

Russian air defence units downed a missile near the Belbek military airfield in the late hours on Monday, Russian-backed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on his official Telegram channel early Tuesday.

Sevastopol remained under an air raid alert starting around 11.30pm on Monday, as per Mr Razvozhayev’s Telegram message. It continued for an hour, covering midnight, as Russian air defence systems were activated.

Zug, Switzerland’s wealthiest canton, is famous for its flawless alpine vistas and low taxes. And here in the rolling hills sits Kloster Menzingen monastery, a temporary home to 160 Ukrainian refugees who have fled their war-torn country.

“They were bombing my city last night,” explains law graduate Hana, 28, from Odesa, as she walks along the gloomy corridor in the southern wing of the convent.

“This is our life, waking up to news that our towns and cities are once more under siege,” she says.

This is the heartwarming moment a six-year-old Ukrainian girl who lost her leg to a Russian missile strike learns to ride a bike again with the help of her prosthetic leg she named Kesha.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence posted footage of brave Marinya cycling a small tricycle through cones as she recovers from the bombing of Kherson in May last year.

The girl, the first Ukrainian child to be fitted with a prosthetic since the Russian invasion, manages to complete the course solo under the watchful eye of physiotherapists at The Kyiv Institute of Rehabilitation.

The dossier will document examples of hunger being used as a “weapon” over the course of the 18 month war, with the evidence aiming to encourage the ICC to launch a prosecution that could see Vladimir Putin indicted.

Flying above enemy lines, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone sends a clear image back to soldiers hiding in a basement a few kilometres away: A Russian armoured vehicle is idling along a key logistics route, looking like easy prey in the artillery-scarred green landscape.

Then, in a flash, the image disappears, and the drone operator’s screen is replaced by a jumble of black and white pixels.

“Snow,” says a calm commander known by the battlefield name Giocondo, who allowed The Associated Press to follow him and his unit of drone pilots on condition of anonymity to protect their identities. High-tech warfare cuts two ways, and the Russians use electronic beams to disable the drone’s signals.

Vladimir Putin wants the Ukrainian counteroffensive halted by early October and has instructed Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu to improve the situation, according to a Kremlin insider cited by a US-based think-tank monitoring the war.

“Putin reportedly gave Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu a deadline of one month until early October 2023 to improve the situation on the frontlines, stop Ukrainian counteroffensives, and have Russian forces regain the initiative to launch an offensive operation against a larger city,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an intelligence update on Sunday.

It said the Russian military command is likely ordering relentless attacks with the hope of forcing the Ukrainian counteroffensive to culminate, even at a high cost to Russian military capabilities, if the claims are true.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Monday that his country is in no hurry to ratify Sweden‘s bid to join NATO, suggesting the Nordic country could face further delays in becoming a member of the military alliance.

Speaking during the opening autumn session of Hungary’s parliament, Orbán told lawmakers that “nothing is threatening Sweden’s security,” and that Hungary was therefore in “no rush” to ratify its NATO accession.

Orbán’s statement came after other high-ranking Hungarian officials recently suggested that Sweden’s ratification may not be put on the parliamentary agenda at all during the autumn session. On Thursday, the caucus leader of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Mate Kocsis, said he saw “little chance” that parliament would vote on the matter this year.