Ukraine-Russia war – live: Moscow may have used guided bomb in Kharkiv attack as Putin denies Nato war plans

Russia fired drones and missiles overnight at southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, authorities said, injuring more than a dozen people as the Kremlin’s forces persevered with attritional attacks designed to wear down Ukrainian defenses.

The regular bombardment of Ukraine by the Kremlin’s forces during the war has recently gained momentum, with missile barrages of the capital Kyiv and strikes on energy facilities across the country. The attacks also aim to weaken Ukrainian morale and act as retribution for Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian soil.

Russia has no designs on any NATO country and will not attack Poland, the Baltic states or the Czech Republic but if the West supplies F-16 fighters to Ukraine then they will be shot down by Russian forces, President Vladimir Putin said late on Wednesday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Speaking to Russian air force pilots, Putin said the U.S.-led military alliance had expanded eastwards towards Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union but that Moscow had no plans to attack a NATO state.

“We have no aggressive intentions towards these states,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript released on Thursday. “The idea that we will attack some other country – Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czechs are also being scared – is complete nonsense. It’s just drivel.”

The Kremlin, which accuses the US of fighting against Russia by supporting Ukraine with money, weapons and intelligence, says relations with Washington have probably never been worse.

Asked about F-16 fighters which the West has promised to send to Ukraine, Putin said such aircraft would not change the situation in Ukraine.

“If they supply F-16s, and they are talking about this and are apparently training pilots, this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” Putin said. “And we will destroy the aircraft just as we destroy today tanks, armoured vehicles and other equipment, including multiple rocket launchers.”

The Polish and Ukrainian governments meet in Warsaw on Thursday for talks to defuse a row over grain imports that has caused mass protests by farmers, but a top Polish official said a breakthrough was unlikely.

Farmers in Poland and elsewhere in the European Union have been protesting to demand the re-imposition of customs duties on agricultural imports from Ukraine that were waived after Russia’s invasion in 2022.

They say Ukraine’s farmers are flooding Europe with cheap imports that leave them unable to compete.

“It is difficult to expect any breakthrough after these talks, any specific agreement, for example on agricultural issues,” Jan Grabiec, head of the prime minister’s office, told state news agency PAP. “We are still in dialogue and both sides – at least for today – are not fully satisfied.”

Poland has been eyeing a licensing deal for agricultural trade with Ukraine similar to one agreed with Kyiv by Romania and Bulgaria.

On Wednesday Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski said talks were ongoing about a system of licensing exports, but that there were differences over the range of products that would be covered.

Ukrainian Farm Minister Mykola Solsky said the discussions with Poland were “complicated but frank”.

“It is important that we have already discussed solutions that will soon be announced. At the same time, the issue is difficult for all parties and requires additional time,” he wrote on social media platform X.

The reporter, the WSJ and the US government all deny Mr Gershkovich is a spy and he has been falsely imprisoned. He has had his pre-trial detention extended five times, the latest in a court hearing earlier this week that added three months until at least 30 June. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Leading Russian human rights group Memorial has warned that the health of its jailed 70-year-old head, Oleg Orlov, is deteriorating, accusing prison authorities of subjecting him to inhumane treatment.

Orlov, a leader of Memorial which won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was sentenced last month to 2-1/2 years in prison for “discrediting the armed forces” after he took part in anti-war demonstrations and published an article in which he said Russia had descended into fascism.

He has since filed an appeal.

Memorial said on Wednesday that Orlov’s health was suffering due to a strict diet of “dry rations” added to boiling water. He is also forced at the request of the judge to make daily trips between the detention centre and the court to review the case materials for his appeal, travelling in an unheated and smoke-filled police van, the group said.

It also said he is not being granted regular and confidential access to his lawyers.

“Orlov’s constant trips to court, as well as the conditions of transportation and detention during trips, together constitute cruel and degrading treatment and violate Orlov’s rights,” his defence team wrote in official complaints it filed to the court and posted on Memorial’s website.

“The current situation gives me serious fears for the life and health of my client,” the complaint says.

Russia may have used a new type of guided bomb in airstrikes on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv that killed at least one person on Wednesday, local officials said.

The officials said four children including a three-month-old baby were among 19 people wounded in Kharkiv in the latest strikes since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of which have caused blackouts, including in Kharkiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack as “Russian terror” and Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the Kharkiv regional police, said Moscow may have used a new type of guided bomb which he described as the UMPB D-30.

“This is something between a guided aerial bomb which they (the Russians) have used recently, and a missile. It’s a flying bomb so to say,” Tymoshko said at the site of the strike.

Regional governor Oleh Synehubov also suggested Moscow may have used a new type of bomb, saying: “It seems that the Russians decided to test their modified bombs on the residents of the houses.”

Russia did not immediately comment on their remarks. It denies targeting civilians although the war has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed towns and cities.

Two residential buildings and a medical institution were partially destroyed, and a total of 14 buildings, including an educational facility, were damaged, Synehubov said on the Telegram messenger.

Ukrainian forces shot down 26 out of 28 attack drones launched overnight by Russia, Kyiv’s military said on Thursday.

The Iranian-made drones were destroyed over parts of eastern, southern and southeastern Ukraine, the air force added.

The Zaporizhzhia region’s governor said on Telegram that two women had been wounded when debris struck a residential neighbourhood in the regional capital.

Prosecutors in the eastern Kharkiv region said a restaurant, a store and offices were damaged by debris from three drones.

The air force added that Russia’s overnight attack included several types of missiles. The military’s southern command reported on Telegram that those launched from planes over the Black Sea had “lost their combat capability”.

Odesa region governor Oleh Kiper said Russia carried out a separate missile strike later in the morning but that no injuries had been reported. He did not specify the target.

Russia has launched regular air strikes on population centres far behind the lines of its two-year-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In the weeks leading up to the tragedy at a Moscow music venue on Friday night, warnings had been relayed to Russia that a terror attack perpetrated by extremists was imminent.

At least 137 people have been killed, while over a hundred more have been wounded with the jihadist group ISIS-K claiming responsibility in a series of videos and messages.

In the month after his return to parliament, described as a “dark day” for Britain’s Jewish community, Mr Galloway espoused conspiracy theories about the Princess of Wales being dead and likened Israel to Nazi Germany.