Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow claims to be in direct confrontation with Nato as four die in Kharkiv strikes

Resistance by Kharkiv’s vastly outnumbered defenders has infuriated Vladimir Putin, as Askold Krushelnycky discovers at the scene of a cruel attack on brave Ukrainian rescue workers

Ukraine‘s air force shot down all 13 drones used in Russia’s overnight attack on southern regions, the Ukrainian military said on Friday.

Shahed drones were destroyed over the Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Russia also used two S-300/S-400 missiles and three Iskander-M ballistic missiles in the attack.

One of the attacks targeted energy infrastructure in the Odesa region but air defences repelled all four drones, Ukraine‘s southern group of forces said on the Telegram messaging app. The debris damaged several private residences and farm buildings in Zaporizhzhia, the statement said.

Local officials also reported explosions in an attack in the eastern city of Kharkiv, a regular target of Russian attacks, late on Thursday. The region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said the attack damaged four cars and a five-storey building with no casualties reported as of Friday morning. Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian grid infrastructure in recent weeks, aiming to disrupt the country’s power and energy network.

Russia’s foreign ministry said on Friday Sweden’s plans to set up a NATO military base on the Gotland island in the Baltic Sea were a provocation that would turn the sea into an area of geopolitical confrontation, the RIA news agency reported.

The ministry said this would increase risks for shipping in the Baltic.

The governor of Russia’s Rostov-on-Don region said early on Friday that air defence units had destroyed more than 40 airborne targets, though an electricity substation was damaged.

Vasily Golubev, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the drone attacks had focused on Morozovsk district, northeast of Rostov-on-Don, which lies on Ukraine‘s eastern border. Golubev said work was under way to restore power supplies in affected areas.

The attack may have been targeting a military airfield in Morozovsk, Rostov Oblast, where bombers Su-24, Su-24M, and Su-34 are based.

Ukraine has for months launched drone attacks on several Russian regions on its borders.

Russian air defences downed 53 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over the Rostov region, the RIA news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Friday.

One drone was downed in the Saratov region where an airbase for Russian strategic bombers is located. Drones were also downed over the Kursk, Belgorod and Krasnodar regions, the ministry said.

Nato alliance members agreed on Thursday to scour their arsenals for more air defence systems to protect Ukraine from Russian ballistic missile attacks, as the alliance marked a 75th anniversary overshadowed by the war on its borders.

“Allies understand the urgency,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said after Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met counterparts and appealed for new additional air defence systems, especially US-made Patriot missiles.

“Allies will now go back and look into their inventories, look into if there are any ways they can provide more systems, in particular Patriots, but also of course ensure that the systems which are already there have the ammunition but also the spare parts (they need),” Mr Stoltenberg said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “I believe based on what I heard today that everyone, including the United States, is going to double back, and if necessary double down, on finding the resources that Ukraine continues to need.”

Neither official spelled out any specific pledge or aid target.

Earlier, as a ceremony with birthday cake and marching bands could not mask the sombre mood in Brussels, Mr Kuleba said: “I didn’t want to spoil the birthday party for Nato, but I felt compelled to deliver a very sobering message on behalf of Ukrainians about the state of Russian air attacks on my country.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called Sweden’s plans to set up a Nato military base on the Gotland island in the Baltic Sea a provocation that would turn the sea into an area of geopolitical confrontation, the Russian state agency RIA news reported.

The ministry said the move would increase risks for shipping in the Baltic.

Russian forces have entered a suburb of the city of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, an adviser to the Russian-appointed regional head said.

Chasiv Yar, located about 10km (6m) west of Bakhmut, has served as an important staging point for Ukrainian troops in the area.

Ukrainian officials have not commented on Russian claims of entering Donetsk city.

The Russian advance was confirmed by the US-based think-tank the Institute for the Study of War, which cited geolocated footage and said Ukrainian forces halted their advance, and Russian state news RIA agency.“

Russian forces conducted a roughly reinforced company-sized mechanised assault towards Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut) on 4 April and advanced up to the eastern outskirts of the settlement.

Geolocated footage published on 4 April shows Russian forces conducting a roughly reinforced company-sized mechanised assault against Chasiv Yar.

“The footage indicates that the Russian mechanised column advanced along a section of the T-0506 (Khromove-Chasiv Yar) highway to the eastern outskirts of the Kanal micro-district (the easternmost part of Chasiv Yar) before Ukrainian forces prevented Russian forces from making further advances into Chasiv Yar.

“A Ukrainian soldier stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed 11 out of the 25 Russian armoured vehicles that participated in the mechanised assault, although Ukrainian officials have yet to provide more details on the assault,” it said.

A Ukrainian resident has been jailed for life for helping Russia target a missile strike on a pizzeria last year, prosecutors said.

“A local resident was sentenced to life imprisonment for guiding the occupiers’ missile attack on the pizzeria in Kramatorsk,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said yesterday.

The attack claimed the lives of 13 people including novelist Victoria Amelina after a Russian ballistic missile ripped through the popular “Ria Pizza” restaurant on 27 June.

Officials said the man was recruited to carry out the task by an intelligence official in the Russian-controlled part of the eastern Donetsk region and was asked to gather information about the restaurant.

“The convict agreed to the offer. In the city centre, he noticed cars with military licence plates in the car park and military themselves in the restaurant,” the prosecutor general’s office said.

It added that the convicted man also covertly recorded two videos of the site, which he immediately sent to his handler via Telegram before covering up evidence of his actions.

The man has been jailed for life over charges of “confiscation of property for high treason”, officials said.