Four-year-old child and pregnant woman among those in a serious condition after strike on seafront park in Black Sea port city

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A Russian missile attack on an educational institution in a popular seafront park in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa, known locally as ‘Harry Potter castle’, on Monday killed at least five people and injured 32, local officials said. The previous death toll was four.

Nato countries have not delivered what they promised to Ukraine in time, which has benefited Russia on the frontline, Jens Stoltenberg has said . “Serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield” for Ukraine, the Nato secretary general said in Kyiv while meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Ukrainian officials say Russia is assembling forces for a major summer offensive , even if its troops are making only incremental gains at the moment. “The lack of ammunition has allowed the Russians to push forward along the frontline ,” Stoltenberg added. “Lack of air defence has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and the lack of deep strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces.” Zelenskiy said new western supplies have started arriving, but slowly. “This process must be speeded up,” he said.

The head of the southern Kherson region said Russian shelling killed one person in the last 24 hours.

Debris showed that an North Korean Hwasong-11 ballistic missile hit Kharkiv on 2 January, UN sanctions monitors have told a security council committee in a report seen by Reuters. The missile was most likely illegally supplied to Russia, they conclude. North Korea is accused of developing such weapons and supplying them to Russia despite being under UN sanctions for its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes since 2006. Ukraine’s allies have accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine in violation of an arms embargo. The US has accused Russia of launching North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions .

Away from the frontline, Polish farmers have lifted blockades at border crossings with Ukraine , officials said on Monday, ending a two-month protest over farm imports and alleged unfair competition.

Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, made an unannounced visit to Ukraine – the first British royal to travel to the country since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
Buckingham Palace said on Monday that Sophie, wife of Prince Edward, met Zelenskiy and first lady Olena Zelenska in Kyiv and delivered a message on behalf of King Charles III. It did not disclose the timing or details of the visit. The palace said Sophie made the trip “to demonstrate solidarity with the women, men and children impacted by the war and in a continuation of her work to champion survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.”

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Jens Stoltenberg says lack of ammunition has allowed Russia to push forward; Odesa missile strike kills at least four people. What we know on day 797

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Nato countries have not delivered what they promised to Ukraine in time, which has benefited Russia on the frontline, Jens Stoltenberg has said . “Serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield” for Ukraine, the Nato secretary general said in Kyiv while meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Ukrainian officials say Russia is assembling forces for a major summer offensive , even if its troops are making only incremental gains at the moment.

“The lack of ammunition has allowed the Russians to push forward along the front line ,” Stoltenberg said. “Lack of air defence has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and the lack of deep strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces.” Zelenskiy said new western supplies have started arriving, but slowly. “This process must be speeded up,” he said.

At least four people were killed and 32 injured in a Russian missile strike on residential buildings and “civil infrastructure” in Odesa on Monday, said regional officials. The attack hit a private law academy situated in a popular seafront park in the southern Ukrainian port city. A turreted Gothic-style building known as the “Harry Potter castle” was seen in flames after the strike. Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the strike was conducted by an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead. “Monsters. Beasts. Savages. Scum. I don’t know what else to say,” said the Odesa mayor, Hennadii Trukhanov.

Debris showed that an North Korean Hwasong-11 ballistic missile hit Kharkiv on 2 January, UN sanctions monitors have told a security council committee in a report seen by Reuters. The missile was most likely illegally supplied to Russia, they conclude. North Korea is accused of developing such weapons and supplying them to Russia despite being under UN sanctions for its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes since 2006. Ukraine’s allies have accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine in violation of an arms embargo. The US has accused Russia of launching North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions . Russia in March vetoed the renewal of sanctions monitoring against North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Away from the frontline, Polish farmers have lifted blockades at border crossings with Ukraine , officials said on Monday, ending a two-month protest over farm imports and alleged unfair competition. “The traffic through all the border crossings [with Ukraine] is possible,” said Michal Derus, a tax administration spokesman in Poland’s Lublin region after farmers ended the last blockade at the Hrebenne border crossing. “All trucks are allowed to pass as long as they are not carrying sanctioned goods,” Derus added, referring to the grain imports from Ukraine that Poland imposed a temporary embargo on.

German prosecutors are investigating after a Russian citizen was arrested on suspicion of stabbing two Ukrainian soldiers to death . The soldiers – who had been convalescing in southern Germany – were found with serious stab wounds outside a shopping centre in the Bavarian town of Murnau am See on Sunday, according to police. One of them, aged 36, died at the scene, while the other, 23, died in hospital. A 57-year-old Russian citizen was arrested in his home on suspicion of murder, police said. The prosecutor general’s office in Munich said it had since taken over the case and was not able to rule out that the killings were politically motivated.

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, on Monday became the first British royal to visit Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion . The British foreign ministry said she met survivors of sexual violence and torture, as well as women displaced by the war, and children who were deported to Russia before recently being returned. “It’s true that women and girls pay the highest price in terms of human cost … Rape is used to demean, to degrade and to destroy, and we have to get better at trying to prevent that from happening,” Sophie said. The Russian army in Ukraine has been accused of numerous incidents of rape and sexual violence

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Report to United Nations security council says remnants of Hwasong-11 violate arms export embargo on Russian ally

The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on 2 January was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, UN sanctions monitors told a security council committee in a report seen by Reuters.

In the 32-page report, the UN sanctions monitors concluded that “debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 2 January 2024 derives from a DPRK Hwasong-11 series missile” and is in violation of the arms embargo on North Korea.

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RRC appears to defy neutrality principle, as Ukrainian officials criticise ‘weak response’ and accuse Red Cross of being advocate for Russian aggression

The International Red Cross movement has decided not to suspend membership of the Russian Red Cross (RRC), despite potential breaches of neutrality regulations brought to light by an investigation by a group of international media outlets, including the Guardian .

Research showed what appeared to be numerous violations of the Red Cross charter by the Russian organisation since the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin face at least two years’ jail on ‘extremism’ charges, which they deny, amid continuing crackdown on dissent

Two Russian journalists have been arrested on “extremism” charges and ordered by courts there to remain in custody pending investigation and trial on accusations of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin both denied the charges for which they will be detained for a minimum of two months before any trials begin. Each faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organisation”, according to Russian courts.

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeats pleas for more defensive missiles after fourth large-scale aerial assault on energy system in five weeks. What we know on day 795

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Russian missiles have hammered power facilities in central and western Ukraine, increasing pressure on the country’s ailing energy system . Saturday’s airstrikes, carried out with long-range missiles including cruise missiles, was the fourth large-scale aerial assault targeting the power system since 22 March. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, said four of its six thermal power plants had suffered damage. Rescuers battled to put out fires at several energy facilities in the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated his pleas to partners for more defensive missiles – notably the Patriot system – and faster deliveries, despite this week’s breakthrough in US military aid . He said Russia’s targets included electricity and gas transit facilities, in particular those important for gas supply to the European Union. Ukrainian air defences brought down 21 of the 34 incoming missiles, the air force’s commander said. After strikes on energy facilities in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, running water supplies were disrupted in Zelenskiy’s home town of Kryvyi Rih, officials said.

A Russian court ordered another suspect to be held in custody following the arrest of an ally of defence minister Sergei Shoigu on suspicion of taking bribes, TASS news agency reported on Saturday . It cited court documents as saying Anton Filatov, a subordinate of deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov, had been ordered to be held in custody.

A missile struck a hospital holding 60 patients on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv , injuring a woman and damaging the building, nearby water pipes and power lines, the regional governor said on Saturday.

Ukraine attacked the Ilsky and Slavyansk oil refineries in Russia’s Krasnodar region overnight to Saturday, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters . The drone strike conducted by the SBU security service caused fires at the facilities, the source said, and Russia’s Kushchevsk military airfield was also attacked in the southern region. The Slavyansk oil refinery was forced to suspend some operations after being damaged in the attack, Russian state news agency Tass cited an executive overseeing the plant as saying.

Russia has sent more troops to Ocheretyne in eastern Ukraine to reinforce an offensive there, but Kyiv’s forces largely hold the village and expect US arms deliveries to turn the tide in their favour, the Ukrainian military said . Russian troops have slowly advanced through at least half a dozen villages on the eastern front since capturing the bastion town of Avdiivka in February. Fierce fighting raged in Ocheretyne on Saturday but Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesperson for the eastern command, said Ukrainian forces had the situation “under control” and controlled two-thirds of the village.

Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, announced a $100m military aid package for Kyiv including short-range air defence and drones, with air-to-ground precision munitions coming separately, during a visit to Lviv on Saturday.

Italy summoned Russia’s ambassador after Moscow announced it was putting a subsidiary of Italian heating firm Ariston under the “temporary management” of state energy company Gazprom . An EU spokesperson condemned the move as “yet another proof of Russia’s disregard for international law and rules” and called on Moscow to reverse it. Since invading Ukraine, Moscow has taken the Russian subsidiaries of a number of western companies – notably French food giant Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg – under what it calls temporary control.

Russia on Saturday said it would require major exporters to carry on converting the bulk of their foreign currency earnings into rubles for another year to help support the national currency. Moscow has used strict capital controls to prop up the value of the ruble in the two years since the west levelled sweeping financial sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of ‘mutual respect’, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch

Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraine’s eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes.

Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraine’s commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what “Maslo”, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unit’s first battalion, described as “constant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hours”. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.

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US defence secretary announces aid as Zelenskiy pleads with west for more Patriot systems to defend Ukrainian cities

The US will provide Ukraine with additional Patriot missiles for its air defence systems as part of a massive $6bn additional aid package, the defence secretary has announced.

“This is the largest security assistance package that we’ve committed to date,” Lloyd Austin said after the conclusion of a virtual meeting of dozens of Kyiv’s international supporters.

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