🔴 Live: Russian missile hits central Ukraine as Moscow reports drone attacks

Issued on: 01/09/2023 – 09:42

5 min

11:15am: Ukraine says drone attack on Russian airport launched from inside Russia

A recent drone attack on an airport in Russia that damaged several transport planes was carried out from within Russian territory, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has claimed.

“The drones used to attack the ‘Kresty’ air base in Pskov were launched from Russia,” Kyrylo Budanov wrote on social media, adding that: “Four Russian IL-76 military transport planes were hit as a result of the attack.”

Kyiv officials normally neither claim nor deny responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.

Satellite images analysed by AP show that Tuesday’s suspected drone attacks destroyed at least two Ilyushin Il-76 military transport planes at the air base in Pskov.

Eleven other aircraft had been moved off their parking pads into different positions on the airport’s taxiways, possibly in an attempt to make it more difficult for them to be struck again, AP said. 

10:45am: No ‘sustainable’ peace unless all occupied territories are freed, says Ukraine’s Zelensky

There can be no “sustainable peace” in Ukraine unless the country regains control of Crimea, Donbas and other territories occupied by Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in an address to the European House Ambrosetti business forum in Italy.

Zelensky has been promoting a 10-point peace plan that includes the withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders with Russia.

Moscow has flatly rejected the proposal. 

Earlier today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he told United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres that online meetings held in August to discuss Zelensky’s peace formula were “unacceptable”.

8:40am: Casualties reported as Russian missile hits central Ukraine

Russian forces struck a private enterprise with a long-range cruise missile overnight in the central Ukrainian region of Vinnytsia, local authorities have said.

The strike damaged property and caused an unspecified number of injuries, said Governor Serhiy Borzov.

“Unfortunately, there are victims, they are being provided with all necessary assistance,” he wrote on Telegram.

Kyiv’s air force said it shot down one out of two incoming cruise missiles in the attack. The missile was downed over the central Kirovohrad region, the governor said on the Telegram messenger.

7:25am: Moscow mayor says drone shot down near capital

Russian air defences have destroyed a drone approaching Moscow, a day after a similar attack on the capital, according to the city’s mayor.

Air defences near the Lyubertsy district on the southeast outskirts of the capital “thwarted another attempt to fly a drone to Moscow,” Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

“There were no casualties or damage, according to initial reports. Emergency services are on the scene,” he added.

Air traffic at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports was briefly suspended, according to a Telegram post by the Russian daily newspaper Izvestia.

6:35am: Russia says Ukrainian drone targets town home to nuclear plant

A Ukrainian drone attacked a town in southwestern Russia which is near one of the country’s biggest nuclear power stations, though there was no damage reported to the plant, Russian officials have said.

Governor Roman Starovoit said a Ukrainian drone had damaged the facade of a building in the town of Kurchatov, just a few kilometres from the Kursk nuclear power station, early in the morning.

“There are no casualties,” Starovoit said. Starovoit did not mention any potential damage to the Kursk nuclear power plant.

The Soviet-era nuclear facility has the same graphite-moderated reactors as the Chernobyl nuclear plant that suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986.

9:39pm: Turkey wants to revive Black Sea grain deal, but Russia won’t ‘bend’

Talks between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow to revive the Black Sea grain deal did not make substantial progress, explains FRANCE 24’s international affairs commentator Douglas Herbert.

Turkey helped broker the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea, under UN auspices and would like to see the initiative revived, noted Herbert, “but they know they have to work with Russia – and Russia’s not going to bend”.

Russia withdrew from the deal in July and has said it will not resume participation until its demands, which involve Moscow’s own grain and fertiliser exports, are met.

“Critics say Russia’s real motives are to further hamper and destroy Ukraine’s economy, and to also force the West to use this food deal, and Russia’s withdrawal from the food deal, as a blackmail of sorts in order to get the West to drop its sanctions,” said Herbert.

03:29

Key developments from Thursday, August 31:

Ukraine told critics of the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to “shut up” on Thursday as its troops claimed new “successes” in the south and east.

In Russia, the co-founder and military commander of the mercenary group Wagner was buried near Moscow, a week after the fatal air crash that also killed his boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Moscow said it intended to develop ties with North Korea, while not confirming a statement by the White House that Russian President Vladimir Putin had exchanged letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Meanwhile, the office of UN chief Antonio Guterres said he had sent Russian officials a proposal to revive Black Sea grain deal.

Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)