Ukraine war briefing: Woman dies as Moscow air defences repel Ukrainian drones, officials say

A woman has been killed and another person wounded as air defences around Moscow intercepted at least 14 Ukrainian drones, the regional governor said on Tuesday morning. Fire broke out a residential building in the Ramenskoye district, Moscow officials said, while a fuel complex in neighbouring Tula oblast was hit. Flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports were suspended during the attacks.

There were further Ukrainian drone attacks reported in the Russian region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, and in Lipetsk several hundred kilometres south of Moscow. Russian officials claimed, as is routine, that dozens of drones were brought down by air defences. There was no independent confirmation. Ukraine denies targeting civilians, and when Ukrainian drones get through they have a record of hitting confirmed Russian strategic targets.

In Ukraine, air defence units meanwhile were engaged early on Tuesday in repelling a Russian drone attack on Kyiv, the military administration of the capital said.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it had summoned a senior Iranian diplomat to warn of “devastating and irreparable consequences” for their relations if Tehran has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles. The EU said its allies had shared “credible” intelligence that Iran had supplied Russia with ballistic missiles, which the US warned would be met with “significant consequences”. The claim was rejected by Iran but not explicitly denied by the Kremlin. The US has said any such deliveries would damage Tehran’s efforts to improve relations with the west under its new, reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said: “In response to the supply of ballistic missiles to Russia, Ukraine must be allowed to destroy warehouses storing these missiles with western weapons in order to avoid terror.” Western countries supporting Ukraine in the war have hesitated to let its military strike targets on Russian soil with long-range weapons they supply.

Sweden will send its 17th aid package to Ukraine with military support measures totalling 4.6 billion Swedish crowns (US$443m), said the Swedish defence minister, Pal Jonson. The package will include ammunition for infantry fighting vehicles already donated by Sweden, as well as purchases that would facilitate a transfer of Gripen fighter jets in the future, though no such transfer has been decided on yet. “We want to have the ability to donate Gripens to Ukraine at a possible later stage,” Jonson said.

Latvia said the Russian drone that crashed on its territory was a fully armed Iranian-designed exploding Shahed. Gen Leonids Kalnins, the Latvian armed forces commander, said: “The explosive warhead stuck half a metre deep into the ground and was neutralised on the spot, avoiding detonation. [This] allowed our military intelligence officers to gather all the debris and remnants from the drone for further investigation, details of which will be shared with all of our Nato partners.” The Latvian government summoned the Russian chargé d’affaires to explain.

The Latvian air force commander, Col Viesturs Masulis, said: “The drone was seen by our air defences while still deep into Belarusian airspace, which gave us time to react.” Romania on Sunday said a Russian attack drone went through its airspace on the way to targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Poland has also recorded at least two cases of its airspace being violated by Russian missiles or drones attacking Ukraine, most recently in December.

Russia said its forces had pressed forward on the eastern front in Ukraine, capturing the village of Memryk, east of the city of Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s general staff made no mention of such a development but the Reuters news agency said Ukrainian war blogs reported Memryk had passed into Russian hands last week. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv’s forces were holding their own. Reuters said it could not independently verify accounts from either side.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported on action in the Kharkiv region and on Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region launched in August. Ukrainian forces, Zelenskiy said, were “getting Russia used to a clear understanding of where its land is and where its neighbour’s land is”.

Ukraine’s population is “trapped in cycles of terror” through Russian attacks on civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, supermarkets and energy infrastructure, according to Volker Türk, the UN human rights commissioner. “I fear for Ukrainians this coming winter,” he told the UN human rights council. Türk said he was troubled by the impact on civilians of the recent escalation in fighting, including in the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Briansk where the UN had asked Russia for access but been refused.

The Kremlin said on Monday that it would not grant an interview with Vladimir Putin to the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was released by Russia in a prisoner swap. “For there to be an interview with foreign media and some specific one, we need to have an occasion,” said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. “So far we don’t see such an occasion.” Tucker Carlson, the fired Fox News host, was given an interview with the Russian president – no special occasion was stipulated.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, also freed by Russia in the prisoner swap in August, has urged the west against allowing Putin any “face-saving” way out of the war against Ukraine. In an interview with Agence France-Presse in Paris, Kara-Murza, 43, said the “Putin regime must be defeated … If, God forbid, the Putin regime is allowed to present the outcome of this war as a victory and survive in power, all this means is that a year or 18 months from now we will be talking about another war, conflict or another catastrophe.”

The Ukrainian central bank announced currency liberalisation measures it says will support Ukraine’s defence capability and businesses. The measures centre on use of foreign currency by state-owned companies and e-commerce businesses, also allowing certain businesses to reimburse coupon payments on eurobonds. “This will contribute to the uninterrupted operation of defence purchases under state contracts … and also will support Ukrainian-European military-technical cooperation,” the bank said.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, is due to visit St Petersburg in Russia on Wednesday and Thursday for a security meeting of the Brics group of countries. China’s president, Xi Jinping, is due to attend a Brics summit in October in the Russian city of Kazan. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, visited Riyadh on Monday where he met with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and other officials from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.