Kharkiv mayor says no area in city is safe from Russian attacks
The mayor of Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, said no area in the city was “safe”.
Igor Terekhov told AFP:
The Russian aggressors are trying to turn Kharkiv into a pitiful city, like the ones they have in Russia.
But they won’t succeed. And, as you see, the people of Kharkiv are defending their city, weapons in hand.
We have nine districts in the city and they are all being bombed with varying intensity and at different times. So you can’t say anywhere in Kharkiv is safe.
Yes, it is safe in the shelters and it is safe in the metro.
But there is no district, no place in the city, where you can claim it is totally safe.
By the end of March, almost a third of Kharkiv’s residents had left the besieged city, fleeing to towns and cities further west.
Last week, shelling killed three people, including a 13-year-old boy, adding to a toll that Terekhov said was in the “many hundreds”.
Key events
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
The British defence ministry has published a map suggesting that Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the Kherson region is growing stronger, in the ministry’s latest defence intelligence update on the war in Ukraine.
The UK ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Neil Bush, stressed in a speech in Vienna on Thursday that five months on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK remained steadfast in its support to Ukraine.
He said:
Russia has pursued barbaric tactics, once thought consigned to history. Indifferent to International Law, desperate and cowardly, the Russian government has relentlessly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. 155 days ago, Ukrainian cities were bustling, prosperous centres. 155 days ago, 20 million now displaced Ukrainian people were living undisturbed in their own homes.
He added:
Because of president Putin’s actions, some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people are at risk of starvation. If Russia’s aggression continues, the World Food Programme estimates that up to 47 million more people could face acute food insecurity this year. The UN secretary general has warned that the war is threatening to unleash “an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake”. The scale of the suffering is truly horrific.
The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, held talks with Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, in Vienna on Thursday, where they discussed migration and the war in Ukraine and its consequences.
The meeting of the two central European leaders came only days after one of Orban’s closest associates resigned in protest over what she called a “pure Nazi” speech given by the Hungarian prime minister in which he railed against Europe becoming a “mixed race” society, the Associated Press reports.
Orban declared that countries with large-scale migration from outside of Europe were “no longer nations”.
Nehammer sought to quickly distance himself from Orban’s controversial remarks, telling reporters he had made clear to the Orban that “we in Austria reject, condemn in the strongest terms, any form of trivialisation or relativization of racism or even antisemitism.”
While Orban did not explicitly repeat these remarks in Vienna on Thursday, he stressed his anti-migration agenda and reiterated what he sees as the need to defend his country’s culture against outside influence.
“I don’t want Hungary to become an immigration country and I don’t want migration to become stronger in Hungary,” he said. “I have always held this point of view and I will continue to do so, this has no biological basis. This is not a racial issue for us. This is a question of culture. Quite simply, our civilisation should be preserved as it is now.”
Nehammer, for his part, depicted migration as a “challenge” that needs to be fought.
Austria has taken in over 80,000 refugees from Ukraine and around 30,000 additional asylum applications during the first half of the year, the chancellor pointed out, calling the arrival of these people “challenges that Austria is actually facing now in addition to the energy crisis, in addition to inflation, in addition to the pandemic”.
In comparison, Germany has registered more than 900,000 refugees from Ukraine since the outbreak of the war.
Both the Austrian and Hungarian leaders said their countries were planning a conference with Serbia on how to “curb irregular migration”.
Ukraine confirmed a new head of its specialised anti-corruption prosecutor’s office on Thursday, responding to a European Union request as it seeks EU membership.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app that prosecutor general Andriy Kostin’s first important decision since being voted into office on Wednesday had been to sign off on the appointment of Oleksandr Klymenko, an experienced investigator, Reuters reports.
“The fight against corruption is a priority for our state, as our investment attractiveness and business freedom depend on its success,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy’s presidential office, wrote on Telegram.
Klymenko was appointed after a long selection process following his predecessor’s resignation nearly two years ago. He previously worked for the national anti-corruption bureau.
The EU granted Ukraine candidate status earlier this month, putting it on the long road to membership, but said important work remained to be done including on fighting corruption.
“Ukraine delivers on one of the recommendations that accompanied the EU candidate status,” Matti Maasikas, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, wrote on Twitter.
“A long selection process finalised, offering lessons. I wish Mr Klymenko strength and courage!”
The US also welcomed Klymenko’s appointment.
“His office plays a crucial role in Ukraine’s anti-corruption infrastructure and is a key element of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s influence and aggression,” tweeted Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine.
A former state TV journalist charged with discrediting Russia’s armed forces by protesting against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was found guilty on Thursday, after she told a court that the charge against her was absurd.
Marina Ovsyannikova defiantly repeated her protest, refused to retract her words and said she did not understand why she was there and what she was being judged for, Reuters reports.
“What’s going on here is absurd,” Ovsyannikova told the court. “War is horror, blood and shame.”
Ovsyannikova’s interruption of a live Russian state TV news broadcast in March made international headlines.
The journalist, who was employed at the broadcaster at the time, was fined for flouting protest laws, but was now tried over subsequent social media posts in which she wrote that those responsible for Russia’s actions in Ukraine would find themselves in the dock before an international tribunal.
She faces up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces under a law passed in March, soon after President Vladimir Putin launched what he calls his “special military operation” against Ukraine.
“The purpose of the trial is to intimidate all the people who oppose the war in the Russian Federation,” Ovsyannikova told the court.
She described Russia as an aggressor country, saying: “The beginning of this war is the biggest crime of our government.”
A lawyer for Ovsyannikova said she had the right to speak out under article 29 of the Russian constitution which protects the right to freedom of expression.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s second largest steelmaker, said on Thursday that profits fell in the second quarter owing to inflation and the war in Ukraine.
The group said in a statement its performance was “overshadowed by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, where we have steel and mining operations”, AFP reports.
ArcelorMittal employs 26,000 people in Ukraine and suspended its operation there when the war broke out.
“Globally, the conflict is impacting growth and adding further inflationary pressure, which is spilling over into weakening of demand [for steel],” the group said.
In the second quarter, net profit dipped by 2% to $3.9bn (£3.2bn), as its steel output fell 18% to 14.6m tonnes in the period from April to June.
Second-quarter sales, however, grew by 14.5% to just over €22bn (£18.3bn) driven by a circa 30% increase in steel prices.
The group said in May it would resume operations in Ukraine, even if only one of the three furnaces there has since restarted.
Looking ahead, the chief executive, Aditya Mittal, said that “despite the more uncertain global macro outlook” the business was “well positioned to effectively manage through the cycle”.
“The long-term outlook for steel demand also remains positive, underpinned by the scale of opportunity related to the energy transition and the continuing growth of developing economies,” Mittal said.
Here is some more detail on the UK’s visa schemes for people fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Overall, there have been almost 200,000 visa applications, but as we reported earlier, only 104,000 people had arrived in the UK as of Monday, just over half of those who applied.
PA Media report that 166,200 visas have been issued. These include 55,000 applications under the family scheme, of which 47,200 visas have been granted, and 143,200 applications under the sponsorship scheme, of which 119,000 visas have been granted.
Overall, 62.6% of those who have been issued with visas under either scheme have reached the UK.
Just over half (52.5%) of those who have applied for visas under the schemes – which allow those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine to come to the UK for up to three years – have arrived.
From Thursday, the British government will consider new applications under the sponsorship scheme from unaccompanied children who wish to come to the UK without a parent or guardian, providing they have parental consent.
Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has filed a lawsuit to revoke the registration of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, the state-owned news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Novaya Gazeta, a pillar of Russia’s beleaguered independent media since 1993, said in March it would suspend operations inside the country until the end of the war after receiving warnings from the communications regulator for allegedly violating the country’s “foreign agent” law, and being forced to remove material on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from its website.
Part of the paper’s staff have set up a European edition from Riga, Latvia.
Novaya Gazeta’s longtime editor in chief, the Nobel Peace prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, has remained in Russia despite his vocal opposition to the conflict in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Kharkiv mayor says no area in city is safe from Russian attacks
The mayor of Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, said no area in the city was “safe”.
Igor Terekhov told AFP:
The Russian aggressors are trying to turn Kharkiv into a pitiful city, like the ones they have in Russia.
But they won’t succeed. And, as you see, the people of Kharkiv are defending their city, weapons in hand.
We have nine districts in the city and they are all being bombed with varying intensity and at different times. So you can’t say anywhere in Kharkiv is safe.
Yes, it is safe in the shelters and it is safe in the metro.
But there is no district, no place in the city, where you can claim it is totally safe.
By the end of March, almost a third of Kharkiv’s residents had left the besieged city, fleeing to towns and cities further west.
Last week, shelling killed three people, including a 13-year-old boy, adding to a toll that Terekhov said was in the “many hundreds”.
Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, said on Thursday that the Kremlin “hopes” the Nord Stream 1 turbine will soon arrive at the Portovaya gas compressor station and that it will be installed, Reuters reports.
The Russian state-controlled energy company Gazprom said it had halted operations at one of three operational compressor units at Portovaya, the start point of the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, because of maintenance issues.
Russia has reduced gas supplies through the pipeline since mid-June from 170m cubic metres of gas a day to 20m cubic metres.
On Tuesday, Gazprom announced a drastic cut to gas deliveries to Europe through the pipeline from Wednesday, prompting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to accuse Moscow of waging a “gas war”.
Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, has questioned the explanation given by Gazprom for the new reduction in Nord Stream flows.
Gas prices are now 450% higher than they were this time last year, the BBC reported.
Summary of the day so far …
- A barrage of 25 missiles has been fired by Russian forces at northern regions of Ukraine from neighbouring Belarus. The early morning wave of missile strikes launched from the territory of Russia’s key ally hit targets in the Chernihiv region, including an apartment block, as well as locations outside Kyiv and around the city of Zhytomyr, according to Ukrainian officials and Belarusian opposition figures.
- The Chernihiv regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said nine missiles had struck close to the village of Honcharivska with some falling in the forest nearby. Activists who track Russian military moves in Belarus said the missile launches came from Ziabrauka airfield near Gomel, prompting calls for increased sanctions against Belarus.
- Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv, said: “On the morning of 28 July, a massive rocket attack was launched on Mykolaiv. It is known that as a result of three rocket strikes, the building of the secondary school in Korabelny district was almost completely destroyed. One person was injured.”
- The strikes came as Ukraine celebrated Statehood Day for the first time. In a national message, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “Restless morning. Again – missile terror. We will not give up. We will not give up. Do not intimidate us. Ukraine is an independent, free, indivisible state. And it will always be like that.”
- Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kherson is gathering momentum, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. In an intelligence report issued this morning, the ministry said: “Their forces have highly likely established a bridgehead south of the Ingulets River, which forms the northern boundary of Russian-occupied Kherson. Ukraine has used its new long range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnipro River which Russia relies upon to supply the areas under its control.”
- Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed military-civilian administration in the occupied Kherson region has posted to Telegram to say that “all stories about successful ‘Ukronazi’ counteroffensives in the Kherson region are sheer lies.”
- Russian forces are undertaking a “massive redeployment” of troops to three southern regions of Ukraine in what appears to be a change of tactics by Moscow, a senior adviser to Zelenskiy said on Wednesday. Oleksiy Arestovych said Russia was sending troops to the Melitopol and Zaporizhzhia regions and Kherson, signalling a change in tactics to strategic defence from offence.
- Russian forces have also reportedly taken over Ukraine’s second biggest power plant in eastern Ukraine, an adviser to Zelenskiy said on Wednesday, after an earlier claim by Russian-backed forces to have captured it intact. “They achieved a tiny tactical advantage – they captured Vuhlehirsk,” Oleksiy Arestovych said. Unverified footage posted on social media appeared to show fighters from Russia’s Wagner private military company posing in front of the plant.
- Zelenskiy said Ukraine would rebuild the Antonivskyi Bridge and other crossings in the region after Ukrainian forces struck the strategic Russian supply route in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. “We are doing everything to ensure that the occupying forces do not have any logistical opportunities in our country,” he added.
- As of Monday, 104,000 people had arrived in the UK under Ukraine visa schemes, figures published by the Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration show.
- The UN security council has been unable to agree on a statement welcoming last week’s deal to get grain and fertiliser moving from Ukraine and Russia to millions of hungry people around the world, Norway’s UN ambassador has said. The statement also would have commended secretary-general António Guterres and Turkey’s government for their key roles in arranging the agreement.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for the moment. I will be back later. Jedidajah Otte will be continuing our live coverage of the conflict in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted on Telegram about his new appointment to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, commenting:
The main tasks of the prosecutor’s office today are to bring to justice all Russian war criminals, restore justice and defend the interests of Ukraine.
I am convinced that Andriy Kostin, as a professional lawyer, will be able to ensure the systematic work of the general prosecutor’s office. His first important decision in his new position was the appointment of the head of the specialised anti-corruption prosecutor’s office. Oleksandr Klymenko has been appointed.
Last week, Zelenskiy dismissed prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova and in a statement said the reason was that it had come to light that many members of her agency had collaborated with Russia, a problem that he said had also touched other agencies.
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
Russian forces fire barrage of missiles at northern Ukraine from Belarus
Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont reports from Kyiv on overnight developments in Ukraine:
A barrage of 25 missiles has been fired by Russian forces at northern regions of Ukraine from neighbouring Belarus as the Ukrainian southern offensive appears to be gathering pace.
The early morning wave of missile strikes launched from the territory of Russia’s key ally hit targets in the Chernihiv region – including an apartment block – as well as locations outside Kyiv and around the city of Zhytomyr, according to Ukrainian officials and Belarusian opposition figures.
The Chernihiv regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said nine missiles had struck close to the village of Honcharivska, with some falling in the forest nearby.
The strikes came as Ukraine celebrated Statehood Day for the first time. In a national message, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “Restless morning. Again – missile terror. We will not give up. We will not give up. Do not intimidate us. Ukraine is an independent, free, indivisible state. And it will always be like that.”
Activists who track Russian military moves in Belarus said the missile launches came from Ziabrauka airfield near Gomel, prompting calls for increased sanctions against Belarus.
Read more of Peter Beaumont’s report from Kyiv: Russian forces fire barrage of missiles at northern Ukraine from Belarus
As of Monday, 104,000 people had arrived in the UK under Ukraine visa schemes, figures published by the Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration show.
PA Media report this includes 31,300 people under the family scheme and 72,700 people under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme.
Ukraine is celebrating the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, a holiday instituted last year to celebrate the conversion to Christianity of the people of the Kyivan Rus state, which they see as the pre-cursor to Ukrainian statehood. Charles Michel, president of the European Council, has sent this message of support saying:
Brave people of Ukraine – today you celebrate the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, as Russia wages a brutal and unprovoked war against your country, which is now in its sixth month. The EU stands by you. For as long as it takes.
Brave people of Ukraine – today you celebrate the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, as Russia wages a brutal and unprovoked war against your country, which is now in its sixth month.
The EU stands by you. For as long as it takes.@ZelenskyyUa #StatehoodDay pic.twitter.com/WV3Zl9X3gY
— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) July 28, 2022
The same event is celebrated as the day of the baptism of Russia.
Ukraine’s state emergency services has issued a photograph this morning of what they claim is a school in Mykolaiv that has been virtually destroyed overnight by a Russian strike.
Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv, posted earlier to Telegram:
On the morning of 28 July, a massive rocket attack was launched on Mykolaiv. It is known that as a result of three rocket strikes, the building of the secondary school in Korabelny district was almost completely destroyed. One person was injured. A yacht club, a warehouse of an agro-industrial enterprise, and farm buildings were also affected due to the fall of ammunition and their fragments. Detailed information is being clarified.
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Syenkevych, has posted some more details of what he says is damaged caused by Russian strikes overnight. He says a warehouse was partially destroyed after “the missile hit an open area” at the Shipbuilding University. He posted images which purport to show a large crater in the grounds of the university.
He also stated that blasts had broken the windows of a nearby church, alongside an image of what appears to be Saint Catherine’s church in the city.
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