Russia-Ukraine war: explosions reported in Crimea; Kyiv publishes identities of soldiers accused of war crimes – live | Ukraine

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said there could be more attacks in the “next two or three months” similar to today’s mysterious strikes on a railway junction and airbase in Crimea.

Though Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks – and Russia said a fire on Tuesday had set off explosions at the ammunitions depot in the Dzhankoi district – Podolyak called the Dzhankoi incident a “reminder” that “Crimea occupied by Russians is about warehouse explosions and high risk of death for invaders and thieves”.

“Our strategy is to destroy the logistics, the supply lines and the ammunition depots and other objects of military infrastructure. It’s creating a chaos within their own forces,” Podolyak said.

Read more here:

• There have been a number of attacks across Russian-occupied Crimea: The first took place at an ammunitions depot near Dzhankoi in the north, damaging a railway station and wounding two. Next, there were reports of an explosion about 58 miles (93 kilometres) south in Simoferopol. Now, reports of explosions and black smoke at a military airbase in Gvardeyskoye, near the middle of the region. Ukraine is playing it coy at the moment on whether its armed forces are behind these attacks, but Russia’s defence ministry has fully come out and called them “acts of sabotage”.

• With the explosions in Russian-occupied Crimea, Russian forces struck back, with missile attacks reported in the northern Zhytomyr region. For a short while today, all of Ukraine was under an air raid siren alert.

• The Russian federal security service is coming out and saying that “Ukrainian saboteurs” blew up six towers of high-voltage power lines coming from the Kursk nuclear power plant, disrupting its operations. This comes as both Moscow and Kyiv lob accusations at each other of heightening the risk of a nuclear accident.

• Estonia today removed a Soviet-era second world war memorial from Narva after accusing Russia of using such monuments to stir up tensions.

• Russian courts were busy today: one court fined rock legend Yuri Shevchuk after finding him guilty of “discrediting” the Russian army when he condemned the military invasion of Ukraine. Another court fined US-based streaming service Twitch for hosting a short video containing what the court called “fake” information about alleged war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Though the content of the video was not specified, Russia has repeatedly threatened to fine sites such as Google, Twitter and Wikipedia, accusing them of hosting “fake” content related to its military campaign in Ukraine. And there were various verified accounts out of Bucha of Russian soldiers torturing, executing and sexually assaulting civilians. After Russian forces left the area, Ukrainian armed forces found mass graves of civilians with their armed tied behind their backs, some showing signs that they had been beaten before they had been killed. Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has identified at least 10 soldiers involved in human rights abuses in Bucha.

• The Ukrainian security service has identified eight additional Russian soldiers suspected of war crimes in Bucha. These eight servicemen, most of them of unit 6720 of the federal service of the national guard of the Russian federation, are accused of looting property and ransacking abandoned homes.

The Ukrainian security service has identified eight additional Russian soldiers suspected of war crimes in Bucha.

The eight servicemen, most of them from unit 6720 of the federal service of the national guard of the Russian federation, are accused of looting property and ransacking abandoned homes.

“These Russian soldiers looted ‘trophies’ for themselves – computer and household appliances, jewellery, gadgets, clothes, food, etc,” the statement on Telegram reads. “It is documented that later the perpetrators sent the stolen property to their relatives in postal shipments from the Belarusian city of Mozyr.”

Ukrainian authorities have notified all eight of the accused.

There were various verified accounts from Bucha of war crimes and human rights abuses, such as Russian soldiers torturing, executing and sexually assaulting civilians. After Russian forces left the area, Ukrainian armed forces found mass graves of civilians with their arms tied behind their backs, some showing signs that they had been beaten before being killed. Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has identified at least 10 soldiers involved in human rights abuses in Bucha.

A Russian court has fined US-based streaming service Twitch for hosting a short video containing what the court called “fake” information about alleged war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Reuters is reporting.

Twitch was ordered to pay 2m rubles ($33,000), according to Russian news agencies, for failing to remove a 31-second clip of a girl. The court did not specify the content of the video.

Russia has repeatedly threatened to fine sites such as Google, Twitter and Wikipedia, accusing them of hosting “fake” content related to its military campaign in Ukraine.

There were various verified accounts out of Bucha of Russian soldiers torturing, executing and sexually assaulting civilians. After Russian forces left the area, Ukrainian armed forces found mass graves of civilians with their arms tied behind their backs, some showing signs that they had been beaten before being killed. Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has identified at least 10 soldiers involved in human rights abuses in Bucha,

Russia has denied any wrongdoing in Bucha.

Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier, RIA reported that Telegram messenger was hit with two fines totalling 11m rubles ($179,000) for refusing to delete channels that allegedly showed how to “sabotage” military vehicles and hosting “unreliable data” about Russia’s progress.

With explosions in Russian-occupied Crimea – which Ukraine is hinting that its armed forces are responsible for, but not yet accepting responsibility for them – Russian forces have struck back, with missile attacks reported in the northern Zhytomyr region.

There are now reports of explosions in Simferopol toward the south of the Crimea, about 58 miles (93km) away from the explosion at the ammunition depot that damaged a railway line in the north near Dzhankoi.

It’s coming up to 1.30pm in Ukraine. Here is everything you might have missed:

• Explosions have rocked an ammunition depot in Crimea, severely disrupting railway services , reports Reuters. Moscow’s senior representative in the region, Sergei Aksyonov, confirmed that two people were wounded, railway traffic halted and about 2,000 people evacuated from a village near the military depot – but he skirted talk of a cause. Ukraine hinted at involvement but has not explicitly said it was them. It comes after another reported explosion at a substation, also in Crimea.

• Vladimir Putin said that western countries were seeking to extend a “Nato-like system” into the Asia-Pacific region, Reuters reported. Delivering the welcome address at the Moscow international security conference, Putin said the US was trying to “drag out” the conflict in Ukraine. He added that US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month had been “a thoroughly planned provocation”.

• Russia’s Black Sea fleet is struggling to exercise effective sea control, with patrols generally limited to the waters within sight of the Crimean coast, according to the latest British intelligence report. The Black Sea fleet continues to use long-range cruise missiles to support ground offensives but is keeping a defensive posture, the British Ministry of Defence said in its daily intelligence bulletin.

• Ukraine has received six more M109 howitzers from Latvia, its minister of defence, Oleksii Reznikov, announced.

• Ukrainian and Russian officials reported shelling near the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, on Monday with both sides blaming each other. One Russian-installed regional official said 25 heavy artillery strikes from US-made M777 howitzers had hit near the plant and residential areas. Ukraine said it was Russian forces that had shelled the city to try to make it appear that Ukraine was attacking it.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called for action at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia plant, urging the world not to “lose to terrorism” or “give in to nuclear blackmail … If now the world does not show strength and decisiveness to defend one nuclear power station, it will mean that the world has lost,” he said in his nightly address. “If Russia’s actions cause a catastrophe, the consequences may also hit those who remain silent so far.”

• Russia’s defence minister and the UN chief discussed the security situation at the plant by phone on Monday, the Russian defence ministry announced. Russia earlier said it would facilitate an IAEA mission to the plant amid warnings from the UN’s nuclear agency of a nuclear disaster unless fighting stops.

• However, a senior Russian diplomat said that any such IAEA mission could not pass through the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and through the frontline as it was too dangerous, according to Russian news agencies. The UN says it has the logistics and security capacity to support a visit by experts.

• Five Europeans face trial on mercenary charges in separatist-controlled Donetsk, Ukraine. Mathias Gustafsson of Sweden, Vjekoslav Prebeg of Croatia, and Britons John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy all pleaded not guilty to charges of being mercenaries and “undergoing training to seize power by force”, according to Russian media reports. They could face the death penalty under the laws of the self-proclaimed, unrecognised Donetsk People’s Republic.

• Three civilians were killed and two wounded by an explosive device while swimming in the Black Sea in the Ukrainian southern region of Odesa, local police said. People working on a construction site reportedly ignored barriers and warning signs on a beach in the Belhorod-Dnistrovskyi district and went swimming in the sea. Three men aged 25, 32 and 53 were killed and another man and a woman were wounded, police said.

• The British military is training 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers in marksmanship, battlefield first aid and urban warfare. British trainers aim is to turn raw recruits into battle-ready soldiers in a matter of weeks. The first batch arrived last month and have already been sent back to replenish depleted Ukrainian units. Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Nordic nations have also sent trainers.

• The Moscow-appointed administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region plans to hold a referendum on 11 September, according to Kremlin sources. Referendums are also planned in three other Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia – where Moscow aims to annex the territories and declare them to be a new region of Russia.

Footage shared widely on social media purports to show the explosion at an ammunition depot that took place near the village of Mayskoye in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed the explosions were caused by a fire at a temporary storage facility near an arms depot, state-owned news agency RIA reported.

The blasts caused two injuries, said Crimea’s Russia-appointed governor, Sergei Aksyonov.