Ukraine war latest: Zelensky vows revenge after Russian strikes kill at least four

Russian forces claimed on Tuesday it had captured the village of Orlivka near the city of Pokrovsk, a key target for Moscow.

“Units of the Centre group of forces as a result of active warfare liberated the settlement of Orlovka,” the defence ministry said.

Russian forces have been advancing towards Pokrovsk for months, a central logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian forces have attempted to push into Russia’s southern Belgorod region, according to Russian Telegram channels.

Reports said 500 Ukrainian troops attacked two checkpoints at Nekhoteyevka and Shebekino.

The Belgorod regions border the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have seized territory after launching an invasion on 6 August.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult, but under control”.

“There is information that the enemy is trying to break through the border of the Belgorod region,” Gladkov said on Tuesday.

“Our military is carrying out planned work. Please remain calm and trust only official sources of information.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed Ukraine will respond after it was targeted by Russian missile attacks for a second night in a row.

The Ukrainian president said rescue operations were ongoing after the most recent overnight attacks, which he said killed four people and injured 16 more.

“We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks. Crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished,” he said.

Ukraine shot down five missiles and 60 drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said on Tuesday.

Russia launched 10 missiles and 81 drones during the assault, the air force added in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

The foreign secretary has said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of a former British soldier in Ukraine.

Ryan Evans, 38, had been working as a safety advisor for the Reuters news agency and died after a missile strike on a hotel in Ukraine.

Mr Lammy offered his condolences to Mr Evans’s family and condemned the “cowardly” tactics used by Vladimir Putin’s Russia against Ukraine.

A senior ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Washington was behind the French arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging platform that plays a key role communicating the war in Ukraine.

Mr Durov, a Russian-born entrepreneur, was arrested in France over the weekend as part of an investigation into crimes related to child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform, French prosecutors said on Monday.

Without providing evidence, Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma lower house of parliament, said that the United States, through France, attempted to exert control over Telegram.

“Telegram is one of the few and at the same time the largest internet platforms over which the United States has no influence,” Mr Volodin said in a post.

“On the eve of the US presidential election, it is important for (president Joe) Biden to take Telegram under control.”

The White House has not commented on Mr Durov’s arrest. French president Emmanuel Macron has said that the arrest was “in no way a political decision”.

The Kremlin on Monday said it had yet to see any official French accusations against Mr Durov.

The encrypted Telegram app, based in Dubai, has close to 1 billion users and is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Russia attacked Ukraine with more than 200 missiles and drones on Monday, killing seven people and striking energy facilities nationwide, Kyiv said.

Those strikes have been followed by another wave on Tuesday morning, killing at least four people.

At least 47 people were injured, including four children, in the Monday attacks, emergency services said.

The regions that reported strikes on power or critical infrastructure included Volyn and Rivne in the northwest, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk in the west, Zhytomyr in the north, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the southeast and Odesa in the south.

Volodymyr Zelensky said some civilian facilities were attacked with cluster munitions.

Neighbouring Moldova, whose grid is linked to that of Ukraine, reported small disruptions to its power network.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry official said a hydropower plant in the Kyiv region had been targeted. A video posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed a damaged dam and a fire after an apparent strike at a plant. A separate clip, also verified, showed a missile hitting a water reservoir.

In the northeastern Sumy region, from where Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia on 6 August, authorities said a railway infrastructure facility had been struck, but did not say which one or give further details.

A 69-year-old man in the Dnipropetrovsk region and a farmer in the Zaporizhzhia region were among at least seven people confirmed dead, local officials said. The others were in the regions of Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Volyn.

In Lutsk, an apartment block was damaged, the mayor said after reporting explosions.

Blasts also shook central Kyiv and air defences engaged incoming targets on the outskirts.

At least 11 TU-95 strategic bombers were used during the attack, the air force said.

Both Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians. Each says its attacks are aimed at destroying infrastructure critical to the other’s war effort.

Russia has launched a major barrage of missiles and drones across Ukraine, killing four people, injuring more than a dozen and damaging energy facilities in what has been called its biggest attack of the war.

The bombardment, condemned as “vile” by Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, involved the firing of more than 100 missiles and a similar number of drones at more than half the country on Monday, with Ukraine’s air force commander describing it as Moscow’s biggest air assault of the war so far.

In attacks that began at around midnight and continued through daybreak, Ukraine’s air force said swarms of Russian drones fired at eastern, northern, southern and central regions were followed by volleys of cruise and ballistic missiles.

“Like most previous Russian strikes, this one was just as vile, targeting critical civilian infrastructure,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that most of the country was targeted, from the Kharkiv region and Kyiv to Odesa and the west.

My colleague Tara Cobham reports:

Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday also redoubled his call for allies to join the country in shooting down missiles and drones over Ukrainian airspace.

Top Kyiv officials again urged their allies and arms suppliers to allow long-range strikes into Russia.

Ukraine had no powerful long-range weapons at the start of the invasion, but has since developed many models of long-range attack drone and used them to hit targets deep inside Russia, ranging from oil refineries to military airfields.

Over the weekend, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine had developed a new “drone missile” that had been used to attack Russia and was more powerful and faster than other hardware in Kyiv’s arsenal.