Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that a Russian missile had hit the central square of the northern city of Chernihiv including a theatre and a university.

Russian forces have destroyed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and its Black Sea Fleet, officials said, the latest in a surge of attacks on the capital and the flashpoint waterway.

The Ukrainian military yesterday claimed more success in its counter-offensive against Russian forces on the southeastern front, a day after announcing the liberation of a village that had served as a Russian strongpoint.

Kyiv said yesterday that a civilian cargo vessel had exited its southern port of Odesa despite warnings from Russia that its navy could target any ships using Ukraine’s Black Sea export hubs.

Russian forces shelled two villages in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson yesterday, killing seven civilians including a baby, Ukrainian authorities said.

Russian air defence forces shot down three Ukrainian missiles over a bridge connecting Moscow-annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland, an official said yesterday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday dismissed officials responsible for military conscription in each region of the country, citing corruption allegations that he said could amount to treason.

Russia said it had shot down two Ukrainian drones near Moscow yesterday, one near a major airport to the south of the city and one to the west of the capital.

A woman was killed early yesterday when Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, while two other people were killed in Russian shelling of border areas of the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, officials said.

Ukraine carried out a drone strike overnight on a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, a day after one of Moscow’s ships was hit in the Black Sea, a Ukrainian security source told AFP yesterday.

A Russian warship was seriously damaged in an overnight Ukrainian naval drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea navy base at Novorossiysk, two sources said yesterday, after Russia said it had fended off the attack.

Fighters from Russia’s private Wagner mercenary force are being moved close to Nato’s eastern flank to destabilise the military alliance, Poland’s prime minister said yesterday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took aim at Russia at the UN Security Council yesterday, accusing Moscow of “blackmail” over its recent withdrawal from a key grain initiative.

Russian drones yesterday damaged infrastructure at a Ukrainian port on the Danube, as Moscow targeted facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine following the collapse of a key export arrangement.

A 10-year-old girl and her mother were among four civilians killed in a Russian air strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town yesterday, officials said, while his forces reported new incremental gains along the front line.

African leaders pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to move ahead with their peace plan to end the Ukraine war and to renew a deal on the export of Ukrainian grain that Moscow tore up last week.

Russia yesterday said it was impossible for it to return to the Black Sea grain export deal until an agreement related to Russian interests was honoured, rebuffing a call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for Moscow to rejoin.

Russia spoke of taking harsh retaliatory measures against Ukraine after two drones damaged buildings in Moscow early yesterday, including one close to the Defence Ministry’s headquarters, in what it called a brazen act of terror.

A drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted authorities to evacuate a five km radius and briefly suspend road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, the region’s Moscow-installed governor said yesterday.

Russia pounded Ukrainian food export facilities for a fourth day in a row on Friday and practised seizing ships in the Black Sea in an escalation of what Western leaders say is an attempt to wriggle out of sanctions by threatening a global food crisis