Russia-Ukraine war updates: Ukraine fired rockets at Crimea bridge – Moscow

The UK Ministry of Defence has said that Russia likely redeployed airborne forces’ (VDV) units from the Kherson region to the heavily contested Orikiv sector in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

In its latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine, the ministry said the redeployment “will likely leave Russia’s defences near the east bank of the Dnipro River weaker, where they are increasingly harassed by Ukrainian amphibious raids.”

Next week, Lithuania will shut two of its six border checkpoints with Belarus, including the crossing in Sumskas.

The decision came as a response to escalating tensions between the neighbours, with Vilnius warning of a provocations threat by Minsk – and the Wagner fighters now based in Belarus following their short-lived rebellion in Russia.

The move will mean extended waiting times at the remaining checkpoints, which will now also be shared with buses and trucks.

The surge in illegal migration from Belarus to the European Union, coupled with Minsk hosting Russian tactical nuclear weapons and letting Moscow use its territory to conduct attacks on Ukraine, has left Lithuania uneasy.

“By granting shelter to the Wagner military group, Belarus has become a state that harbours a terrorist organisation,” Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas told reporters.

A civilian was killed and six people were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl, following intense Ukrainian shelling in Donetsk, a Russian-installed official in the eastern Ukrainian region has said.

One civilian was killed in a district of the city of Donetsk, while the six wounded people were in Makiivka, which lies east of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the region, said on his Telegram channel on Saturday.

“In total, the enemy fired 127 rounds of ammunition at peaceful cities and regions in the republic,” Pushilin said, referring to the Donetsk People’s Republic as Moscow calls the region it said last year it was annexing.

Pushilin said cluster munitions were among the artillery used.

These are the main developments on Saturday, August 12, 2023 as the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its 535th day.

Ukrainian troops fire a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops near a front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine [File: Oleksandr Ratushniak/ Reuters]

Ukraine’s military has said in a regular update of fighting and casualties that its forces had made progress near Robotyne on the front line in the southern Zaporizhia region.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Saturday that Ukraine’s defence forces continued an offensive operation in Melitopol and Berdyansk directions.

It also said they had “partial success in the Robotyne area of the Zaporizhzhia region.”

It said the Ukrainians had dug in at the point of their advance and were conducting defensive attacks from there.

Poland’s decision to increase the number of troops protecting its border with Belarus has come at a time when the country is mere weeks away from general elections.

“It is worth noting that it is election season here in Poland in just a few weeks. Many analysts have been pointing out that there is a potential threat from its borders but there’s also electioneering and trying to make sure that the voter base, especially in the border areas where the ruling party gains its strength from, is energised,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Bobrowniki, Poland (on the Poland-Belarus border).

Poland’s conservative governing party, Law and Justice, will seek an unprecedented third term in parliamentary elections October 15, and amid fierce campaigning, it is trying to demonstrate that it is serious about the nation’s security.

A small number of Russian Orthodox priests are publicly opposing their leader’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and they’re suffering the consequences.

The Reverend Ioann Koval lost his ministry as a Russian Orthodox priest after he changed one crucial word in a prayer that his superior, Moscow Patriarch Kirill, required all priests to use during worship.

Koval prayed for “peace” rather than “victory” in Ukraine.

No longer able to function as a priest in Russia, Koval now ministers in Turkey under a different patriarch. He says he could no longer submit to political pressure from the Russian Orthodox hierarchy.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow [File: Yulia Morozova/Reuters]

Turkmenistan has warned Russia against trying to extend its influence over the Central Asia-China natural gas supply chain after Moscow said more countries could join its “gas union” with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Turkmenistan’s foreign ministry responded on Saturday by saying that although Russia’s comments were vague, Ashgabat wanted to make it clear that it has not been consulted about the potential addition of new suppliers to the Chinese pipeline.

“The Turkmen side considers such an approach incomprehensible and unacceptable, and out country views it as going against international law and the established practice in the gas sector,” it said in a statement.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan all pump gas to China via a pipeline crossing the three countries; the lion’s share of gas comes from Turkmenistan as the two other countries have faced strong growth in domestic gas demand.

Russia, trying to open up new Asian markets for its gas after Western sanctions, said last year it was forging a gas union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan that would streamline shipping and exporting gas to them and to third parties.

Poland Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak has met in Jarylowka, in eastern Poland, some of the troops recently deployed close to the Belarus border.

On Saturday, Blaszczak said his country has increased the number of troops protecting its border with Belarus as a deterrent amid “destabilising” actions by its pro-Russian neighbour.

Blaszczak said this week that up to 10,000 Polish Army and Territorial Defence troops will be stationed on the border.

He insisted that the increased military presence is purely a deterrent move, not a hostile act, as Minsk and Moscow are claiming.

Poland’s defence minister says the country’s border with Belarus is in danger. On Saturday, he said Minsk, backed by Moscow, is encouraging illegal crossings to destabilise Poland.

The minister claims “it’s not just the threat of migration but also that these troops can be Wagner mercenaries guised as migrants,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Bobrowniki, Poland (on the Poland-Belarus border).

Russia’s Wagner group set up base in Belarus last month near the Polish border. Moscow responded by deploying troops with plans to send up to 10,000 to the area.

“Rights groups say that this another claim by this right-wing government which has been going against migration — and this is just a few weeks away from elections,” Bin Javaid said.

6h ago (14:20 GMT)

Russia’s Gazprom has said it would ship 41.8 million cubic metres (1.48 billion cubic feet) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Saturday.

Russia’s piped gas exports to Europe stand at approximately 14.8 billion cubic metres (522 billion cubic feet) this year. They totalled 62 billion cubic metres (2.19 trillion cubic feet) for the whole of 2022.

Russia has claimed it regained control of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk region in an overnight counterattack.

Urozhaine is one of at least two strong points Ukrainians seek to break in order to eventually get to Mariupol.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned on Saturday what it called Ukraine’s “terrorist attack” on the Crimean Bridge, saying it put innocent civilians’ lives at risk and promised retaliation.

“There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, and they will not go unanswered,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

A Su-30 fighter jet crashed during a training flight on Saturday in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, killing the two pilots on board, RIA news agency quoted the defence ministry as saying.

“The Su-30 aircraft crashed in a deserted area. The flight was being carried out without ammunition. The crew of the aircraft died,” the ministry said in a statement cited by Russian news agency RIA.

It said the likely cause of the crash was a technical malfunction but gave no further information.

Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, both NATO member states, on the Baltic Sea.

Map of Kaliningrad, Poland, Lithuania, Russia [Al Jazeera]

The Russian-installed governor of Crimea said that Russian forces had downed another rocket over the Kerch Strait, Interfax news agency reported, following an earlier attack that Russia’s defence ministry said had involved two Su-200 rockets.

“Another enemy rocket shot down over the Kerch Strait,” Sergey Aksyonov said on the Telegram messaging app, quoted by Interfax. “Thank you to our air defence forces for a high level of professionalism and vigilance.”

Ukraine, which is seeking to form safe shipping routes in the Black Sea, has started registering ships willing to use a “humanitarian corridor”, according to a local news agency.

The corridor would release cargo ships that have been trapped in its ports since the war began and would test Russia’s de facto blockade since Moscow abandoned a deal last month to let Kyiv export grain.

“Registration is now open, and the coordinator is already working,” Interfax Ukraine quoted Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk as saying. “Of course, everything will take place under the supervision of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We are doing everything we can to ensure security,” Pletenchuk said.

Russia has not indicated whether it would respect the shipping corridor, and shipping and insurance sources have expressed safety concerns.

Ukraine’s grain harvest this year is exceeding expectations and could be 5 per cent higher than in 2022, thanks to favourable weather, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Saturday.

Ukraine is a major global grain producer and exporter, but its production has been affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.

“This (the harvest) is more than expected; thanks to good weather and rains in the summer, production could be 5 per cent higher than in 2022,” Taras Vysotskyi, the first deputy agriculture minister, told national television.

He did not give an estimated volume for the harvest but said farmers had already threshed about 23 million tonnes of grain.

Combines harvest wheat in a field during the Russia-Ukraine war near the settlement of Nikolske in the Donetsk region of Russian-controlled Ukraine on July 19, 2023 [Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo/Reuters]

Russia’s defence ministry reported that Ukraine had tried unsuccessfully to attack the Crimean bridge across the Kerch Strait with S-200 rockets, but that no damage or casualties had been caused.

The S-200 is a strategic surface-to-air missile system developed by the Soviet Union.

The 12-mile (19km) bridge, which links Russian-annexed Crimea to Russia, has come under repeated attacks since the start of the war.

“The Ukrainian missile was detected in a timely manner and was intercepted in the air by Russian air defence systems. No damage or casualties were reported,” the ministry said in a statement.

In a statement posted earlier on the Telegram messaging app, Russian-installed Crimea governor Sergey Aksyonov said anti-aircraft defences near the bridge had downed two rockets. He also said the bridge was undamaged.

An elderly woman and a police officer were killed by Russian shellings in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine and in Zaporizhia in the south, Ukrainian officials said.

“This morning, around 5:10, the enemy fired on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi village in Kupiansk district. A residential building was damaged. A 73-year-old woman died,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said on the Telegram messaging app.

In a separate attack on Orikhiv town in the Zaporizhia region, one police officer was killed, and 12 people, including four police officers, were injured, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

He said Russian troops used a guided aerial bomb.