2024-08-26 09:42:21
Russia has launched a large-scale air strike on several parts of Ukraine. Ukraine accuses Belarus of building up troops on the border. All information in the news blog.
10.39 am: Ukraine is demanding that the West allow it to use the weapons it has made available to it for attacks deep into Russian territory. “Such a decision would put an end to Russian terror more quickly,” writes President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, on Telegram.
10.12 am: According to official reports, at least three people have been killed in Russian air strikes in several regions of Ukraine. “The enemy terror was not without consequences. There is one dead person,” said the governor of the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk, Serhiy Lysak. The governor of Zaporizhia and the mayor of the city of Lutsk also reported one fatality each.
8.49 am: According to observers, the morning attack was one of the heaviest air raids in two and a half years of war. Explosions were reported from the outskirts of the capital and the regions of Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil and Lviv, according to the official air raid alert app. There are problems with the electricity supply in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on Telegram.
The mayor of the northwestern city of Lutsk, Ihor Polishchuk, said that an apartment building had been hit by “an enemy attack” and one person had been killed. The governors of the Odessa, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv regions also announced on Telegram that there had been explosions in their regions and called on people to seek shelter. The governor of the central Poltava region, Filip Pronin, had previously announced that five people had been injured in an attack on an industrial facility.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the Russian army temporarily deployed eleven Tu-95 long-range bombers, which carry cruise missiles. In addition, Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were reportedly fired at Ukraine. Ukraine was also attacked from the Black Sea. There is currently no overview of casualties and damage. According to initial information, the Ukrainian energy system was again a main target of the attack.
7.45 am: Russia has apparently launched a massive air attack on Ukraine. As several Ukrainian Telegram channels report, the Russian Air Force has fired rockets, cruise missiles and drones towards Ukraine. A total of eleven Tupolev Tu-95MS long-range bombers are said to have taken off near the Caspian Sea and in the Russian region of Volgograd. Each of the aircraft can carry up to eight cruise missiles. In addition, medium-range Tupolev Tu-22 bombers have taken off, which can also fire missiles. A warship and a submarine have also fired missiles in the Black Sea. The missiles used are probably Iskander and Kalibr ballistic missiles. In addition, “several groups” of kamikaze drones are said to be in Ukrainian airspace.
Explosions have already been reported in several parts of the country, including the capital Kiev, but also southern and central parts of the country.
7.29 am: According to a media report, Ukraine has captured more than 240 Russian soldiers since the beginning of the Kursk offensive in early August. The Washington Post reported this, citing the analysis of photo and video material. Some of the footage shows interrogations of the prisoners of war. According to the report, there are at least 247 soldiers, some of whom identify themselves as conscripts.
The fact that videos of prisoners of war are made public is not without its problems. Just a few months after the start of the war, the International Committee of the Red Cross, among others, had criticized the fact that the recording of prisoners of war and the dissemination of even voluntary statements violated the ban on exposing them to “public curiosity.” The treatment of prisoners of war is laid down in the so-called Third Geneva Convention of 1949.