One injured and ‘major’ fire sparked after Russian attack on Lviv
A “major” fire has been sparked at a warehouse in Lviv and a man has been seriously injured after a Russian attack on the western Ukrainian city, the regional governor has said.
In a Telegram post, Maxim Kozitsky said a woman was also pulled uninjured from the rubble. The airforce had previously alerted that drones were heading towards the city. No further detail was immediately available.
Lviv, close to the Polish border, is seen as one of Ukraine’s safest cities but it has experienced more attacks recently. Three people were killed by air strikes in August.
Several waves of drones buzzed overheard starting around 0130 GMT and an AFP journalist heard numerous explosions and movements of heavy vehicles through the streets during the nightly curfew, the news agency reported.
The Ukrainian air force said drones were attacking the city and air defences operating.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, wrote on Telegram that “as a result of an attack, an industrial warehouse is burning in one of Lviv’s districts”.
Key events
The EU’s executive arm on Tuesday proposed extending the right of refugees from Ukraine to stay in the bloc by a year to March 2025.
The temporary protection directive was triggered days after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and it was set to run until March 2024, according to AFP.
The commission said it should “be prolonged as a necessary and appropriate response to the current, volatile situation, which is not yet conducive to the safe and durable return” of refugees.
The proposal will now need to be approved by all 27 EU countries. There is not expected to be any major opposition.
Russia has said that Ukraine was responsible for the explosion at a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka this month that killed at least 17 people.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine had fired a 9M38 missile from a Buk surface-to-air missile system that struck the city on 6 September, Reuters reports.
Zakharova said:
Even if it was done unintentionally, it is obvious to everyone: the complete demilitarisation of the Kyiv regime is not just a requirement, but a vital necessity.”
The New York Times reported that evidence suggested the explosion had been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine.
Ukraine blamed Russia for the attack at the time, with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it was evidence of the need to destroy “Russian evil”.
See 12:39 for more information from one of our correspondents.
Ukrainian market explosion may have been caused by errant missile fired by Ukraine
Lorenzo Tondo
A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported.
A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack.
Evidence collected and analysed by the New York Times however suggests the strike was “the result of an Ukrainian air defence missile fired by a Buk launch system” that failed to hit its intended target and landed in the bustling heart of Kostiantynivka instead. “Missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defence missile fired” it reported on Tuesday.
Security camera footage reviewed by the paper shows that “the missile flew into Kostiantynivka from the direction of Ukrainian-held territory, not from behind Russian lines”.
It said that as the sound of the approaching missile was heard, at least four pedestrians appear to simultaneously turn their heads toward the incoming sound in the direction of Ukrainian-held territory.
The newspaper has also released a video, featuring, moments before the strike, the missile’s reflection visible as it passes over two parked cars as it appears to travel from the north-west.
The New York Times said two independent military bomb-disposal experts, who asked to remain anonymous, said the fragments and damage at the strike site are most consistent with an 9M38, which is fired by the mobile Buk anti-aircraft system, and not with a Russian S-300.
You can read more of Lorenzo Tondo’s report from Kyiv here: Ukrainian market tragedy may have been caused by errant missile fired by Ukraine
The Czech Republic has signed a letter of intent with Denmark and the Netherlands on financial support for deliveries of Czech weapons to Ukraine, the country’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry said it would help cover supplies of additional tanks, howitzers, small arms, air defence capacities and forms of electronic warfare or ammunition. Reuters reports it said the first project would be the donation of modernised T-72EA tanks in the near future.
Three killed in strike on Kupiansk
At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said.
“Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said in the message that emergency services were on site.
The secretary of Russia’s security council, Nikolai Patrushev, on Tuesday discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula and in Ukraine with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, Reuters reports Patrushev’s office said.
Citing the RIA news agency, Reuters also reported the men discussed military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, it said. Earlier it was announced that Vladimir Putin will travel to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing in October.
In other diplomacy news, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop bloodshed in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan began mass artillery strikes on Tuesday. My colleague Andrew Roth has reported on that development here.
Zakharova said Moscow’s peacekeepers in the region would continue their mission.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday Russia should immediately halt moves to expand military cooperation with North Korea and vowed to take stern actions, Reuters reports.
Latvia’s government decided on Tuesday to close one of its two Belarus border crossing points in an attempt to prevent illegal immigration, the Latvian news agency Lets and broadcaster LSM reported.
Reuters reports staff from the Silene border station will be redeployed to guard the actual border in what Latvia’s border guard chief has described as “the most tense situation since 2021” due to an influx of people from Belarus.
In 2021, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania faced a political crisis when thousands of people began crossing from Belarus.
Belarus has been a staunch ally of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and has been accused of deliberately allowing people to transit its territory in order to apply migratory pressure at EU borders.
Summary of the day so far …
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Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.
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Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.
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Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.
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Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
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A high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged. Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.
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Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has claimed this morning Russian forces destroyed a column of armored vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to address the UN general assembly in-person on Tuesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, telling reporters: “For us it’s very important that all our words, all our messages will be heard”. The Ukrainian president made the remarks during a visit to Staten Island university hospital, where Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for amputations.
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Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges. He called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext.
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Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday.
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Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will travel to Beijing in October for direct talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
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Denmark’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, has said that his country is to donate another 45 tanks to Ukraine. The donation will consist of 30 Leopard 1 tanks and 15 T-72 tanks.
Alexander Bogomaz, governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, has claimed on Telegram that Russian air defences have downed a Ukrainian drone over the region’s airspace.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/sep/19/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-major-fire-lviv-warehouse-attack-zelenskiy-questions-russias-place-at-un Russia-Ukraine war live: ‘major’ fire at Lviv warehouse after Russian attack; Zelenskiy questions Moscow’s place at UN | Ukraine