Ukraine war latest: Ukraine 'destroys Russian Black Sea minesweeper' (2024)

Kharkiv has been the target of frequent airstrikes since Russia began its new offensive on the northeastern region late last week.

Residential buildings have been destroyed and Ukraine has accused Russia of targeting civilians, saying it is investigating this as a "potential war crime".

Governor Oleh Syniehubov said this morning that one person died and 11 were wounded as a result of shelling on Saturday.

Here are some of the latest pictures from the city...

Ukrainian forces have destroyedRussian Black Sea fleet minesweeper, a statement from theUkrainian navy said.

"Last night the Ukrainian Defence Forces destroyed theRussian Black Sea Fleet's Project 266-M Kovrovets minesweeper,"it said on Telegram.

As Russia’s new invasion of northern Ukraine ticks into its second week, Trevor Philips asks Defence Secretary Grant Shapps if we are creating a stalemate in the war with Russia.

It comes after Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week: "We are in a nonsense situation where the West is afraid that Russia will lose the war. And it does not want Ukraine to lose it."

Grant Shapps says he went to Ukraine earlier this year and made the point that "by delaying what we should be doing - and in fact now have, through particularly what [the US] Congress has done - we are running the risk of doing exactly what President Zelensky is concerned about".

He goes on: "I think this is completely nonsensical for the West. We have to understand we are in an existential battle about the way we run the world order and about democracy itself."

He accuses autocratic countries of trying to "impose" their systems on "free and democratic countries", declaring: "We have to stand up to that."

Speaking on Sunday Morning with Trevor Philips, Grant Shapps says the delay in giving aid to Ukraine gave Russia a window of opportunity for its new offensive.

"It is [a] fact that the delay in sending additional aid [to Ukraine] - and here, obviously, the United States Congress was slow on this - had left a hiatus in which, for example, Putin has moved into, or tried to move into Kharkiv."

He says he is "confident" Ukraine will be able to repel the attack, but says there are a "few difficult weeks ahead".

"But that didn't need to happen," he adds.

Mr Shapps also says "Europeans have to step up as well", calling for other European countries to commit to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, which the government has said it will do by 2030.

He would not be drawn on whether the UK should change its rules to allow weapons provided by the UK to be used in Russian territory.

Mr Shapps instead called for Germany and other countries to allow the weapons they provide to be used in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Six drones crashed on the site of an oil refinery in Slavyansk in Russia's southernKrasnodar region during an overnight attack by Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Russian defence ministry said Russianforces shot down nine US long-range missiles over Crimea andat least 60 drones over Russian sovereign territory.

Interfax said the refinery halted work afterthe attack.

There were no fires at the refinery, state-run TASS news agency reported, citing local authorities.

Russia has reported an uptick in Ukrainian attacks on its territory since opening a new front in the Kharkiv region earlier this month.

Members of a Ukrainian brigade have described how they were secretly relocated to help defend a section of the country's border with Russia a few days before a new invasion began.

One commander told Sky News how his guns were even firing atRussiantroops who were "brazenly" amassing on the Russian side of the border some 24 hours prior to the incursion into Kharkiv.

"We were hitting tanks on the border… it was already a real war," said Sasha, 26, who uses the callsign "black".

The comments offer a sense of howUkraineattempted - ahead of time - to scramble forces to counter a Russian build-up along its long, northeastern border.

Read more below from Sky News' Defence and Security Editor Deborah Haynes...

Two people died and two more were injured in Russian airstrikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials say.

Kherson governor Oleksandr Prokudin said residential areas of the city were hit and a high-rise building and eight homes were damaged.

It comes as Ukrainian prosecutors say they are investigating Russia for a "potential war crime" over claims it targeted residential areas - something Moscow denies.

A Russian air strike on a residential area of Kharkiv is being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors as a potential war crime after six civilians were wounded.

Among the injured were three children, aged eight, 13 and 16.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

About 45 miles to the northeast in Vovchansk, a city three miles from the Russian border, prosecutors said Russian shelling killed a 60-year-old woman and injured three other civilians.

A 59-year-old man was also injured in the village of Ukrainske, they said.

Meanwhile in Russia late on Saturday, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone attack injured a woman and a man in the village of Petrovka.

They were treated for shrapnel injuries, he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Moscow's defence ministry said its forces shot down a Tochka-U missile fired by Ukraine into Belgorod.

A similar missile caused a Belgorod apartment building to collapse last week, killing at least 15 people, Russia said.

Ukraine's forces have destroyedall 37 attack drones launched by Russia overnight, according to Ukraine'sAir Force chief.

"As a result of the anti-aircraft battle, all 37 'Shaheds' were shot down in Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia,Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Kherson regions," the commander said.

Sky News could not independently verify the report.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Yesterday, Russia claimed to have taken control of the village Starytsia in Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

It came after the Russian defence ministry said it had taken control of 12 settlements in Kharkiv in the space of a week on Friday.

Yesterday also saw laws overhauling how army mobilisation works in Ukraine came into force.

The legislation, which was watered down from its original draft, will make it easier to identify every conscript in the country.

We'll be bringing you all the live updates throughout the day but, before we do, here's a reminder of the other key events from the last 24 hours:

• A Russian Su-25 attack plane was shot down over Donetsk, according to a Ukrainian army brigade;
• Poland announced it's aiming to bolster its defences against what it says is a rising threat from Russia and Belarus with a £2bn security programme;
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy snubbed the French president's call for a truce between Russia and Ukraine during the Paris Olympics, saying it could give Russia the upper hand;
  
• At least 30 people have died trying to escape conscription by crossing a river separating Ukraine from neighbouring Romania and Hungary, the Ukrainian border service said;
  
• Russian forces launched drone attacks on two energy facilities in Ukraine, according to the country's grid operator Ukrenergo.