Ukraine-Russia war: Attack in eastern Ukraine kills 16

Thanks for following today’s liveblog. 

We will be back tomorrow for all the latest updates on Ukraine.

Volodymr Zelensky has condemned the market attack in eastern Ukraine as “heinous evil.”

He said: “Anyone in the world who is still dealing with anything Russian simply ignores this reality. Heinous evil. Brazen wickedness. Utter inhumanity. 

“My condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one. The Russian evil must be defeated as soon as possible.”

The number of injured in Kostyantynivka has risen to 31 people, Nexta is reporting.  

Cars and eight commercial objects were burned to the ground, the media outlet said.

Ukrainian troops have likely pinned down some of Russia’s elite soldiers in Donetsk, preventing them from redeploying to a key part of the frontline, a prominent US think tank has said.

Some 49 soldiers of the 7th VDV Division were killed in action in one day of fighting near the village of Staromayorske with Russian command reportedly not overseeing the retrieval of bodies, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, citing a Russian military blogger who posted an audio recording purportedly from a Russian soldier.

The ISW said in its daily update: “Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area are likely succeeding in pinning elements of the 7th Guards Mountain Airborne (VDV) Division and preventing them from laterally redeploying to critical areas of the front in western Zaporizhia Oblast.”

It comes after Ukraine claims to have liberated the town of Robotyne, about six miles south of the front-line town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region.

“We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive, but has what it needs for the long term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent,” Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said standing alongside Dmytro Kuleba.

“We’re also determined to continue to work with our partners as they build and rebuild a strong economy, strong democracy,” he said in comments during his visit to Kyiv.

Media reports have cited unidentified US officials as saying the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been too slow and hindered by poor tactics - criticism that angered Ukrainian officials and prompted Mr Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, to tell critics to “shut up”.

Ukraine has retaken more than a dozen villages and small settlements in its offensive. But its push into Russian-held territory has been slowed by minefields and trenches.

At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in a Russian attack on the city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said.

Mr Podolyak, in comments to Reuters, gave no other details of the attack on the industrial city which is close to front lines. Local media described it as a missile attack.

Russian forces have covered nuclear bomber jets in tyres in an apparent bid to defend them from Ukrainian drone attacks.

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies appears to show dozens of car tyres placed on the wings and fuselages of two Tu-95 strategic bombers at the Engels airbase near Saratov in Russia more than 400 miles from the front line in Ukraine.

Experts have speculated the tyres could be used to protect the aircraft from Ukrainian drones and also reduce their visibility during nighttime raids.

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday approved President Volodymyr Zelensky’s nomination of Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, as Kyiv’s new defence minister after the resignation of Oleksiy Reznikov.

“Parliament approved Rustem Umerov as the Defence Minister of Ukraine,” senior lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on social media. 

He posted a photograph of the voting board, showing 338 out of 360 lawmakers voted in favour of Umerov’s nomination.

The situation along the eastern frontline remains difficult and the main task for Ukraine’s troops is to ensure reliable defence and prevent the loss of strongholds, Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, has said.

“The enemy does not abandon his plans to reach the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” the ground forces cited Syrskyi as saying on the Telegram messaging app.

“Our main task is to ensure reliable defence, to prevent the loss of our strongholds and positions in the Kupiansk and Lymansk directions, as well as to successfully move forward and reach the designated lines in the Bakhmut direction.”

During his two-day visit, Anthony Blinken is likely to announce a new package of US assistance worth more than $1 billion, a senior State Department official told reporters on the trip.

Mr Blinken, on the first trip to Kyiv by a top US official since the Ukrainian counteroffensive began, is expected to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba among other senior officials as well as civil society figures, the official said.

Several hours before his arrival, Russia carried out air strikes on Kyiv and the southern region of Odesa. No casualties were reported in the capital but a civilian was killed and port infrastructure damaged in the south, Ukrainian officials said.

Media reports have cited unidentified US officials as saying the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been too slow and hindered by poor tactics - criticism that angered Ukrainian officials and prompted Kuleba to tell critics to “shut up”.

Anthony Blinken, the US secretary of State, has arrived in Kyiv for a visist. 

Footage shows Mr Blinken being greeted by Patron, a detection dog awarded the Ukrainian order of courage last year. 

More to follow

The Wagner group of mercenaries is to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, putting it on a par with Isil and al-Qaeda in a move by Britain to put further pressure on Vladimir Putin.

The group has played a central role in the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine as well as mounting destabilising operations across the globe including in Africa and Syria.

Proscription will make it a criminal offence to belong to Wagner, attend its meetings, encourage support for it or carry its logo in public, similar to other terrorist groups. Offences under the ban can carry jail terms of up to 14 years.

Read more from Charles Hymas here

One person was killed in Russian drone attacks on a port district in Ukraine’s southwestern Odesa region early Wednesday, the regional governor said.

The night-time attacks lasted three hours and targeted the Izmail district, Oleg Kiper said on Telegram.

The Danube river port of Izmail, which borders Nato member Romania, has become a main export route for Ukrainian products following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered grain deal in July.

“Unfortunately, one person died,” said Mr Kiper, adding that it was an agricultural worker who was seriously injured and died in hospital.

“Destruction and fires were recorded in several settlements,” he added, saying that port and agricultural infrastructure had been damaged, including administrative buildings.

Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv early on Wednesday, with the country’s air defence systems shooting down all missiles before they reached their targets, the capital’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters’ witnesses heard several blasts which sounded like air defence systems being deployed at around 0550 a.m. (0250 GMT) when air raid alerts were issued for all of Ukraine before being called off about an hour later.

“Another missile attack by the enemy on a peaceful city with the aim of killing the civilian population and destroying the infrastructure,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He added that according to preliminary information, there was no destruction in Kyiv and no casualties.

The scale of the attack was not immediately known.

A Russian-appointed official has acknowledged that Moscow’s forces have abandoned the Ukrainian village of Robotyne, more than a week after Kyiv announced its recapture.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the top Moscow-installed official in the Zaporizhzhia region, said in a television interview that the Russian army had withdrawn for what he called tactical reasons.

“The Russian army abandoned - tactically abandoned - this settlement because staying on a bare surface when there is no way to completely dig in... doesn’t generally make sense. Therefore the Russian army moved off into the hills,” news outlet RBC quoted him as saying.

Russia has not previously acknowledged the loss of Robotyne, whose recapture was announced by Ukraine on Aug. 28. In its daily update on Tuesday, the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had repelled two Ukrainian attacks near Robotyne.

A British Challenger 2 tank was destroyed by enemy fire for the first time but saved the lives of its Ukrainian crew, defence sources said on Tuesday.

Footage from the battlefield showed the smouldering wreckage of the tank on a roadside near the Zaporizhzhia village of Robotyne, where Kyiv’s counter-offensive to penetrate Moscow’s defences has gathered pace.

Bright flames could be seen licking up the sides of the tank as a thick plume of black smoke billowed from its turret, in the video purportedly shot by a Ukrainian soldier fleeing an artillery barrage in a car.

Good morning and welcome to today’s Ukraine liveblog.

We will be guiding you through all the latest updates on Ukraine.