Ukraine claims to have killed commander of Russia"s Black Sea fleet Ukraine has claimed it has killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in an unprecedented missile strike on the naval headquarters in the annexed Crimean peninsula last week. It marked a major blow for Moscow, which has suffered a string of attacks on the strategically important port of Sevastopol in recent months, AFP reports. “Thirty-four officers were killed, including the commander of the Black Sea fleet. Another 105 occupiers were wounded,” Ukraine‘s special forces said. The strike on Friday sent plumes of black smoke billowing from the building in central Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. “The headquarters are beyond repair,” the special forces added. Russia’s defence ministry said on the day of the attack that one serviceman was missing, after having initially reported that one person had been killed. Summary Ukraine claimed it has killed Adm Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, along with 33 other officers, in one of Kyiv’s boldest attacks yet on the occupied peninsula of Crimea. A UN investigation into human rights violations in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion warned that evidence indicates the use of torture by Russian forces has been “widespread and systematic”. Canada became embroiled in an escalating political controversy after members of its House of Commons were encouraged to join in a standing ovation for an individual who fought in Ukraine with a Nazi military unit accused of war crimes during the second world war. A Russian drone and missile strike near Odesa damaged port infrastructure, a grain silo and an abandoned hotel and injured one person, as attacks on Ukraine killed four civilians and wounded 13 in the past day, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that his army had taken delivery of US Abrams battle tanks, boosting Kyiv’s forces in their slow-moving counteroffensive against Russian troops. Poland raised the prospect of providing Ukraine with older weapons from his country’s arsenal after they are replaced with more modern equivalents, in an apparent attempt to defuse a row that caused relations to sour last week. Hungary will not support Ukraine on any issue in international affairs until Ukraine restores “the former rights for ethnic Hungarians on its territory”, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, told his country’s parliament. The EU’s trade commissioner has warned that China’s position on the war in Ukraine could endanger its relationship with Europe, while calling for a more balanced economic relationship with China and noting an EU trade deficit of nearly $425bn. Germany plans to halve the federal aid it allocates for states to cover expenses of receiving and integrating refugees next year as part of budget-tightening amid soaring inflation after years of generous spending, sources have told Reuters. More than 1 million people sought refuge in Germany after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Supporting them has taken a toll on the country’s cities and municipalities and the country’s 16 states have been demanding more federal funds to cover refugees’ expenses next year. Today, Berlin informed the states it would allocate a maximum of €1.7bn as support for refugees’ expenses in 2024, down from €3.75bn this year, two government sources said, who declined to be named due to the confidentiality of the meeting. The federal government did not promise that it will match 2023 funding in the following years. A spokesperson for the finance ministry said a meeting of the federal and states’ governments on the issues had yielded no results ahead of a planned consultation with the chancellor in November. “Essentially, the states are responsible for the accommodation and care of refugees. The federal government is aware of the national dimension,” the spokesperson added. The government would also eliminate its contribution to the costs of caring for and integrating Ukrainian refugees, the sources added. Ukraine has claimed it has killed Adm Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, along with 33 other officers, in one of Kyiv’s boldest attacks yet on the occupied peninsula of Crimea. The Ukrainian military said Friday’s attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol was timed to coincide with a meeting of naval officials. “After the strike on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet, 34 officers died, including the commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Another 105 occupiers were wounded. The headquarters building cannot be restored,” the special forces said on the Telegram messaging app. The Russian defence ministry has not yet commented on Ukraine’s claim. Moscow has previously confirmed Ukraine’s attack but said that one serviceman was missing as a result of the attack. The Guardian cannot independently confirm Ukraine’s claims about Sokolov or the number of casualties and it was not immediately clear how Ukraine’s military counted dead and wounded people in the attack. Several close relatives of Sokolov declined to respond to requests for comment. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said his country is in no hurry to ratify Sweden’s bid to join Nato, suggesting the Nordic country could face further delays in becoming a member of the military alliance. Speaking during the opening autumn session of Hungary’s parliament, Orbán told lawmakers that “nothing is threatening Sweden’s security,” and that Hungary was therefore in “no rush” to ratify its Nato accession. Orbán also criticised the Ukrainian government under President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, saying Hungary would “not support Ukraine on any international issue” until the language rights of a sizeable Hungarian minority in western Ukraine were restored. Hungary is the only Nato member country besides Turkey that hasn’t yet approved Sweden’s bid to join the alliance. The Nordic nation, along with neighbouring Finland, dropped its longstanding military neutrality after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and quickly signalled its intention to join Nato, reports AP. Orban said Hungary had been “deceived” by a EU plan to allow Ukrainian grain to transit across Hungary after shipments across the Black Sea were hindered by the war with Russia, and that shipments of Ukrainian products ostensibly bound for Africa had been sold in Hungary for lower prices, pressuring domestic producers. “Brussels claimed that without Ukrainian grain, serious famine threatened African countries,” Orbán said. “After transit across the Black Sea was made impossible by the war, Hungary opened a solidarity transit corridor at Brussels’ request so that food could get to Africa from Ukraine and across Hungary. Let’s say it straight: They deceived us.” Orbán said that cheaper Ukrainian grain had flooded Hungarian markets, creating a supply glut that had harmed its agricultural industry. Together with Slovakia and Poland, Hungary it instituted an import ban on 23 Ukrainian agricultural products on 15 September, but will continue to allow their transfer across its territory. Fragments of a missile were found in a village in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region today after a Russian aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine overnight, regional authorities have said. The pro-Moscow separatist region broke away after a brief civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is not recognised internationally, AFP reports. “An S-300 missile warhead ... fell in [the village of] Chitcani, near a house, and got stuck in the ground,” Oleg Belyakov, co-chair of a commission in charge of peacekeeping operations in Transnistria, told Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. According to preliminary data provided by the demining team, it “bears the markings of a 1968 model,” he said. Moldova said it has launched an investigation. “At this stage, neither the origin of the identified object is clear, nor is its trajectory confirmed by independent sources,” the defence ministry said. According to local media, the missile landed on the backyard of a villager from Chitcani, who claimed he heard a loud explosion around 1am and found the missile in the morning. Both the Ukrainian and Russian armies use Soviet-designed S-300 surface-to-air missiles. The new death and casualty figures reported today by Ukraine after the missile strike that blasted the Crimean headquarters of the Russian navy last week are a steep increase from the figures cited by its intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, at the weekend. He said at least nine people were killed and 16 others wounded in the attack that left the building smouldering. He also said Alexander Romanchuk, a Russian general commanding forces along the key south-eastern frontline, was “in a very serious condition”. Now Ukraine claims 34 officers were killed, including the fleet commander, Adm Viktor Sokolov, with 105 injured, but it has provided no evidence and the claims have not yet been independently verified. The figures are also vastly different from what Russia has reported. Russia’s military announced the attack on the building and initially said one member of military personnel was killed but later said the person was not killed but missing. Moscow has provided no further updates, AP reports. Ukraine’s military also offered more details about Friday’s attack. It said the air force conducted 12 strikes on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, targeting areas where personnel, military equipment and weapons were concentrated. It said that two anti-aircraft missile systems and four Russian artillery units were hit. Joe Biden has imposed trade restrictions on 11 Chinese and five Russian companies, accusing some of supplying components to make drones for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. The commerce department, which oversees export policy, added a total of 28 firms, including some Finnish and German companies, to a trade blacklist, making it harder for US suppliers to ship them technology, AP reports. Nine of the companies, including China’s Asia Pacific Links Ltd and Russia’s SMT-iLogic, allegedly took part in a scheme to supply the previously blacklisted Special Technology Centre with drone parts for Russia’s main intelligence directorate of the general staff (GRU). “We will not hesitate to take swift and meaningful action against those who continue seeking to supply and support Putin’s illegal and immoral war in Ukraine,” said Alan Estevez, the commerce department’s chief of export controls. Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, has raised the prospect of providing Ukraine with older weapons from his country’s arsenal after they are replaced with more modern equivalents, in an apparent attempt to defuse a row that caused relations to sour last week. Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, said last week that Warsaw would not send any more weapons to Ukraine as it sought to restock its own military arsenal amid a simmering row over Ukrainian grain exports to EU countries that have caused prices to fall. But Duda’s comments today come as the US state department announced Washington had signed a $2bn (£1.6bn) foreign military financing direct loan agreement to support Poland’s defence modernisation “In addition to its central support role in facilitating international assistance to neighbouring Ukraine, Poland has demonstrated its ironclad commitment to strengthening regional security through its robust investments in defence spending,” the department said. Duda said donating newer equipment was off the table. “This equipment must be used to strengthen the Polish military. We aren’t spending billions to just hand it over,” he said. “When the old equipment is replaced with modern hardware, I see no problem in sending it to Ukraine.” Polish farmers have criticised the EU decision to lift customs duties on Ukrainian grain in May 2022 after Russia blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports – the main route for its exports – following its invasion of Ukraine. Grain prices dropped sharply in several EU states and the issue has become a hot-button topic ahead of Poland’s general election on 15 October and threatens to create a major rift between Poland and Ukraine, as well as deepening mistrust between Warsaw and the EU. “Since the start of the war in Ukraine, our situation has changed dramatically,” Wieslaw Gryn, a farmer who grows wheat, oilseed rape, sugar beet and maize on 900 hectares in eastern Poland near the Ukrainian border, told AFP. “Following the Ukrainian grain imports, we do not have anywhere to sell our produce and the prices have fallen so much that they do not cover costs of production.” The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, has said: “Following the opening of the market, a large number of Polish farmers found themselves in a very difficult situation.” Together with several other countries neighbouring Ukraine, Poland banned imports. Brussels authorised restrictions by several member states as long as transit was allowed to continue but it ordered the measures to be lifted on 15 September. Since then, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have defied Brussels by extending their embargo saying they had to protect their farmers – prompting Ukraine to seek an intervention by the World Trade Organization. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, has said that agreements between Poland and Ukraine after Russia’s invasion “did not include a clause to abolish Polish agriculture”. Russian state media has claimed that Ukrainian forces have been driven from the village of Orekhovo-Vasilevka, north of Bakhmut. Vladimir Rogov, chair of a pro-Russian seperatist movement in the area, wrote on Telegram, according to the Tass news agency: On the northern flank of the Artyomovsk direction, Russian soldiers knocked out Ukrainian Armed Forces militants from the village of Orekhovo-Vasilevka. Carrying out an attack, our guys took the Nazis by surprise – they did not expect the assault and were forced to flee. Citing regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin, Suspilne reports that in Beryslav a 55-year-old man has died of injuries sustained earlier today in a strike on the city which was already known to have claimed two lives. Orbán signals further delay in Hungary ratifying Sweden"s bid to join Nato Hungary is not in a hurry to ratify Sweden’s Nato accession, the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, told parliament on Monday, Reuters reports, flagging a further delay in a process that has been stranded in the Hungarian parliament since July 2022. “I wonder if there is something urgent that would force us to ratify Sweden’s Nato bid. I cannot see any such circumstance,” he said. Here is a reminder of our video report from Friday of the strike on Sevastopol, which Ukraine now claims killed 34 officers, including the commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and wounded another 105. Reuters notes it is not immediately clear how Ukraine’s special forces have counted the dead and wounded in the attack. Russian-installed officials in Crimea confirmed the Ukrainian attack on Friday, saying that at least one missile struck the fleet headquarters. Russia unilaterally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian sources are claiming that Russian Black Sea fleet admiral Viktor Sokolov died in the missile strike on Sevastopol on Friday. It is important to note at this point it is a claim that has not been independently verified. The Russian ministry of defence is yet to make any comment.