Ukraine expects "record number" of drone attacks this winter Ukraine is bracing for a second winter of heavy drone attacks, Reuters reports today: Ukraine’s air force expects a record number of Russian drone attacks on its soil this winter, its spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said on Sunday, as Kyiv girds for a second winter of mass bombardment of its energy facilities. Ihnat said that data for September showed the use by Russia of Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones would smash last year’s figure. “This autumn and winter … is already a record in terms of the number of Shahed drones. Over 500 [were used] in September,” Ihnat said in an interview on national television. He contrasted this number with Russia’s air strike campaign on Ukraine last winter, when he said about 1,000 Shahed drones were used in six months. Attacks on energy facilities last winter damaged a significant chunk of Ukraine’s power system and forced most cities to ration electricity and hot water. Despite Ukraine bolstering its air defences, officials have warned of the risk of a repeat this winter, with the power grid still far from rebuilt after the last campaign of bombardment. We’re now closing the Russia-Ukraine war blog for the day, thanks for following along with the Guardian’s live coverage. For a summary of today’s events, see this post for the major news headlines. We’ll be back with more tomorrow. It is just after 6pm in Kyiv and this is a summary of the day Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has expressed his “solidarity” with Israel in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “I spoke with Netanyahu to affirm Ukraine‘s solidarity with Israel, which suffers from a brazen large-scale attack, and to express condolences for the multiple victims,” Zelensky said on social media. Over the summer Ukraine has “almost certainly liberated at least 125 sq km of territory” in a fought-over eastern area of the country, according to a British intelligence update by the Ministry of Defence. The Velyka Novosilka sector west of the Donetsk Oblast town of Vuhledar has “become relatively quiet over the last four weeks” the MoD said. Two Ukrainian women were among those killed in Israel on Saturday after Hamas launched its deadliest attack on the country, the Ukrainian embassy has told news agency Interfax-Ukraine. The identities of the women have not yet been confirmed but officials said they had lived in Israel for a long time. Ukraine’s air force expects a record number of Russian drone attacks on its soil this winter, its spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said on Sunday, as Kyiv girds for a second winter of mass bombardment of its energy facilities. Ihnat said that data for September showed the use by Russia of Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones would smash last year’s figure. Four people including a nine-year-old girl have been injured in a rocket strike on Konstantinivka on Sunday morning, according to the acting governor of Donetsk. A 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old baby are among those wounded in a Russian attack on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, according to its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. The woman and the infant were hospitalised with moderate wounds, he said, adding that a 33-year-old Red Cross medic was also wounded. Several houses and gas pipelines were damaged in the attack. UN and local investigators are searching for answers in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv following one of the deadliest air strikes of the war. The strike on Thursday turned the sole cafe and store in the village to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other top officials in Kyiv. Only six people in the cafe survived. Ukraine’s armed forces report that about 580 Russian troops have been killed during fighting over the last day. Posting its latest overnight summary of casualties, the Ukrainian military claims Russia has suffered 282,280 losses since the start of the war on 24 February last year.The figures have not been independently verified and are still being updated. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, says that current violence between Hamas and Israel is useful for Russia in diverting the world’s attention and works in their favour. Duda argued in an interview with private broadcaster Polsat News on Sunday that conflict in the Middle East distracts international scrutiny away from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and may result in new migration pressures on Europe. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken about the situation in Israel, drawing parallels with the war in Ukraine by stating that “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable”. He said his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid any Ukrainians in Israel. Officials have estimated that about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Israel. While having sent tons of humanitarian aid, Netanyahu has consistently refused to supply weapons to Kyiv. A United Russia party official in the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson oblast was killed in a car explosion on Saturday, the Russian-installed regional governor said. Vladimir Malov, executive secretary of the town branch of Russia’s governing United Russia party, died in hospital, Vladimir Saldo said in a post on his Telegram channel. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, has called for a civil war in the US, as he said a civil war would be the only thing that could stop “America’s manic passion for sparking conflicts everywhere on the planet”. Train traffic between North Korea and Russia has dramatically increased after the recent summit between leaders Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, indicating a “likely” transfer of arms, according to a new report by Washington-based analysts. High-resolution satellite imagery reveals at least 70 freight cars at North Korea’s border Tumangang rail facility, the Beyond Parallel group said on Friday, a number described as “unprecedented”. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has expressed his “solidarity” with Israel in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. AFP reports: Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, spoke to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday to reiterate Kyiv’s support to Israel, which retaliated after a massive assault by the Palestinian Hamas group. “I spoke with Netanyahu to affirm Ukraine‘s solidarity with Israel, which suffers from a brazen largescale attack, and to express condolences for the multiple victims,” Zelensky said on social media. “The prime minister informed me of the current situation and the actions of Israel’s defence forces and law enforcement to repel the attack,” Zelensky added. “We also discussed the attack’s ramifications for the security situation in the region and beyond.” The Ukrainian president also said diplomats were cooperating with the Israeli police to ensure the safety of Ukrainian citizens. The head of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, Oleksandra Matviichuk, has been making an impassioned case for documenting war crimes while speaking at an event in Lviv. The Nobel peace prize winner said that everyone in Ukraine who had suffered under Russia’s invasion deserved justice. Speaking at the Lviv Book Forum, which is being streamed online by the UK’s Hay Festival, Matviichuk said she had been developing strategies to make sure that “every person in Ukraine who has suffered from Russian aggression gets a shot at justice, regardless of who the person is, their social standing, the type of crime they were a victim of, what type of violence they experienced, whether international organisations care about their fate or not, or international media care about their fate or not.” She added: “Every survivor, every affected person has to get a shot at justice because if we say that every life matters, then we have to turn it into our practice.” Over the summer Ukraine has “almost certainly liberated at least 125 sq km of territory” in a fought-over eastern area of the country, according to a British intelligence update by the Ministry of Defence. The Velyka Novosilka sector west of the Donetsk Oblast town of Vuhledar has “become relatively quiet over the last four weeks, with fighting much less intense from its height in June-July 2023,” the MoD said on Sunday in its daily update. Ukrainian operations have tied down elements of the 36th and 5th Combined Arms Armies of Russia’s Eastern Military District, the MoD said, preventing them from reinforcing other areas. They added that it has also drawn in a number of Russian airborne units. They cautioned, however, that while “this axis has stabilised, Russian forces likely remain in a defensive posture to guard against possible future Ukrainian offensive operations”. Two Ukrainian women were among those killed in Israel on Saturday after Hamas launched its deadliest attack on the country, the Ukrainian embassy has told news agency Interfax-Ukraine. The identities of the women have not yet been confirmed but officials said they had lived in Israel for a long time. The embassy said in a statement on Sunday: “The Embassy of Ukraine received confirmation from the Israeli police regarding the death of two Ukrainian citizens. Measures are being taken to organise the repatriation of the bodies of the deceased. There is currently no information on the presence of Ukrainian citizens among the wounded or missing.” There is a substantial expat community of Ukrainians in Israel, estimated at around 500,000, according to the Ukrainian foreign ministry. Ukraine expects "record number" of drone attacks this winter Ukraine is bracing for a second winter of heavy drone attacks, Reuters reports today: Ukraine’s air force expects a record number of Russian drone attacks on its soil this winter, its spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said on Sunday, as Kyiv girds for a second winter of mass bombardment of its energy facilities. Ihnat said that data for September showed the use by Russia of Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones would smash last year’s figure. “This autumn and winter … is already a record in terms of the number of Shahed drones. Over 500 [were used] in September,” Ihnat said in an interview on national television. He contrasted this number with Russia’s air strike campaign on Ukraine last winter, when he said about 1,000 Shahed drones were used in six months. Attacks on energy facilities last winter damaged a significant chunk of Ukraine’s power system and forced most cities to ration electricity and hot water. Despite Ukraine bolstering its air defences, officials have warned of the risk of a repeat this winter, with the power grid still far from rebuilt after the last campaign of bombardment. Summary of the day so far Four people including a nine-year-old girl have been injured in a rocket strike on Konstantinivka on Sunday morning, according to the acting governor of Donetsk. A 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old baby are among those wounded in a Russian attack on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, according to its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. The woman and the infant were hospitalised with moderate wounds, he said, adding that a 33-year-old Red Cross medic was also wounded. Several houses and gas pipelines were damaged in the attack. UN and local investigators are searching for answers in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv following one of the deadliest air strikes of the war. The strike on Thursday turned the sole cafe and store in the village to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other top officials in Kyiv. Only six people in the cafe survived. Ukraine’s armed forces report that about 580 Russian troops have been killed during fighting over the last day. Posting its latest overnight summary of casualties, the Ukrainian military claims Russia has suffered 282,280 losses since the start of the war on 24 February last year.The figures have not been independently verified and are still being updated. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, says that current violence between Hamas and Israel is useful for Russia in diverting the world’s attention and works in their favour. Duda argued in an interview with private broadcaster Polsat News on Sunday that conflict in the Middle East distracts international scrutiny away from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and may result in new migration pressures on Europe. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken about the situation in Israel, drawing parallels with the war in Ukraine by stating that “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable”. He said his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid any Ukrainians in Israel. Officials have estimated that about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Israel. While having sent tons of humanitarian aid, Netanyahu has consistently refused to supply weapons to Kyiv. A United Russia party official in the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson oblast was killed in a car explosion on Saturday, the Russian-installed regional governor said. Vladimir Malov, executive secretary of the town branch of Russia’s governing United Russia party, died in hospital, Vladimir Saldo said in a post on his Telegram channel. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, has called for a civil war in the US, as he said a civil war would be the only thing that could stop “America’s manic passion for sparking conflicts everywhere on the planet”. Train traffic between North Korea and Russia has dramatically increased after the recent summit between leaders Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, indicating a “likely” transfer of arms, according to a new report by Washington-based analysts. High-resolution satellite imagery reveals at least 70 freight cars at North Korea’s border Tumangang rail facility, the Beyond Parallel group said on Friday, a number described as “unprecedented”. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, says that current violence between Hamas and Israel is useful for Russia in diverting the world’s attention and works in their favour, Reuters reports. Duda argued in an interview with private broadcaster Polsat News on Sunday that conflict in the Middle East distracts international scrutiny away from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and may result in new migration pressures on Europe. “It certainly benefits Russia and Russian aggression against Ukraine. It distracts the world’s attention... But above all, I am afraid that it will unfortunately cause further migration pressure on Europe,” Duda said. “We will likely have another wave of migrants from the Middle East, which will hit Europe... Our security, protection of Poland’s borders ,of course, also the borders of the European Union and the Schengen zone, becomes even more important.” Poland has been a staunch supporter of Kyiv since Russia invaded in early 2022 and has sheltered more than a million Ukrainian refugees. Writing in today’s Observer, Peter Pomerantsev looks at why, despite recent military successes, Russia remains vulnerable. It has been a good week for Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, a Russian missile hit a cafe in eastern Ukraine, killing more than 50 people, including a six-year-old boy. On Monday, the Russian-leaning Robert Fico was elected prime minister of Slovakia, pledging to cut military supplies to Ukraine. In America, Republicans and Democrats are having fisticuffs over funding for Ukraine, a previously bipartisan issue becoming ever more polarised. Meanwhile, the EU admits it can’t match US levels of support. With every atrocity that goes unpunished, Russia’s aim of furthering an age of utter impunity, where dictators can slaughter civilians and wipe out whole nations as they please, comes closer. And as Ukraine’s allies crack and dither, Russian arms production is ramping up to unprecedented levels, churning out more drones and missiles. Putin thinks that if he can keep this up until November 2024, and Donald Trump wins the US election, he’s victorious. But on all the fronts of this war – the war of weapons, the war for a world with at least a little justice and the war for American public opinion – Russia is actually very vulnerable. Finland’s only natural gas source has shut down after a suspected leak in the pipeline from Estonia, according to AFP. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland halted Russian imports in May 2022, leaving it entirely reliant on the Balticconnector pipeline to Estonia for natural gas. “Based on observations, it was suspected that the offshore pipeline between Finland and Estonia was leaking,” the state-owned Gasgrid said in a statement. Russia stopped supplying gas after Finland refused to pay in rubles, a condition imposed on “unfriendly countries” as a way to sidestep western financial sanctions against Russia’s central bank. Prominent Ukrainian folk singer, Nina Matviienko, has died at the age of 75. Matviienko became well known in the country as the lead soloist in the Ukrainian State Folk Choir from 1966 to 1991. She toured the world singing folk songs, performing in many countries, including America, France, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Finland Her daughter, Tonya_Matvienko, confirmed the news by posting a portrait of her mother on instagram with the caption “mom is dead”. Four people including a nine-year-old girl have been injured in a rocket strike on Konstantinivka on Sunday morning, according to the acting governor of Donetsk. Ihor Moroz said 19 private homes, 10 multi-storey buildings, a boiler, a gas pipeline and a car were damaged in the strike. Moroz said the four civillians’ injuries were minor and had been treated. Moroz said Konstantinivka was “constantly experiencing enemy shelling” and warned people to evacuate, saying: “It is dangerous to stay in the city!” The eastern Ukrainian city is close to the frontline and has been hit repeatedly in Russian strikes. Ukraine’s armed forces report that about 580 Russian troops have been killed during fighting over the last day. Posting its latest overnight summary of casualties, the Ukrainian military claims Russia has suffered 282,280 losses since the start of the war on 24 February last year. The figures have not been independently verified and are still being updated. The governor of Kherson region in southern Ukraine, Oleksandr Prokudin, says a 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old baby are among those wounded in another Russian attack, Reuters reports. “The Kherson region experienced another terrible night,” Prokudin wrote on the Telegram messaging app. The woman and the infant were hospitalised with moderate wounds, he said, adding that a 33-year-old Red Cross medic was also wounded. Several houses and gas pipelines were damaged in the attack. Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces carried out 59 attacks on Kherson, the region’s administration said on Telegram, including 19 instances of shelling of Kherson city, the region’s administrative centre. Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia. More on that strike in the small Ukrainian village of Hroza in Kharkiv, which is one of the deadliest in Ukraine since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion last year. The strike on Thursday turned the sole cafe and store in the village to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other top officials in Kyiv. UN and local investigators are searching for answers in the village as the town is trying to fathom why and how the wake was targeted. Only six people in the cafe survived. According to a UN statement shared with the the Associated Press, representatives from a UN monitoring mission have come to the preliminary conclusion that nearly all those killed were civilians. Representatives from the United Nations monitoring mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) spent much of the day speaking with local residents and survivors in Hroza, according to the statement. “My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village cafe and store, was also clearly civilian,” Danielle Bell, who led the team that visited Hroza on Saturday, was cited as saying in the UN statement. “What happened here is yet another tragic reminder of the deadly impact Russia’s invasion has had on Ukraine’s civilians,” Bell added. Also on Saturday, local residents began burying their lost friends, with the funeral of a married couple who had attended the wake before the missile strike cut it short. The initial wake was for Andriy Kozyr, a soldier from Hroza, who died last winter fighting Russia’s invading forces in eastern Ukraine. According to Ukrainian news reports, he was initially laid to rest elsewhere in Ukraine, as his native village remained under Russian occupation. Kozyr’s family decided to rebury him in Hroza more than 15 months following his death, after DNA tests confirmed his identity, and the cafe reopened especially to let residents honour his memory. His son Dmytro Kozyr, also a soldier, was among those who died in the attack, alongside his wife Nina, who was just days short of her 21st birthday. As of Saturday, Ukrainian law enforcement and the regional prosecutor’s office put the number of victims at 52. See below some of the photos that have come in from the burials and the village. Opening summary Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. A dozen people were wounded, including a 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old baby, in a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, its governor said on Sunday. “The Kherson region experienced another terrible night,” governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Meanwhile, UN and local investigators are searching for answers at the site of a Russian missile strike on the small Ukrainian village of Hroza in Kharkiv oblast killed 52 people. The investigators have come to the preliminary conclusion that nearly all those killed were civilians, according to a UN statement shared with the Associated Press. Local residents have begun to bury those killed, after the missile obliterated the village’s only cafe as people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake. In other news: Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken about the situation in Israel, drawing parallels with the war in Ukraine by stating that “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable”. He said his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid any Ukrainians in Israel. Officials have estimated that about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Israel. While having sent tons of humanitarian aid, Netanyahu has consistently refused to supply weapons to Kyiv. A United Russia party official in the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson oblast was killed in a car explosion on Saturday, the Russian-installed regional governor said. Vladimir Malov, executive secretary of the town branch of Russia’s governing United Russia party, died in hospital, Vladimir Saldo said in a post on his Telegram channel. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, has called for a civil war in the US, as he said a civil war would be the only thing that could stop “America’s manic passion for sparking conflicts everywhere on the planet”. Train traffic between North Korea and Russia has dramatically increased after the recent summit between leaders Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, indicating a “likely” transfer of arms, according to a new report by Washington-based analysts. High-resolution satellite imagery reveals at least 70 freight cars at North Korea’s border Tumangang rail facility, the Beyond Parallel group said on Friday, a number described as “unprecedented”. One woman was killed and two more people injured in the Russian shelling of the village of Bilenke in the Zaporizhzhia oblast, the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration said on Telegram. A private house and outbuildings were damaged in the attack, said Yuriy Malashko. A man was killed in shelling of the village of Urazovo in Russia’s Belgorod oblast, the regional governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the attack came from Ukrainian forces, but the Guardian could not independently verify those claims. Ukraine typically does not claim responsibility for strikes on Russia. A utility building, a storage facility and one social facility were destroyed in the attack, Gladkov said. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, posted on X that Russia is planning to revoke ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation. “The aim is to be on equal footing with the US, who signed the treaty but didn’t ratify it,” he said. “Revocation doesn’t mean the intention to resume nuclear tests.” The US warned that Russia revoking its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation will endanger “the global norm” against nuclear test blasts. Russian forces launched an overnight missile strike on Ukraine’s southern Odesa oblast, damaging port infrastructure, the regional governor said early on Saturday. Four people were wounded in the strike, which hit a boarding house and a portside grain facility, said Oleh Kiper. Debris from the rockets and the blast wave caused a fire in the garage cooperative and damaged several apartment buildings. Russia’s defence ministry says it destroyed two Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missiles, thwarting attacks it said Kyiv attempted four hours apart on the Crimean Peninsula on Saturday. Reuters could not verify the reports by the ministry, which did not say where exactly the missiles were shot down over Crimea.