Russia-Ukraine war live: Italy, Spain and Greece follow US in closing embassies in Kyiv over threat of ‘significant attack’

Air alerts have been declared in Kyiv and a number of other regions.

This happens quite regularly during the day, however due to the closure of embassies by the US, Italy, Spain and Greece in anticipation of an attack on Kyiv, there is a heightened sense of alertness.

Andriy Kovalenko, from Ukraine’s national security and defence council has told news agency Ukrinform that Russia was “trying to sow panicky moods” among Ukrainians.

Italy, Spain and Greece follow US in closing Kyiv embassies over attack fears

Russia’s ministry of defence claims it has destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region.

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that Ukraine lost 400 service personnel on the Kursk front in the last 24 hours. The ministry gave a detailed list of western-supplied Ukrainian equipment it had destroyed. The claims have not been independently verified.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that a man faces up to nine years in prison after being arrested in Kharkiv for helping men eligible to be drafted into the armed forces escape Ukraine. The 43-year-old was paid to help people travel into Moldova.

Many organisations this week have been marking the 1,000 day anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Fundraising platform GoFundMe has announced that since the beginning of the war more than £17m has been raised in the UK for Ukrainian causes, including media outlet the Kyiv Independent raising more than £1.8m to keep publishing during the conflict. More than 200,000 individual donations have been made to appeals mentioning Ukraine during the period.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Reuters reports, has said that Ukraine and Russia should focus on peace and show restraint.

Turkey’s president also said that the US decision to allow longer range Ukrainian strikes on Russia would further escalate the conflict and prompt a Russian reaction. He said he opposed the move.

Erdoğan has repeatedly tried to position Turkey as a mediator in the conflict, and has proposed a peace plan that would involve Ukraine delaying any moves to join Nato for at least ten years and freezing the existing frontlines. That would effectively mean Ukraine conceding territory to Russia, while Russia would have to accept it had not gained full control the four Ukrainian regions it claimed to annex in 2022.

Reuters reports that the Ukrainian military said on Wednesday that it shot down 56 out of 122 drones and two out of six missiles launched by Russia overnight. The claims have not been independently verified.

Kremlin: a ‘freeze’ on conflict in Ukraine is unacceptable

Russian state-owned news agency Tass is carrying further quotes from Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, about the country’s new nuclear doctrine.

It quotes him saying that the new doctrine was met with “caution” by the west, adding:

They understand that the adjustments announced by Putin largely devalue the efforts of the US and Nato to inflict a strategic defeat on our country, and the planned expansion of the list of grounds for the use of nuclear weapons effectively excludes the possibility of victory over the Russian armed forces on the battlefield.

In its latest operational update, Ukraine’s army has said that on Tuesday there were up to 139 combat engagements on the front lines between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Sergey Naryshkin, who is director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, is being quoted in Russian media as saying that attempts by Nato countries to strike inside Russia will not go “unpunished”.

Local media reports that explosions have been heard in Kherson. This is not uncommon, as the Dnipro river, on which the city lies to the north, marks a frontline between Ukrainian forces and Russian forces, who occupy the southern portion of the Kherson region.

The chief of staff in Belarus, Pavel Muraveiko, has described US moves to allow Ukraine to deploy longer-range missiles and anti-personnel mines as “irresponsible”, Reuters reports.