Air raid sirens sounded in the area of Mykolayiv, which borders the vital export port of Odessa, before the explosions. Senkevich wrote on Telegram: Strong explosions occur in the city! Stay in shelters! It was not immediately known what caused the explosions, which came a day after Russian missile strikes killed at least 21 people, including two children, in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, according to local authorities. Another eight people were confirmed dead after a Russian missile struck a residential building in the city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday, local officials said. Mayor Senkevich previously said eight missiles hit the city, adding that the residential building appeared to have been hit by a Russian X-55 cruise missile. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied yesterday that Russia was hitting political targets.
Summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. It’s nearing 10am in Kyiv and here’s a rundown of recent developments.
Powerful explosions rocked the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv early Saturday, the mayor said. Air raid sirens sounded in the area of Mykolayiv, which borders the vital export port of Odessa, before the explosions. “There are powerful explosions in the city! Stay in shelters!’ Oleksandr Senkevich, the mayor, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. It was not immediately known what caused the explosions. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company Energoatom has restored its link between the International Atomic Energy Agency and monitoring systems at the nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. The connections had been cut as a result of the Russian occupation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced Russia’s attack on Friday in the southern resort of Serhiivka as “conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terrorism and not some kind of mistake”. The strike in the city near Odessa, which killed at least 21 people, came shortly after Russian troops withdrew from the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island. Ukraine’s military has accused Russia of carrying out strikes using incendiary phosphorus munitions on Snake Island, a day after Moscow withdrew its forces. “Today at around 18:00… SU-30 planes of the Russian Air Force carried out two phosphorus bomb strikes on the island of Zmiini,” it said in a statement on Friday, using another name for the snake island. Ukraine’s reconstruction plans should address the restoration of war-torn ecosystems, the European Union’s environment commissioner said. Virginijus Sinkevicius warned that the environmental costs of the conflict were “growing every day” and said it could take “generations” to overcome. Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Latin American leaders on Friday in an attempt to get support from their countries. “I continue to establish relations with an important region, Latin America,” Zelensky wrote on social media about his talks with the leaders of Argentina and Chile. A new Reuters investigation has found that at least 14 Russian arms companies have not faced Western sanctions. “Nearly three dozen leaders of Russian arms companies and at least 14 defense companies have not been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom,” the Reuters report said.
The US announced on Friday that it would provide Ukraine with an additional $820 million in military aid. The new aid package will include new surface-to-air missile systems and anti-missile radars to respond to Russia’s long-range strikes. Ukraine’s outspoken ambassador to Germany is under fire for defending Ukrainian nationalist WWII leader Stepan Bandera. An interview with journalist blogger Tilo Jung published Thursday said the ambassador said Bandera was not a “mass murderer of Poles and Jews,” prompting uproar from the Polish government and the Israeli embassy. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, received the title of honorary citizen of Odessa, Kyiv Independent reports. On Friday, Odesa Mayor Henadiy Trukhanov signed a decree awarding Johnson the Hryhoryia Marazly Honorary Badges I, II, III degrees, which automatically confers the title on him.
Updated at 08.13 BST
