Summary
That concludes today’s updates on the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Here’s what happened today:
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said that the Moscow concert hall attack is “part of Kyiv regime’s attacks on Russia”. In remarks made Monday, Putin called the attack an “act of intimidation” and said that Russian officials are “interested in who benefits from it”.
Three more people were detained as a “preventive measure” in connection with the Moscow concert hall attack. The three men were detained after being accused of committing crimes under Russia’s Terrorist Act.
Some of the gunmen accused of carrying out the attack were briefly in Turkey to renew their Russian residence permits, Reuters reported, citing a Turkish security official. The Turkish official added that the men were not radicalized in Turkey.
The White House dismissed Russia’s claims that the attack is linked to Ukraine, calling the assertion “Kremlin propaganda”. On Monday, White House spokesperson John Kirby addressed the accusation, saying: “There was no linkage to Ukraine ... This is just more Kremlin propaganda.”
The cost of repairing the damage caused by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week will probably run into the “billions”, the country’s energy minister said. In terms of the cost of repairs, “the real figures will be after assessment of the damage but I think it is in the region of billions, for sure,” German Gerashchenko told reporters.
Thank you for following today’s latest news.
Updated
The Moscow concert hall attack poses new questions for Russia’s intelligence agencies, Reuters reports.
More from Reuters:
Russia’s security state has been ruthlessly effective at detaining Vladimir Putin’s opponents but was caught off guard by a mass shooting near Moscow, raising questions about its priorities, resources and intelligence gathering.
Charged with hunting down Ukrainian saboteurs inside Russia, with keeping anti-Kremlin activists in check, and with disrupting the operations of hostile foreign intelligence agencies, the FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, has its hands full.
That, say former US intelligence officials and Western security analysts, helps explain why it may have overlooked other threats, including that posed by Islamist militants, such as ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
“You can’t do everything,” Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA operations officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief, told Reuters.
“It’s possible they’re overextended dealing with the war in Ukraine and dealing with political opposition. This one slipped through the cracks.”
The FSB has said Friday’s concert hall attack was “painstakingly” planned and that the gunmen had carefully hidden their weapons.Putin on Monday said that radical Islamists were the ones who had carried out the attack, but said that Russia still wanted to understand who had ordered it and said there were many questions for Ukraine to answer. Ukraine denies any involvement.
The full article is available here.
Updated
Putin added that the Moscow concert hall attack fits into a larger trend of intimidation from Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Here are more of Putin’s remarks:
This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime …
[Those who planned the attack] hoped to sow panic and discord in our society, but they met unity and determination to resist this evil.
Updated
Putin says concert hall attack 'part of Kyiv regime's attacks Russia'
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said that the Moscow concert hall attack is “part of Kyiv regime’s attacks on Russia”, Reuters reported.
In remarks made on Monday, Putin conceded that the attacks were committed by Islamic State, but added that officials do not know “who ordered it”.
“We’re interested in who benefits from it,” Putin said, adding that the attack is an “act of intimidation”.
Updated
The gunmen accused of carrying out the Moscow concert hall attack were briefly in Turkey to renew their Russian residence permits, Reuters reported, citing a Turkish security official.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said that two of the accused attackers had traveled to Turkey briefly, but had been living in Moscow for a long period of time.
The men left on 2 March, more than two weeks before the 22 March shooting.
There were no arrest warrants for the men at that time, allowing them to travel between Russia and Turkey freely.
The unnamed official also told Reuters that the radicalization of the accused gunmen did not happen in Turkey.
Three more people detained as 'preventive measure'
Three more people have been detained as a “preventive measure” in connection with the Moscow concert hall attack.
Isroil Ibragimovich Islomov, Dilovar Isroilovich Islomov, and Aminchon Isroilovich Islomov were all detained after being accused of committing crimes under Russia’s Terrorist Act, according to a post on Telegram from the courts of general jurisdiction of the city of Moscow.
The three men will be detained until until 22 May 2024.
Updated
The White House has dismissed Russia’s claims that the Moscow concert hall attack is linked to Ukraine, calling the assertion “Kremlin propaganda”.
On Monday, White House spokesperson John Kirby addressed the accusation from Russian officials that the attack is connected to Ukraine, Reuters reported.
“There was no linkage to Ukraine ... This is just more Kremlin propaganda,” Kirby said to reporters during the briefing.
Updated
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is expected to meet with members of his security council later today to discuss Russia’s reaction to the Moscow concert hall shooting in which at least 137 people were killed.
The Kremlin has so far declined to comment on growing evidence that the Afghan branch of Islamic State (IS), known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), masterminded the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall on Friday.
Putin has claimed without evidence that Ukraine had aided the attackers and had planned to “open a window” for the gunmen to escape. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack. We will bring you the latest on the security council meeting as we get more information on it.
Summary of the day so far...
There were reports of several explosions rocking the centre of Kyiv this morning, with Ukraine’s air force saying it had shot down two ballistic missiles targeting the Ukrainian capital. “Again this morning Russia is attacking Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. Loud explosions in Kyiv,” the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, wrote in a post on X. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reiterated calls asking international allies to supply more air defences to Ukraine in the wake of the attack.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, called into question assertions by the US that IS was behind Friday’s Crocus City concert hall attack in Moscow, in which at least 137 people were killed. “Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s Isis? Might you think again about that?” Zakharova said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said the investigation is still ongoing into the Moscow concert hall shooting but vowed that “the perpetrators will be punished” and that “they do not deserve mercy”.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said all signs indicated that the attack was carried out by Islamic State, adding that it would be “cynical and counterproductive” for Russia to try to blame Kyiv. Macron said the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack had also tried to commit attacks in France. The country’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, meanwhile, said that France would increase the numbers of soldiers for its Operation Sentinelle unit, which deals with handling terrorist threats. Attal said an extra 4,000 members of the military would be put on standby for the Sentinelle division.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and prime minister, discussed the suspects charged over the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall on his Telegram channel. “Everyone asks me. What to do? They were caught. Well done to everyone who caught it,” he wrote. “Should they be killed? Necessary. And it will be. But it is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all.” The Kremlin said on Monday that it would not participate in conversations about lifting the moratorium on the death penalty.
Poland’s foreign ministry said on Monday that the Russian ambassador in Warsaw failed to show for a summons issued after a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace over the weekend. Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, told state-run RIA Novosti that he did not visit the foreign ministry since, he said, the Polish side did not provide evidence of any airspace violation.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Russia had launched 190 missiles, 140 drones and 700 aerial bombs against Ukraine over the last week.
One of the Russian landing ships hit during a recent missile strike on occupied Crimea was “critically damaged”, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) said. The Ukrainian military claimed on Sunday it had hit two large Russian landing ships as well as other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula. In a post on Telegram on Monday, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said the “Yamal” suffered a “hole in the upper deck that caused it to roll to the starboard side”.
Key event
The cost of repairing the damage caused by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week will probably run into the “billions”, the country’s energy minister has been quoted as saying.
In terms of the cost of repairs, “the real figures will be after assessment of the damage but I think it is in the region of billions, for sure”, German Gerashchenko told reporters.
More than a million Ukrainians have been left without power on Friday after Russia launched one of its largest missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure to date.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 88 missiles and 63 Iranian-made Shahed drones. Of them, 37 and 55 respectively were shot down, but others hit the country’s largest dam and caused blackouts in several regions.
You can read more about the major assault on Ukraine’s energy system here:
The attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people has raised fresh security fears for the Paris Olympics, which begin on 26 July.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said that the Paris Olympics were an obvious future target.
“France, because we defend universal values, and are for secularism … is particularly threatened, notably during extraordinary events such as the Olympics,” he told reporters.
“The French police, gendarmes, prefects, intelligence services, will be ready,” he added, saying that “we have a very effective intelligence system. We stop plots developing almost every month.”
The heads of intelligence services would hold a meeting on Thursday “to discuss all the conclusions of the attack on Moscow,” he added.
France to mobilise more soldiers for anti-terrorism unit in wake of Moscow concert hall shooting
France will increase the numbers of soldiers for its Operation Sentinelle unit, which deals with handling terrorist threats, the country’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said.
Attal said an extra 4,000 members of the military would be put on standby for the Sentinelle division, on top of the 3,000 military staff already on deployment for Sentinelle, which guards sites such as railway stations, places of worship, schools and theatres across the country.
On Sunday, the French government raised its terror alert warning to its highest level after the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall in Moscow that left at least 137 people dead.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned Russia against blaming Kyiv for the massacre, saying that such a move would be “cynical” and “counterproductive” (see earlier post at 11.05 for more details).
Russian diplomat fails to attend foreign ministry in Warsaw despite being summoned
The Russian ambassador did not attend the foreign ministry in Warsaw despite being summoned to do so, a Polish spokesperson said on Monday, after a Russian missile flew into Poland’s airspace.
Russia violated Poland’s airspace early on Sunday with a cruise missile launched at targets in western Ukraine, Poland’s armed forces said.
“The ambassador of the Russian Federation … did not attend the foreign ministry today to explain the incident concerning the Russian cruise missile that violated Polish airspace on 24 March,” foreign ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski told reporters.
Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, told state-run RIA Novosti that he did not visit the foreign ministry since the Polish side did not provide evidence of any airspace violation.
This is not the first such reported violation of Polish territory.
According to the general staff of the Polish armed forces, a Russian missile entered the airspace of the Nato member at the end of December.
In April 2023, a military object was found in a forest close to the village of Zamość near the northern city of Bydgoszcz. It was later reported to be a Russian missile.
In November 2022, a stray Ukrainian missile struck the Polish village of Przewodów in the south, killing two people and raising fears at the time of the war in Ukraine spilling over the border.
Updated
Russia launches 700 bombs against Ukraine over last week - foreign ministry
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Russia had launched 190 missiles, 140 drones and 700 aerial bombs against Ukraine over the last week.
“Our sky defenders shoot down practically all targets, but even the most agile need support to defend our people from Russia’s terror,” the ministry said in a post on X.
❗️ Over just one week, Russia launched 190 missiles of various types, 140 drones & 700 aerial bombs against #Ukraine.
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) March 25, 2024
Our sky defenders shoot down practically all targets, but even the most agile need support to defend our people from Russia's terror.#ArmUkraineNow pic.twitter.com/jWnwMRiGfX
Both Russia and Ukraine have increased the tempo of their air attacks in recent weeks as Kyiv, which has struggled to find weapons and soldiers after more than two years of war, has promised to retaliate by taking the fighting to Russian soil.
Updated
Russian PM: those behind concert hall shooting 'don't deserve mercy'
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said the investigation is still ongoing into the Moscow concert hall shooting but vowed that “the perpetrators will be punished” and that “they do not deserve mercy”.
The attack on Friday night on Crocus City Hall on the western outskirts of Moscow left 137 people dead and over 180 injured, proving to be the deadliest in Russia in years. A total of 97 people remain hospitalised, officials said.
The suspects, identified as Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Dalerdzhon Barotovich Mirzoyev, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, face charges of a “terror attack committed by a group of individuals resulting in a person’s death”, according to the Tass news agency. All four reportedly pleaded guilty.
Updated
Russia’s ambassador to Poland did not go to the foreign ministry despite being summoned on Monday, a spokesperson for the ministry said, Reuters reported.
The ambassador was called in after a Russian missile entered Poland’s airspace on Sunday.
Updated
The US embassy in Budapest has published a video taking aim at Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó’s latest trip to Russia, pointing out that other countries in the region have reduced their dependency on Russian energy, while Hungary’s leadership has chosen not to do so.
Szijjártó Péter külügyminiszter Oroszországban tartózkodik egy energetikai konferencián. Ez már a hetedik oroszországi útja azóta, hogy Putyin lerohanta Ukrajnát. pic.twitter.com/3ApKy84aI9
— U.S. Embassy Budapest (@usembbudapest) March 25, 2024
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has said that in the space of a week, “Russia launched 190 missiles of various types, 140 drones & 700 aerial bombs against Ukraine.”
❗️ Over just one week, Russia launched 190 missiles of various types, 140 drones & 700 aerial bombs against #Ukraine.
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) March 25, 2024
Our sky defenders shoot down practically all targets, but even the most agile need support to defend our people from Russia's terror.#ArmUkraineNow pic.twitter.com/jWnwMRiGfX
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, has underscored that Europe needs a “leap forward” on defence.
“Four years ago, when we were facing the COVID-19 pandemic, many said that the EU was living a Hamiltonian moment because we decided to issue a common debt to alleviate the consequences of this crisis as Alexander Hamilton did after the US independence war,” Borrell wrote on his blog.
“We are now probably entering a Demosthenes moment, in reference to the great Greek politician mobilising its fellow Athenian citizens against Macedonian imperialism 2400 years ago: we are finally becoming aware of the many security challenges in our dangerous environment,” he said.
Borrell added: “A lot has already been done in recent years, however I am very much aware that a lot more remains to be done to match the magnitude of the threats we are facing. We need a leap forward in European defence and European defence industry.”
The death toll from Russia’s 12 March missile attack on Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region has risen to six, after a 59-year-old man died in hospital of his injuries, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s military administration, has reported.
“Doctors fought for his life all these days, operated, did everything possible, but numerous injuries were not compatible with life,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Eternal memory … Condolences to family and friends. Today, 7 more people are in hospitals, injured after that shelling – three of them are in serious condition. Doctors are fighting for their lives, all necessary help is provided.”
“As for the situation in Kryvyi Rih as a whole, all city services, hospitals, and social institutions are working. The emergency shutdown schedules introduced yesterday afternoon by the power company were cancelled at night.”
Updated
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has said seven people, including a teenage girl, were injured in the Russian attack on Kyiv earlier this morning, up from a previous total of five people.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
There were reports of several explosions rocking the centre of Kyiv this morning, with Ukraine’s air force saying it had shot down two ballistic missiles targeting the Ukrainian capital. “Again this morning Russia is attacking Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. Loud explosions in Kyiv,” the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, wrote in a post on X. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reiterated calls to international allies asking them to supply more air defences to Ukraine in the wake of the attack.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, called into question assertions by the US that IS was behind Friday’s Crocus City concert hall attack in Moscow, in which at least 137 people were killed. “Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s Isis? Might you think again about that?” Zakharova said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said all signs indicated that the attack was carried out by Islamic State, adding that it would be “cynical and counterproductive” for Russia to try to blame Kyiv. Macron also said the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack had also tried to commit attacks in France.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and prime minister, discussed the suspects charged over the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall on his Telegram channel. “Everyone asks me. What to do? They were caught. Well done to everyone who caught it,” he wrote. “Should they be killed? Necessary. And it will be. But it is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all.” The Kremlin said on Monday that it would not participate in conversations about lifting the moratorium on the death penalty.
One of the Russian landing ships hit during a recent missile strike on occupied Crimea was “critically damaged”, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) said. The Ukrainian military claimed on Sunday it had hit two large Russian landing ships as well as other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula. In a post on Telegram on Monday, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said the “Yamal” suffered a “hole in the upper deck that caused it to roll to the starboard side”.
Updated
The British Ministry of Defence said in its intelligence update that the two new armies Russia plans to create in 2024 will suffer from “resourcing problems”.
Russian Defence minister Sergei Shoigu announced on 20 March 2024 that Russia will create two new armies and 30 new formations by the end of this year.
They will reportedly be formed of 14 divisions and 16 brigades, however the exact location and composition of these units was not stated.
The MoD predicted a mix of mechanised, armoured, artillery and logistics is most likely.
They said: “It is a realistic possibility that these new formations are linked to previous new unit announcements and planned brigade to division uplifts.”
The MoD said it is unlikely that these new divisions will be understaffed given Russia’s successful recruitment efforts.
However, it added: “Given Russia’s limited training, widespread use of legacy equipment and infrastructure issues, it is likely these units would suffer similar resourcing problems.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 25 March 2024.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 25, 2024
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/LUNXKX1nPb #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/pswgPpECtv
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has expressed his gratitude to the emergency service workers helping in the recovery effort after the Russian attack on Kyiv this morning that left five people injured.
“Russian terrorists launched ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Unfortunately, houses in a typical urban neighbourhood were damaged,” the Ukrainian president said in a post on X.
“As of now, 5 people have been reported injured. The rubble is being cleared. We reiterate that Ukraine requires more air defence systems, which provide safety for our cities and save lives. All of us who respect and protect life must put an end to this terror.”
I am grateful to Ukraine's State Emergency Service rescuers, police, utility workers, and all other services involved in rescue and recovery following Russia's attack on Kyiv this morning.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 25, 2024
Russian terrorists launched ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Unfortunately, houses in a… pic.twitter.com/XFvvR4qQL2
On the frontlines, Zelenskiy, who has stressed his country’s dire need of air defense missiles, warned that Ukrainian troops are rationing artillery shells amid ammunition shortages.
With the government funding fight resolved, the US House of Representatives is expected to soon turn to a long-stalled national security package that would send military assistance to Ukraine, as well as Israel and other US allies.
Despite increasingly desperate pleas from Kyiv, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, had refused to bring the wartime aid bill to the floor until Congress finalized a government funding bill, which it did on Friday – before leaving Washington for a two-week recess.
The bill already passed in the Senate and support for Ukraine is broadly popular in the House, too, but a faction of hard-right lawmakers opposes sending additional aid to the country, and Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has put pressure on Johnson not to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. The Senate aid bill includes about $60bn for Ukraine as it defends itself from the Russian invasion that began nearly two years ago.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Lauren Gambino, here:
The Kremlin said on Monday that no country was immune to terrorism when asked if there had been a major failure by security services in preventing Friday’s deadly attack on a concert hall.
At least 137 people were killed and 182 injured when four men burst into the Crocus City Hall, spraying people with bullets before setting fire to the 6,200-seat hall; it was the worst attack inside Russia for two decades.
President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday that all those responsible would be punished.
Putin said 11 people had been detained, four heading towards Ukraine.
Updated
Macron: evidence points to Islamic State being behind Moscow concert hall attack
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said all signs indicated that an attack on a concert hall near Moscow in which 137 were killed was carried out by Islamic State.
Russia challenged assertions by the US and other countries that the Islamic State militant group orchestrated the gun attack, accusing Washington of covering for Ukraine.
“This attack was claimed by Islamic State and the information available to us, to our (intelligence) services as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State which instigated this attack,” Macron said.
“I think that it would be both cynical and counterproductive for Russia itself and the security of its citizens to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine.”
Macron said the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack had also tried to commit attacks in France.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has not publicly mentioned the Islamist militant group in connection with the attackers, who he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.
Updated
Kremlin says its not joining death penalty debate after concert hall attack
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and prime minister, discussed the suspects charged over the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall on his Telegram channel on Monday.
“Everyone asks me. What to do? They were caught. Well done to everyone who caught it,” he wrote.
“Should they be killed? Necessary. And it will be. But it is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all.”
“Now many people are asking questions about the death penalty. This topic, of course, will be deeply, professionally, meaningfully studied,” Vladimir Vasilyev, parliamentary leader of the United Russia faction in the lower house of parliament, was quoted by the state news agency Tass as saying on Saturday.
The Kremlin said on Monday that it would not participate in conversations about lifting the moratorium on the death penalty.
“We are not taking part in this discussion at the moment,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a daily briefing.
Capital punishment is legal in Russia but no executions have been carried out since 1996, when former president, Boris Yeltsin, issued a decree establishing a de-facto moratorium, which was explicitly confirmed by the Constitutional Court in 1999.
Updated
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has said five people were injured in Monday’s Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital, with two of them in hospital.
He said emergency service workers are continuing to shift through the rubble of the destroyed three-story building and described damage done to windows on neighbouring residential properties.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has called on international allies to supply more air defences to his country after a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Monday morning.
“This is a reminder that Ukraine urgently requires more air defense, particularly Patriot systems and missiles capable of repelling any Russian attack,” he said.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has said it was inappropriate to comment on the investigation into last Friday’s shooting at the Crocus City Hall concert centre near Moscow, in which at least 137 people were killed.
The Kremlin also left unanswered a question about the treatment of four detained suspects, pictures of whom were circulated showing injuries that appeared to suggest they had been beaten or otherwise physically abused.
Four suspects, identified as Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Dalerdzhon Barotovich Mirzoyev, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, were charged last night and reportedly pleaded guilty.
They were officially identified as citizens of Tajikistan, where Islamic State has recruited heavily. But despite strong evidence supporting Islamic State’s claim of responsibility, Russian state media is airing unevidenced claims that Ukraine played a part – with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hinting at the same thing.
Updated
A three-storey building in central Kyiv was badly damaged in a Russian missile attack on Monday morning, officials have said.
“In the (central) Pechersk district, a multi-story non-residential building was damaged,” the city’s military administration wrote on Telegram.
It had described the building as residential in an earlier statement. Two people were hurt, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said.
Here are some more images coming from Kyiv, where people have been urged to take shelter after a series of explosions:
Kyiv is rocked by explosions as Russia attacks Ukraine with 'hypersonic missiles'
AFP journalists have reported hearing several explosions in the centre of Kyiv, as Ukraine’s air force said it shot down two ballistic missiles targeting the Ukrainian capital and the US Ambassador to Ukraine said Russia was attacking Ukraine with “hypersonic missiles”.
The missiles were launched from the occupied Crimea peninsula and were downed at about 10.30am local time, air force commander Lt General Mykola Oleschuk said.
“Explosions in Kyiv. Go to shelters immediately,” Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on social media, adding in a later post that emergency services had been dispatched to three districts of the capital.
“Again this morning Russia is attacking Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. Loud explosions in Kyiv,” the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, wrote in a post on X.
“Over the last 5 days, Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones against a sovereign country. Ukraine needs our assistance now. There is not a moment to lose.”
The head of Kyiv’s military administration said a Russian missile had damaged a residential building in the Pechersky district and details were being confirmed.
Russia has escalated air attacks on Kyiv in recent days, targeting key infrastructure in the wake of fatal Ukrainian bombardments on Russian border regions.
Updated
Russian landing ship 'critically damaged' by Ukrainian missile strike - military intelligence
One of the Russian landing ships hit during a recent missile strike on occupied Crimea was “critically damaged”, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) has said.
The Ukrainian military claimed on Sunday it had hit two large Russian landing ships as well as other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula.
“The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said in a statement.
In a post on Telegram on Monday, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said the “Yamal” suffered a “hole in the upper deck that caused it to roll to the starboard side”.
Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said that the EU has delivered €31bn in military equipment to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
In a blog post, he said the bloc would have trained 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers by this summer and donated more than 1 million artillery shells to Kyiv by the end of the year.
While saying the assistance has provided vital support for Ukrainians fighting on the frontline, Borrell acknowledged that more needs to be done to increase capacity and production.
Ukraine – which has said it is falling short of ammunition against Russia – has come under increasing pressure on the frontline in the two-year war as the US Congress refuses to give the green light to a $60bn (£47bn) military aid package.
Updated
Kremlin questions Islamic State responsibility for concert hall attack
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Russia has cast doubt on assertions by the US that the Islamic State militant group was responsible for the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall outside Moscow which killed at least 137 people and injured 182 others.
On Sunday, Islamic State released new footage of Friday’s deadly attack, corroborating the terror group’s claim to have masterminded the massacre, even as Russia sought to place the blame on Ukraine, which Kyiv denies.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has now called into question US assertions that Islamic State, which once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, was behind the attack.
“Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s Isis? Might you think again about that?” Zakharova said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Zakharova added that the US, which has said it received intelligence that the terror group acted alone, was spreading a version of the “bogeyman” of Islamic State to cover its “wards” in Kyiv.
Here are some of the other main developments to catch up on:
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces destroyed 11 Ukraine-launched drones over the south-western Russian Rostov region.
Emergency power outages were introduced in Ukraine’s port of Odesa on Monday after a Russian air attack damaged one of the high-voltage facilities there, accrording to Ukraine’s top energy provider, DTEK.
“The situation remains difficult,” DTEK wrote on Telegram. “In order to reduce the load on the network, electric transport will not operate in the city today, and industrial consumption is also limited.” The administration of Odesa said the city and the region were attacked by several waves of drones launched by Russia, with four of the air weapons shot down over the Odesa and neighbouring Mykolaiv regions.Russia will not stop if it wins the war in Ukraine, Jane Hartley, the US ambassador to the UK, told Sky News. She told Sky News she is “optimistic” that the US will release more funding for Ukraine, but said “anybody who thinks that Russia may stop after this, I think is wrong”. “I was ambassador [to France and Monaco] in 2014, and I saw what happened in Crimea. I don’t know why anybody would say, ‘oh this is it for Russia’,” Hartley added.
Ukraine hit two Russian military ships stationed at the illegally occupied peninsula of Crimea, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday. The targets were the landing ships Yamal and Azov, a communications centre and other Black Sea fleet infrastructure. “It was the most massive attack in recent times,” said the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev. He said a 65-year-old man was killed and four people injured. Footage shared on social media showed a large blast in the city, sending a fireball and black smoke into the air.
Updated
