The major city of Kryvyi Rih struggled to contain damage to its water system from Russian missile attacks. The largest city in central Ukraine, with an estimated pre-war population of 650,000, was targeted by eight cruise missiles on Wednesday, officials said. The missile strikes hit the Karachunov reservoir dam. “The water pumping station was destroyed. The river broke through the dam and overflowed its banks. Residential buildings are just a few meters away from the river,” Ukrainian legislator Inna Sovsun said.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the Krivyi Rih military administration, said in a post on Telegram that 112 homes were flooded but that works to repair the dam on the Inhulets river were under way, and that “flooding was receding”. He added that water levels had “dropped considerably” and that there were no casualties.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, called the attack on the Kryvyi Rih hydraulic structures “a war crime” and “an act of terror”. “Beaten by Ukrainian army on the battlefield, Russian cowards are now at war with our critical infrastructure and civilians,” Kuleba said. “Russia is a terrorist state and must be recognised as such.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was involved in a traffic accident in Kyiv last night, but he is not seriously hurt, his spokesperson said in a Facebook post early on Thursday. Serhii Nykyforov, who did not say when the accident occurred, said Zelenskiy’s car had collided with a private vehicle. “The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found,” he said, adding the accident would be investigated. Medics accompanying Zelenskiy gave the driver of the private car emergency aid and put him in an ambulance, he said.
In his nightly televised address, video of which was posted shortly after the accident, Zelenskiy said he had just returned from the area around Kharkiv, adding that “almost the entire region is de-occupied” after a lightning counteroffensive to dislodge Russian troops. “It was an unprecedented movement of our soldiers – the Ukrainians once again managed to do what many thought was impossible,” he said. After visiting the liberated city of Izium, Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s troops had recaptured around 8,000 sq km (3,100 square miles) of territory.
Kirill Stremousov, one of the Russian-imposed leaders of the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, has claimed that about 120 Ukrainian soldiers were killed while trying to enter Kherson region in the south of Ukraine via the Kinburn Spit.
Should the US decide to supply Kyiv with longer-range missiles, that would cross a “red line” and the US would then become “a party to the conflict”, Russia’s foreign ministry said Thursday. Ukraine is already using US-made high mobility artillery rocket systems – just not US-made longer-range missiles.
Rail services will resume between Kharkiv and Balakliia in Kharkiv oblast on Thursday. Workers have already repaired bridges and dozens of damaged tracks after Balakliia was liberated on 8 September.
Ukraine has continued to consolidate control of the newly liberated Kharkiv region, the UK Ministry of Defence says in its latest briefing. The update said some Russian forces appeared to have fled the Ukrainian troops’ advance “in apparent panic”, leaving behind key equipment.
Ukraine’s defence ministry found what its officials believe to be a “torture chamber” used by Russian troops to hold Ukrainian prisoners in the city of Balakliia. While some Balakliia residents told the Guardian that they had little interaction with the Russian forces, who mostly stayed on edges of the town, and did not experience the scenes of torture and execution seen elsewhere in the country, Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the Kharkiv region national police investigation department, said that 40 people had been detained during the occupation. One resident told the BBC that he was held by Russians in the city’s police station for more than 40 days and was tortured with electrocution.
Ukraine’s state border guard service rescued five teenagers who had been locked in a basement for seven days by Russian troops in the recently liberated city of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. The teenagers, four girls and a boy aged 15 to 17, are all students of the same educational institute. They said Russian soldiers had locked them in the basement without an explanation. “They are safe now,” the state border guard service said on Telegram.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, has arrived in Samarkand in Uzbekistan, where he is later expected to meet China’s Xi Jinping.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, arrived in Kyiv Thursday morning. She has tweeted that she will be meeting Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. On Wednesday, addressing the European parliament in Strasbourg, Von der Leyen insisted “Putin will fail and Europe will prevail” and said that the EU would stay the course with its sanctions on Russia. “The sanctions are here to stay,” she said. “This is the time for us to show resolve not appeasement.”
Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Thursday that according to Kyiv’s own estimates, Ukraine needs €350bn (£300bn / $350bn) for reconstruction.
The prospects for peace in Ukraine are currently “minimal”, the UN secretary general said on Wednesday after a phone conversation with Putin. “I have the feeling we are still far away from peace. I would be lying if I would say it could happen soon,” Guterres said, adding: “I have no illusion; at the present moment the chances of a peace deal are minimal.” Even a ceasefire was “not in sight”, he said.
Kremlin sources “are now working to clear Putin of any responsibly of the defeat, instead blaming the loss of almost all of occupied Kharkiv oblast on under-informed military advisers”, according to the US-based think-tank Institute of the Study of War. In a statement reported by CNBC, the institute said that “Kremlin officials and state media propagandists are extensively discussing the reasons for the Russian defeat in Kharkiv oblast, a marked change from their previous pattern of reporting on exaggerated or fabricated Russian successes with limited detail”.
Putin still believes he was right to launch an invasion of Ukraine, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Wednesday after a 90-minute telephone call with the Russian president. “Sadly, I cannot tell you that the impression has grown that it was a mistake to begin this war,” Scholz said in a press briefing.
Germany has delivered four more Gepard anti-aircraft guns and 65 refrigerators to Ukraine, the German government announced on Wednesday. The four additional units bring the total number of Gepard units provided by Germany to Ukraine to 24.
