Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv and here’s what’s happened so far today:
A fleet of 13 ships carrying more than 280,000 tonnes of grain and agricultural products left ports in Odesa on Sunday, according to Ukraine’s ministry of infrastructure. The ministry said it was the single largest shipment of produce to leave Ukraine since the country brokered an export deal with Russia, the UN and Turkey on 22 July.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has thanked Germany for its solidarity in the face of the Russian invasion and called for more weapons, in a sign of easing tensions between Berlin and Kyiv. He was welcomed by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, with military honours in Berlin.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pushed the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to prepare a fresh package of sanctions, including a ban on issuing visas to Russsian citizens.
Humanitarian aid has been blocked from being delivered to the occupied city of Enerhodar, according to its mayor, Dymtro Orlov. He said that trucks with nappies, food and other essentials had been turned back for the second day in a row.
Russian forces hit multiple residential targets in Mykolaiv overnight, according to its governor, Vitaliy Kim. He said homes were damaged, as well as three hospitals, two education facilities, a hotel and a museum. Pictures of the damage are coming through already.
A video showing Russian multiple-launch rocket systems firing from the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been published by the Insider. The footage, taken overnight on Friday into early Saturday morning, shows the missile launchers close to a power unit.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, is set to visit Germany on Sunday – the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit the country in months. The trip is a sign of eased tensions after a rocky patch between Kyiv and Berlin,
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia is using “poverty and political chaos” to attack the lives of all Europeans. In his evening address late on Saturday, president Zelensky said that by stopping the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Russia wanted to “destroy the normal life of every European.”
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. Troops’ main grievances probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Previously, there had been reports the plant in south-eastern Ukraine had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.
Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch.
The Russian energy company Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.
The European Union expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.
Our political correspondent, Peter Walker, has written about the main challenges facing Liz Truss if she becomes UK prime minister this week.
Here’s what he has to say about her likely position on Ukraine:
As Johnson’s foreign secretary, and the self-styled continuity-Boris candidate, Truss will maintain his steadfast support for Ukraine’s battle against Russian invaders. One of the few near certainties of Truss’s early weeks in office will be images of her in Kyiv alongside Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
But in common with other world leaders, Truss will face difficulties as the war inches forward, with no apparent resolution in sight, especially once the consequences of the energy price crisis, much of it connected to the war, begin to bite.
Truss will doubtless stay committed to Ukraine. But as its repercussions are felt, it seems likely she will face more voices, within the Conservative party and more widely, seeking an alternative plan.
Updated
Thirteen ships carrying grain and other produce leave Odesa port
A fleet of 13 ships carrying more than 280,000 tonnes of grain and agricultural products left ports in Odesa on Sunday, according to Ukraine’s ministry of infrastructure.
The ministry said it was the single largest shipment of produce to leave Ukraine since the country brokered an export deal with Russia, the UN and Turkey on 22 July. The grain initiative was signed to try and avert a global crisis and ensure the safe transport of wheat and other essential products, such as sunflower oil.
The delivery from ports in Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny on Sunday will go to eight countries. So far, 86 ships have left Ukraine to export produce to 19 countries since 1 August, the ministry said.
Updated
Jennifer Rankin has reported on the latest news from Berlin, where Ukraine’s prime minister has been meeting the German chancellor.
Ukraine’s prime minister has thanked Germany for its solidarity in the face of the Russian invasion while calling for more weapons, in a sign of easing tensions between Berlin and Kyiv.
Denys Shmyhal, who was welcomed by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, with military honours in Berlin later on Sunday, is the most senior Ukrainian official to visit the German capital in months, since Kyiv accused the EU’s biggest economy of doing too little.
Starting his Berlin trip, Shmyhal met the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was blocked from visiting Kyiv in April because of his past advocacy of strong German-Russian ties. Steinmeier, a former German foreign minister, who conceded in April that his approach to Moscow had been mistaken, offered to travel to Ukraine’s capital in the early weeks of the war to show solidarity but was told his visit was “not desired in Kyiv”.
In a tweet after the meeting with Steinmeier, Shmyhal said they had discussed the military situation, strengthening sanctions and the need to provide weapons for Ukraine. “Thanked for solidarity with Ukrainians and support,” the tweet said.
“Germany has made huge progress in its support of Ukraine with weapons,” Shmyhal told German media before his trip, according to Agence France-Presse. But the prime minister added that Kyiv needed more from Berlin, including “modern combat tanks” such as the Leopard 2.
Updated
Humanitarian aid has been blocked from being delivered to the occupied city of Enerhodar, according to its mayor, Dymtro Orlov.
Orlov said in a post on Telegram that trucks had been turned back for the second day in a row and that the Russians were doing “everything to block the city from the entire civilised world.”
He said the consignment included nappies, hygiene kits and food for vulnerable families. He also posted an image of pallets that appeared to be stacked with nappies, energy biscuits and Unicef branded boxes.
Orlov said the delivery also included more than 1,000 square metres of protective fabric for windows blasted out during shelling.
He said “the main argument” at the first Russian checkpoint they came to was that “Enerhodar does not need anything, the local residents have everything and even more.”
More evidence is emerging of civilian targets hit overnight by Russian missile strikes, this time in Kharkiv.
Photographs from the Anadolu agency show the aftermath of a strike on a restaurant complex in the north-eastern city.
Only the metal carcass of the building and its furniture remain – along with heaps of burnished cutlery which hint at its past use.
Ukrainian PM arrives in Germany for meeting with political leaders
AFP has the latest on a key meeting between the Ukrainian prime minister and the German president in Berlin today:
Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal brought Kyiv’s plea for more weapons to Germany on Sunday, saying his country needed additional help in its battle against Russia.
Shmyhal is the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit Germany in months, in a sign of eased tensions between Kyiv and Berlin after a rocky patch.
The first stop on his trip was a meeting with president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, where Shmyhal “discussed the military situation, strengthening sanctions and the need to provide weapons for Ukraine,” he said on Twitter.
Shmyhal, who will meet chancellor Olaf Scholz later on Sunday, also thanked Germany “for solidarity with Ukrainians and support”.
Germany will “continue to stand reliably by Ukraine’s side,” Steinmeier reassured Shmyhal, according to the German president’s spokeswoman.
The Ukrainian prime minister’s visit marked a sharp change in tone, after a row erupted in April when Kyiv rebuffed Steinmeier’s offer to travel to Ukraine.
Steinmeier, a former foreign minister from Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, had been shunned over his years-long detente policy towards Moscow - something which he has admitted was a mistake following the outbreak of war.
Updated
Summary
It is 2.20pm in Kyiv and here is a summary of the day so far.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pushed the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to prepare a fresh package of sanctions, including a ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens.
Russian forces have hit multiple residential targets in Mykolaiv overnight, according to its governor, Vitaliy Kim. He said homes were damaged, as well as three hospitals, two education facilities, a hotel and a museum. Pictures of the damage are coming through already.
A video showing Russian multiple-launch rocket systems firing from the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been published by the Insider. The footage, taken overnight on Friday into early Saturday morning, shows the missile launchers close to a power unit.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, is set to visit Germany on Sunday – the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit the country in months. The trip is a sign of eased tensions after a rocky patch between Kyiv and Berlin,
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia is using “poverty and political chaos” to attack the lives of all Europeans. In his evening address late on Saturday, president Zelensky said that by stopping the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Russia wanted to “destroy the normal life of every European.”
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. Troops’ main grievances probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Previously, there had been reports the plant in south-eastern Ukraine had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.
Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch.
The Russian energy company Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.
The European Union expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.
Gazprom’s announcement that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart came after G7 finance ministers said they planned to implement a price cap on Russian oil to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression”.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pushed the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to prepare a fresh package of sanctions.
The Ukrainian president has just tweeted that he spoke on the phone to her and discussed financial aid to his country as well as calling for any sanctions to include a ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens.
Zelenskiy said they also coordinated steps to limit excessive Russian profit from sales of oil and gas.
Had a phone conversation with President of the European Commission @vonderleyen. Discussed the allocation of the next tranche of #EU macro-fin aid ASAP. Emphasized the need to prepare the 8th package of sanctions, including a ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens. (1/2)
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 4, 2022
Zelenskiy says Russia trying to 'destroy normal life of every European'
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia is using “poverty and political chaos” to attack the lives of all Europeans.
In his evening address late on Saturday, president Zelensky said that by stopping the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Russia wanted to “destroy the normal life of every European.”
Russia’s state energy firm Gazprom said on Saturday that the pipeline could be closed indefinitely.
Zelensky said:
Russia is trying to increase the energy pressure on Europe even more – gas pumping through the Nord Stream pipeline has completely stopped. Why do they do this? Russia wants to destroy the normal life of every European – in all countries of our continent. It wants to weaken and intimidate the entire Europe, every state.
Where Russia cannot do it by force of conventional weapons, it does so by force of energy weapons. It is trying to attack with poverty and political chaos where it cannot yet attack with missiles.
And to protect against this, we all in Europe need even more unity, even more coordination, even more help to each other.
This winter, Russia is preparing for a decisive energy attack on all Europeans. And the key answers to this should be two things: first, our unity – unity in protection against the terrorist state, and second – Increasing our own pressure on Russia – this includes increasing sanctions at all levels, and limiting Russia’s oil and gas revenues.
Updated
Images are starting to come in of the damage done by Russian shelling overnight in Mykolaiv, in the south of Ukraine.
Reuters photographer, Umit Bektas, has captured the moment medical staff returned to clear up the wreckage of a primary care centre and family clinic in Mykolaiv this morning.
Russians hit residential areas in Mykolaiv, says governor
Russian forces have hit multiple residential targets in the south central part of Ukraine overnight, according to Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv.
Posting on his Telegram account, he said that Russian shelling had damaged homes, three hospitals, two education facilities, a hotel and a museum in the area.
Kim said the targets included a private house destroyed by a missile in the village of Vysunsk, Bereznehuvate, where one child is reported to have died and three others have shrapnel injuries.
He said the city of Mykolaiv was subjected to “massive rocket fire” overnight from Saturday into this morning, with many municipal buildings damaged and one person reported as injured so far.
Updated
A video showing Russian multiple-launch rocket systems firing from the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been published by the Insider.
The footage, taken overnight on Friday into early Saturday morning, shows the missile launchers close to a power unit.
It appears to confirm that Moscow is using the station for offensive military strikes across the Dnipro river, as has previously been alleged by Ukraine.
An artist who painted a mural of a Russian and Ukrainian soldier embracing in Melbourne, Australia, has said he will remove it after a backlash.
Peter Seaton said the three storey mural was intended as a message of peace but after outcry from Ukrainians, he pledged to paint over it by Monday, according to a report by WA Today
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, had said the work was “utterly offensive to all Ukrainians” and called for its removal.
The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations’ Stefan Romaniw had compared the painting to a rapist hugging a victim.
📸Australian artist Peter Seaton has apologised and promised to remove a mural of #Ukrainian and #Russian soldiers hugging following a backlash from the #Ukrainian community and 🇺🇦 Ambassador to 🇦🇺 @AmbVasyl
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) September 4, 2022
The mural was dubbed morally inappropriate. pic.twitter.com/H70VQy6OLd
Updated
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelensky, has just been speaking on the first episode of Laura Kuenssberg’s new Sunday show.
She said that all Ukrainians are afraid “but you can’t be so scared as to not do anything. You can’t be passive.”
When asked what she would say to British people facing painful choices caused by soaring energy costs, Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I understand the situation is very tough. But let me recall that at the time of the Covid-19 epidemic, and it’s still with us, when there were price hikes, Ukraine was affected as well.
“The prices are going up in Ukraine as well. But in addition our people get killed. So when you start counting pennies on your bank account or in your pocket, we do the same and count our casualties,” she said.
China’s top legislator, Li Zhanshu, will attend the seventh Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this week, the official Xinhua news agency has reported, becoming the most senior Chinese official to visit Russia since the Ukraine war began.
Reuters reported that Li, chairman of the National People’s Congress standing committee, will pay official visits to Russia, Mongolia, Nepal and South Korea from Wednesday to 17 September, according to Xinhua. He would attend the four-day forum – set to begin on Monday – during his stay in Russia, it said on Sunday.
Li, who is ranked No. 3 in the Chinese Communist party, is due to retire from his party position at a party congress next month, but will keep his parliamentary position until March.
China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced a “no limit” strategic partnership in February, weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Ukraine’s armed forces have given their latest official estimate of Russian losses in the war so far.
They say 49,500 Russian troops have lost their lives since February but these figures are not possible to verify.
The Kyiv Independent has made a useful graphic here.
These are the indicative estimates of Russia’s combat losses as of Sept. 4, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/rFg1VkEeJj
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 4, 2022
Ukrainian Evgeniy Maloletka has won the Visa d’Or, one of photojournalism’s most prestigious prizes, for his work during the Russian siege of Mariupol.
Maloletka, 35, was visibly moved as he dedicated his prize to the Ukrainian people at a ceremony in Perpignan in southern France on Saturday, Agence France-Presse reported.
Maloletka works for Associated Press and was among the first journalists to enter Mariupol on 23 February, an hour before the first Russian bombs fell. He was also one of the last to leave, on 15 March, by which time the southern Ukrainian city been almost entirely destroyed by Russian shelling.
Those 20 days he spent there were like one long, unending day, “becoming worse and worse”, he said.
His pictures showed the full horrors of the conflict and the Russian bombardment: children killed during the siege, heavily pregnant women lying among the ruins of bombed-out buildings, hastily improvised common graves.
The other two photographers nominated were Daniel Berehulak, an Australian of Ukrainian origin, and Marcus Yam.
The war in Ukraine has been a dominant theme at the International Festival of Photojournalism, which opened on 27 August.
Updated
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, is set to visit Germany on Sunday – the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit the country in months.
The trip is a sign of eased tensions after a rocky patch between Kyiv and Berlin, Agence France-Presse reports.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has repeatedly vowed Germany’s strong support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia’s invasion. But in the immediate weeks after Russian troops marched on Ukraine, Kyiv criticised German aid as too little and too late.
A visit by Scholz to Kyiv in June and the arrival of weapons from Germany have since led to a change in tone.
Shmygal told German media ahead of his trip, in a transcript published by his press office:
Germany has made huge progress in its support of Ukraine with weapons.
But the prime minister said Kyiv needed more from Berlin, including “modern combat tanks” such as the Leopard 2.
Scholz is to welcome Shmygal with military honours in the Sunday afternoon. Shmygal will to start his day with talks in the morning with the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose offer to travel to Kyiv in April was rebuffed, sparking a row.
Updated
'Morale and discipline issues' hitting Russian troops, says MoD
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
A main grievance from troops probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
At least some “outright corruption” among commanders was probably involved, as well as an “inefficient military bureaucracy”, it said.
The Russian military has consistently failed to provide basic entitlements to troops deployed in Ukraine, including appropriate uniform, arms and rations as well as pay. This has almost certainly contributed to the continued fragile morale of much of the force.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 4 September 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) September 4, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/d8BWWLuqCF
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/N07M1HoaK5
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine, now it its 193rd day. Here are latest developments as it passes 9.30am in Kyiv.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Previously, there had been reports the plant in south-eastern Ukraine had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.
Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch.
The Russian energy company Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.
The European Union expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.
Gazprom’s announcement that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart came after G7 finance ministers said they planned to implement a price cap on Russian oil to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression”.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told Vladimir Putin that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, according to his office.
An eight-year-old child has died after Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv on Sunday morning, according to the head of the regional council, Hanna Zamazeyeva. Two other children were among those injured in Russian shelling in the city of Mykolaiv and Bereznehuvate, she said in an update on Telegram.
Russian troops launched overnight rocket attacks on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
The leader of Chechnya has reportedly said he plans to take an “indefinite and long” break from his post. In a video posted to his Telegram, Ramzan Kadyrov, 45, reportedly said he believed the “time has come” for him to leave.
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has accused the west of playing a “chess game with death” in its support of Ukraine and accused western countries of trying to take advantage of the conflict to push Russia to “a new round of disintegration”.
Ukrainian forces have “likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise” with the ongoing counter-offensive, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, it said Ukraine had done so by taking advantage of “poor logistics, administration and leadership” in Russia’s military.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has said in a BBC interview that while the economic impact of the war in Ukraine is tough on its allies, Britons “count pennies” while Ukrainians “count casualties”.
Russians paid their final respects to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, in a ceremony held in Moscow without much fanfare and with President Vladimir Putin notably absent. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, travelled to Moscow to pay his respects.
