Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russian Navy officer ‘killed after bomb hidden in rubbish bin’ explodes in Crimea

Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga was damaged in a drone attack, the Leningrad region’s governor said, without immediately providing details on the extent of the damage or any casualties.

Two people were killed in Russia’s drone attack on a passenger train in Odesa region, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday.

“Today in the Odesa region, the Russians once again destroyed an ordinary passenger train locomotive with a jet-powered drone. There were 340 people on the train,” he said.

“Whoever was operating that drone certainly could not have been unaware that the target was entirely civilian,” he added.

The two dead were the train’s engineer and assistant engineer, according to officials.

Fighter jets on a Nato air defence mission shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace early on Friday, Latvia’s armed forces said on X.

The armed forces later lifted an air threat alert in regions near Russia.

Finland, another Nato and EU member that shares a border with Russia, also temporarily restricted aviation and maritime traffic in parts of the eastern Gulf of Finland as a precaution against possible drones, its defence forces said on X.

Latvia’s armed forces did not immediately provide details about the drone or where it came from.

Countries bordering Russia and Ukraine periodically issue air threat alerts and intercept drones as Moscow and Kyiv continue to exchange attacks more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine’s military struck an oil refinery and petrochemical complex in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, causing a fire, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Thursday.

We earlier reported that Russian authorities said Ukraine had attacked an industrial area in Russia’s Bashkortostan region.

It said on the Telegram app that the complex was located about 1,300 km (808 miles) from the Ukrainian border and was involved in supplying fuel to the Russian troops.

Wildberries, the online retailer that Kyiv has been targeted in a drone campaign which aims at “bringing the war home” to ordinary Russians, also confirmed that one if its facilities in the region was set on fire by the attack.

Ukrainian forces launched a massive overnight attack on Russia’s Novorossiysk naval base using drones, missiles, and unmanned boats, president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed.

Here’s all you need to know in just five bullet points with The Independent’s Bulletin.

Ukraine needs five per cent of US Patriot interceptor stocks to get through the winter and 10 per cent to destroy all Russian ballistic missiles, Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN.

He said Ukraine had “two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025”, while Russia was firing twice as many ballistic missiles each month.

Zelensky said he was asking the US to sell Ukraine 5 per cent of its interceptor stocks.

Zelensky said Ukraine was currently receiving only “1 per cent” of what the US makes.

“From 1 per cent to 5 per cent… I have some months and millions [of] phone calls and anything else. I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s out of the law. But I can’t speak about it

Nobel laureate and former chief editor of newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, said that Russia cannot claim victory in Ukraine because the war has devastated both countries, and that Ukraine may be destroyed but cannot be conquered.

He told the BBC: “There will never be ‘victory’. Because what has been going on for nearly five years – no matter how it ends – can no longer be considered a victory.

“It cannot be a victory when two Slavic nations have ripped a million people to shreds. Or more than a million.”

He said: “It seems to me that the situation with Ukraine now is this: you can destroy it, but you cannot conquer it. What do I mean by destroy? Continued escalation all the way to the use of a nuclear weapon.”

He continued: “All those political experts who say ‘Putin thinks this’ or ‘Putin is scared of that’…they’re all charlatans.

“It’s in the same league as astrology. Nobody knows what’s going on in Vladimir Putin’s head. And I don’t know.

“I see things only as a journalist. I study big data. And since the beginning of the year, the need to use nuclear weapons has been mentioned more than 500 times. When wackos say this, I pay no attention. But I’ve heard it discussed on state TV. And at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a state-run event, one of the speakers talked up the use of nuclear weapons as something favourable, something good.”

An air attack caused a ⁠fire at an industrial area in ⁠Russia’s ​Bashkortostan ⁠region where online retailer ⁠Wildberries has ​a ⁠facility, the ‌company said on Thursday.

No goods ‌were stored ‌at the premises, ⁠the company said.

Wildberries warehouses have been targeted in a series of attacks ‌by Ukrainian ​drones ‌since ⁠July 18.

An oil refinery in the Russian city of Orsk that was hit by a Ukrainian drone strike two days ago has been forced to shut down completely, ⁠and repairs could take up to six months, the regional governor said on Thursday.

“Shrapnel damaged key infrastructure that cannot currently be repaired. The equipment is imported, and ⁠due to sanctions, repairs could take ​up ⁠to six months. The plant has completely shut down,” Yevgeny Solntsev, governor of the surrounding Orenburg region, ⁠posted on social media.

“We are preparing for a worst-case ​scenario ⁠and will have to rely ‌on fuel supplies brought in from outside the region.”

Two attacks over the last week have targeted military assets in Gelendzhik, around 12 miles from the Russian leader’s holiday home.

On Sunday, a further strike was launched on an S-400 anti-aircraft missile system and launch pad just 500m away from the previous attack.