EA team from the Swedish television station TV4 said it was attacked by a Russian drone in the frontline area in southeastern Ukraine. Reporter Johan Fredriksson and photographer Daniel Zdolsek were uninjured in the incident on Tuesday, the station reported. However, their local producer and two Ukrainian police officers who escorted the journalists were slightly injured. Her car and camera equipment were completely destroyed.
The current situation in Ukraine
Source: Infographic WELT
“This time we were lucky. The Russian missile dropped by a drone that we heard hit our car right in the trunk. Luckily there was no one in the car,” said Fredriksson. “This is what it currently looks like for millions of people in Ukraine: constant danger to their lives.”
A Ukrainian soldier on the front line in southern Ukraine
Source: picture alliance/AA/Andre Alves
The broadcaster’s information about the exact nature of the attack could not initially be independently verified. According to the station, the two war-experienced journalists are currently on a reporting trip in the Zaporizhia region. They were therefore on their way to film the Ukrainian counteroffensive when the attack was carried out. The site of the attack is a few kilometers from the front and on the edge of the reservoir, which has dried up after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
All developments in the live ticker:
1:02 p.m. – Putin receives China’s Foreign Minister in St. Petersburg
Vladimir Putin will meet China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for talks in St. Petersburg today. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow, Putin will “receive the Chinese Foreign Minister.” Wang is on a four-day visit to Russia and had already met his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov on Monday.
The Kremlin wants to strengthen its relations with China, not least as a result of its Ukraine offensive. Beijing has not yet condemned Russian actions in Ukraine. Russia is increasingly isolated internationally because of Ukraine.
12:44 p.m. – Peace groups demand asylum for Russian conscientious objectors
Peace groups are calling for better protection and asylum for Russian conscientious objectors and deserters. According to a study by the independent analysis network “RE: Russia”, at least 250,000 men subject to military service have left the country since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, said the Evangelical Working Group for Conscientious Objection and Peace and the Association Connection. The majority went to Kazakhstan, Armenia, Serbia or Turkey.
11:53 a.m. – Kiesewetter: “We have to understand that we are a war target”
Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU), criticizes the lack of implementation of the goals formulated in the so-called “turnaround speech” by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The turning point speech was historic, but it is now history,” said Kiesewetter in an interview with “Phoenix”. Germany is neither meeting the two percent target nor is the defense minister receiving the necessary financial resources. Support for Ukraine also remains “significantly below the capabilities of this country”. He criticizes the fact that the Federal Republic, as the fourth strongest economic power in the world, only delivers 18 battle tanks, “it’s too little of everything.” You have to prepare your own population to do more. “We have to understand that we are a war target,” said the Christian Democrat.
10:50 a.m. – Fighter jet crashed on training flight over western Russia
According to official reports, a Su-34 fighter jet crashed during a training flight in the western Russian region of Voronezh. “The two-person crew of the aircraft catapulted out and were taken to the home airport,” the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, according to the Interfax news agency. Both pilots are therefore fine. The plane crashed far from a town and had no ammunition on board.
“The cause of the crash could be a technical failure,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. No further details were known. The Su-34 is considered a modern fighter-bomber that was developed during Soviet times but only went into series production in 2006. According to official information, around 150 units were produced in total. In the course of the war of aggression against Ukraine, weapons analysts from the Oryx investigative group are said to have destroyed or crashed at least 20 aircraft of this type.
9:36 a.m. – Russia conducts target practice in the Baltic Sea
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russia has carried out firing maneuvers at training targets in the Baltic Sea. The crew of a warship conducted a series of planned exercises in which they fired at surface and air targets in a “difficult jamming environment” while using electronic countermeasures of a possible enemy, the ministry said.
A Russian Karakut-class corvette in the Gulf of Finland on July 30, 2023
Source: picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alexander Kazakov/Kremlin Pool
“The Baltic Fleet sea area where the exercise took place has been temporarily declared dangerous for civil shipping and aviation,” the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging platform. It is not known when the exercises took place. The Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet has its headquarters in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea between the NATO states Poland and Lithuania.
8:25 a.m. – London sees tactical Ukrainian advances at Bakhmut
According to British information, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is making progress near the city of Bakhmut in the east of the country. The recapture of the villages of Klishchyivka and Andriivka south of the city brings Ukrainian troops closer to one of the Russian occupiers’ main supply routes, the T 05-13 road, the British Ministry of Defense said.
In addition, the Russian defense of Bakhmut was weakened after Russian airborne troops were relocated to the front in Zaporizhia, southern Ukraine. “However, Russia continues to hold the railway line, which runs along an embankment between Klishchyivka and the T 05-13 and represents an easily defensible obstacle,” it said in London.
7:41 a.m. – Refinery fire after Russian drone attack
In the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, a fire broke out on the site of the Kremenchuk oil refinery after a Russian drone attack, according to Governor Dmytro Lunin. Operations have been temporarily suspended. Information about possible victims was not available.
6:22 a.m. – Mayor warns of risk of accident at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The mayor of the Ukrainian power plant town of Enerhodar, which is occupied by Russian soldiers, warns of a growing risk of nuclear accidents at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant near the front. “The fears are growing every day because there are several dangerous factors,” said Dmytro Orlov of the German Press Agency. He carries out his function as head of a civil-military administration in the eponymous city of Zaporizhia in the south of Ukraine and left Enerhodar – the plant’s factory settlement – after it was occupied by Russian soldiers.
Dmytro Orlov sees a great risk of accidents at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
Source: Oliver Weiken/dpa
The danger of a technical catastrophe is great, said Orlov. “The power station now has to be supplied from outside and since September alone there have been six incidents in which the power supply was interrupted. There has not been a single such incident in the previous 40 years,” he warned.
05:39 a.m. – Russia reports fire in Sochi
According to the Russian news agency RIA, a fire broke out near the airport and not far from an oil storage facility in the Black Sea city of Sochi. The cause of the fire is unclear. The Russian news channel “Marsh” publishes a video on Telegram that shows a large column of smoke over the city. Explosions were heard before the fire broke out.
The fire was extinguished in the morning, said Mayor Alexei Kopaigorodski. There were no victims.
3:35 a.m. – Scholz warns against bogus solutions in a UN speech
At the United Nations, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) warned against false solutions in the search for peace in Ukraine. “Peace without freedom means oppression,” said Scholz at the UN general debate in New York. “Peace without justice is called diktat. Moscow must finally understand this too.”
Olaf Scholz during his speech at the United Nations
Source: Getty Images via AFP/MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO
Scholz said Ukrainians would fight to uphold the very principles “to which we all committed ourselves in the UN Charter.” The Russian war of aggression is not only causing great suffering to Ukraine, Scholz added. “Citizens worldwide are suffering from inflation, growing debt, fertilizer shortages, hunger and increasing poverty.”
“Because this war has unbearable consequences around the globe, it is good and right that the world also takes part in the search for peace,” Scholz continued. “And at the same time, we must beware of pseudo-solutions that only have ‘peace’ in their name.” Russia is responsible for this war. “And it is Russia’s president (Vladimir Putin) who can end it at any time with a single order.”
12:01 a.m. – Zelensky and Scholz speak to the UN Security Council
The UN Security Council in New York will discuss the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in an open session on Wednesday from 11 a.m. local time (5 p.m. CEST). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak at the meeting. The UN Security Council, the most powerful body in the United Nations, is blocked in the Ukraine war because Russia, as one of the five permanent members, has a veto right.