🔴 Live: Russian drone attack hits grain facilities in Ukraine’s Odesa regi

8:49am: Russia says three civilians killed in Ukrainian drone attack in border region

A Ukrainian drone strike Wednesday killed three people in the Russian border region of Belgorod, its governor said.

“Three civilians have been killed,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a social media post. “The Ukrainian forces launched an explosive device through a drone when people were on the street.”

7:15am: Russian drone attack hits grain infrastructure in Odesa region, says governor

A Russian drone attack hit Ukraine’s southern Odesa region on Wednesday, the local governor said, the latest strike on facilities used to export grain since the collapse of a deal allowing safe shipments through the Black Sea.

“There are hits on production and transshipment complexes … Granaries were among the damaged objects,” Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram, adding there were no civilian casualties. 

7:13am: Moscow airports operating normally after drone-related suspension

Moscow’s airports are operating normally after a temporary flight suspension was imposed in the early hours of Wednesday due to an attempted drone attack on the Russian capital, Russia’s state aviation authority said.

4:16am: Russia downs three Ukrainian drones that targeted Moscow region, says defence ministry

A Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow damaged a building in a central business district, authorities said on Wednesday, in the sixth straight night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital region.

Air defences downed one Ukrainian drone in the Mozhaisky district and one in the Khimki district of the Moscow region, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement.

A third drone crashed into a building in the Moscow City business district around 5 kilometres from the Kremlin after being “suppressed” by air defences, it said.

Footage posted to Telegram by Russian daily newspaper Izvestia showed a fire truck and other emergency services vehicles lined up along a street below a cluster of brightly lit skyscrapers.

Emergency services were inspecting the area in the business district, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.

“Several windows were smashed in two adjacent five-storey buildings,” he said.

Sobyanin and the defence ministry said there were no reports of casualties.

3:26am: US says it does not support attacks inside Russia

The United States does not encourage or enable attacks inside Russia, a State Department spokesperson said after Russian authorities said they downed drones that tried to attack Moscow early on Wednesday.

It is up to Ukraine to decide how it chooses to defend itself from the Russian invasion that began in February last year, the State Department spokesperson said, adding Russia could end the war anytime by withdrawing from Ukraine.

2:31am: Reports of explosion, smoke in Moscow’s business district

An explosion was heard in Moscow’s business district early on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

The agency also said that smoke was seen in the area. One of the buildings in the central district, 5 kilometres from the Kremlin, was hit by a Ukrainian drone early on Saturday.

2:10am: Moscow airports suspend flights, TASS reports

Moscow airports suspended flights early on Wednesday, Russia’s TASS news agency reported citing unnamed officials.

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Major airports around the Russian capital repeatedly closed for departing and arriving flights in recent days due to Ukrainian drone attacks.

1:56am: Netherlands to give Ukraine some 1,000 chargers for remote demining

The Netherlands will send Ukraine “about a 1,000” chargers for remote demining, Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on a visit to Kyiv.

The announcement coincides with heavily mined Russian defence lines slowing down a Ukrainian counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russia since its forces invaded in February 2022.

“There is a decision to provide about 1,000 portable chargers for remote demining that can make passageways in engineered barriers,” Ollongren was quoted as saying on the Ukrainian defence ministry website during a meeting with Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Tuesday.

“As I know, you are facing the problem of extremely dense mining of territories,” she said.

11:33pm, August 22: Medvedev says Russia could annex Georgia’s breakaway regions

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now a deputy chair of the Russian security council, said Russia may annex Georgia’s breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

“The idea of joining Russia is still popular in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” he wrote in an article published early on Wednesday by the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty. “It could quite possibly be implemented if there are good reasons for that,” Medvedev said.

9:23pm: Russian strike kills three in eastern Ukraine, say regional officials

Russian artillery hit two villages near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman, killing three people and wounding two others late on Tuesday, authorities said.

“Three people were killed and one wounded in Torske, another civilian was wounded in Zakitne,” the head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, posted on Telegram.

The Donetsk prosecutor’s office said on Facebook that artillery strikes first hit Torske at around 6:50pm (1550 GMT), and then Zakitne a half-hour later.

The people killed in Torske were two women and a man, aged 63 to 88, who were seated on a bench when shells hit, it said.

Key developments from Tuesday, August 22:

The leaders of 11 countries in the Balkan region and eastern Europe signed a joint declaration in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine during a summit in Athens on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he had had “open, honest and fruitful” talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Russian air defences downed two attack drones near Moscow, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday, in the fifth consecutive night of strikes on the capital region.

The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a video published Monday, suggesting he was in Africa. Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally whose group rebelled against Russia’s military leadership in June, has made few public appearances since the rebellion.

Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)