Ukraine-Russia war live: Poland threatens to close borders with Belarus over Wagner fighters

Three people have been killed in an overnight Russian missile strike in central Ukraine, and two died in shelling later on Monday in the east and south, Ukrainian officials have said.

Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said the three people were killed at an industrial plant in central Poltava region. Five were wounded and another person was unaccounted for, he said.

Presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said those killed were night shift workers at a vegetable oil factory in the Myrhorod district and posted photos showing the plant in flames. Mr Klymenko said the fire had later been extinguished.

Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of southern Kherson region, said a 63-year-old woman had been killed in the mid-morning shelling of the village of Sadove.

Russian shelling killed a man working outside his home in the early evening in Toretsk, in eastern Donetsk region, prosecutors said.

Other reports from Ukrainian officials described heavy Russian shelling of Marhanets, opposite the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with four people injured. Regional officials reported three injured in the shelling of nine localities in northern Sumy region.

Ukraine’s military also said central Kryvyi Rih region in had been struck in a missile attack. Local authorities said private houses were damaged, but reported no casualties.

Russia’s FSB security agency has said that a detained former employee of the US Consulate in Vladivostok is accused of collecting information about Russia’s action in Ukraine and related issues for US diplomats.

The FSB said Robert Shonov is suspected of “gathering information about the special military operation, mobilization processes in Russian regions, problems and the assessment of their influence on protest activities of the population in the runup to the 2024 presidential election”.

The agency also said it had summonses to question two US diplomats who allegedly instructed Mr Shonov to collect the information. His arrest was first reported in May, but Russian authorities provided no details at the time.

The US State Department, which previously condemned the arrest, has warned the allegations against Shonov “are wholly without merit”, and said the law used to charge him highlights “the increasingly repressive actions the Russian government is taking against its own citizens”.

Pope Francis came under criticism on Monday for telling Russian youths to remember that they are the heirs of past tsars such as Peter the Great, who President Vladimir Putin has held up as an example to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine said the comments, which Francis made on Friday in a live video address to Catholic youths gathered in St. Petersburg, were “deeply regrettable”.

Francis read his prepared speech in Spanish but at the end, shifted into impromptu Italian and said: “Don’t forget (your) heredity. You are heirs of the great Russia – the great Russia of the saints, of kings, the great Russia of Peter the Great, of Catherine II, the great Russian empire, cultured, so much culture, so much humanity. You are the heirs of the great mother Russia. Go forward.”

The Vatican released the text of the address on Saturday but did not include the last, improvised paragraph. A video of the pope making the comments was posted by religious websites.

“It is precisely with such imperialist propaganda, the ‘spiritual ties’ and the ‘need’ to save ‘great Mother Russia’ that the Kremlin justifies the killing of thousands of Ukrainians and the destruction of Ukrainian cities and villages,” Oleg Nikolenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said on Facebook.

“It is deeply regrettable that such notions of being a great power, which contribute, in essence, to Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, are voiced by the pope, either knowingly or unknowingly,” Nikolenko said.

Polish security authorities are investigating multiple cases of disruption to railway traffic, after unauthorised radio signals stopped several trains over the weekend.

On some of the signals, the Russian national anthem could reportedly be heard in the background.

Poland’s railway is the main transport route for international military support going to neighbouring Ukraine, which is fighting Russia’s aggression. The network also transports Ukraine’s agricultural exports to markets further west.

Two men in their 20s were arrested on Sunday after they generated intercom signals that halted five passenger trains and one cargo train near Bialystok, in the northeast.

One of them was a police officer, and police in Bialystok said on Monday their agency had opened a dismissal procedure against him.

Similar “radio-stop” signals briefly stopped some passenger and cargo trains in other regions across Poland over the weekend. In some cases, the Russian anthem could be heard over the intercom, Polish media reported. Authorities said there was no threat to public security and no-one was hurt.

Russia claims to have scrambled two fighter jets to prevent two US drones from violating its border over the Black Sea.

A Russian defence ministry statement on Telegram said the drones had been observed near annexed Crimea and were heading for the Russian border on an intelligence mission.

“As a result of the actions of anti-aircraft forces on duty the intelligence US drones altered the direction of their flight and left the area where they were conducting air intelligence,” the ministry statement said.

It comes just a day after Moscow claimed to have escorted a US drone over the Black Sea. It was not immediately possible to verify either claim.

Ukrainian gains near Robotyne have prompted suggestions in recent days that further advances could finally allow Kyiv’s troops to pour through paper-thin gaps in Russia’s densely laid minefields to establish some control over a vast area between Russian lines.

“If the Ukrainians are going to break through, it’s going to be like bankruptcy – it’s gradually, then all at once,” Dr Patrick Bury, a senior lecturer at Bath University and former Nato analyst, told The Independent.

“That’s what you’re looking for – you get through the defences and suddenly you’re out in the open,” said the former British Army infantry captain. “Basically, you tell tanks and armoured infantry to drive hell for leather and you’re trying to get to undefended towns and cities because they’re your logistics and transport hubs.

“They’ll be trying to drive [as] fast as they can towards the Sea of Azov. It’s not as if they want to cut the Russians off completely but they want to force them to withdraw … Once you break out and you’re inside, it’s about momentum, decision-making, and you’re the one imposing your tempo on the enemy. You move and they have to react.”

But while the gains at Robotyne show “progress”, with Dr Bury also pointing to fighting near the village of Urozhaine as “the one to watch”, he believes the chances of a sudden breakthrough are “50/50 at the moment”.

“It’s hanging in the balance, and I think the next few weeks are going to be pretty decisive, one way or the other.”

The vast minefields laid by Russian forces in Ukraine are “a serious problem” for Kyiv’s troops, Mark Galeotti, of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy, told The Independent.

“If you’re facing a heavily mined battlefield, you have to move slowly … at the speed of anti-mining tanks or engineers moving through marking mines, so you are therefore vulnerable to being caught under artillery fire.

“Mines fix you slowly or they channel you – often into a ‘kill zone’ where they’re waiting to drop volleys of artillery shells on you. They deny the Ukrainians that kind of fluidity and speed of movement [seen during last year’s lightning counteroffensive].”

You can read more about the impact Russia’s minefields are having on Ukraine’s counteroffensive here:

Poland and its Baltic neighbours are now threatening to close their borders with Belarus over the presence of Wagner fighters there.

Prior to the apparent death of Yevgeny Prigozhin last week, experts gave The Independent their verdict on what level of threat the mercenaries truly pose in Belarus to its neighbours in the west and south:

Mark Galeotti, director of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy, said he believed Ukraine’s military was not “in the slightest bit worried” about the threat of Wagner attempting to cross its northern border.

But Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, warned that “forces taking orders from Russia or Belarus do not need to be large or well-equipped to cause disruption”.

The battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine is “very hot” Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said.

Russian troops are gathering new forces there and regrouping, with Moscow was aiming to deploy its best troops there, Ms Maliar said, following claims of 100,000 Russian troops amassing near Lyman and Kupiansk – where residents have been evacuated amid fears of a second Russian takeover, less than a year after the city was liberated and evidence of torture chambers and mass graves uncovered.

Ukrainian forces have continued to advance south of Bakhmut, Ms Maliar said, claiming that Kyiv’s troops have retaken 1 square km around the town, while Russian troops have not made any advances.