Ukraine-Russia war – live: Kyiv drone attack wipes out $1.2bn air defence system in Crimea

British Storm Shadow cruise missiles were likely used in the largest Ukrainian attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.

Military sources said Wednesday’s early morning attack on the main Crimean naval base at Sevastopol used Storm Shadow missiles, delivered to Kyiv by the UK earlier this year.

But what is a Storm Shadow cruise missile? Arpan Rai and Cameron Henderson explain:

A Russian pilot fired two missiles towards an RAF surveillance plane after mistakenly believing he had permission to fire.

Following the incident last September, Russia claimed it had been caused by a “technical malfunction” with the UK’s Ministry of Defence publicly accepting their explanation.

However, intercepted communications reveal that one of the Russian pilots believed he had been given permission to target the aircraft following an ambiguous command from a Russian ground station.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday it had detected and destroyed an uncrewed Ukrainian boat in the Black Sea, at a time when Ukrainian forces appear to be launching more regular attacks on Russian ships.

A Ukrainian missile attack on the Sevastopol Shipyard in Russian-annexed Crimea earlier this week caused heavy damage to a large Russian landing ship and submarine, commercial satellite imagery showed.

The claims could not immediately be independently verified.

Russian president Vladimir Putin accepted Kim Jong Un’s invitation to visit North Korea, stoking US  concerns that a revived Moscow-Pyongyang axis could bolster Russia’s military in Ukraine and provide Kim sensitive missile technology.

The invite was made during a summit in eastern Russia at which they discussed military matters, the war in Ukraine and helping North Korea’s satellite programme.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin “gratefully” accepted the invite and that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to Pyongyang in October. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has rarely travelled abroad.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he was grateful to Bulgaria for not extending restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports from 15 Sept.

“I thank (prime minister) Nikolai Denkov and his team, as well as Bulgarian parliamentarians who supported this move. Bulgaria sets an example of true solidarity,” Zelensky said on the X social media platform.

Restrictions imposed by the European Union in May allowed Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.

The restrictions, designed to ease excess supply, are due to expire on Friday.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he was grateful to Bulgaria for not extending restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports from 15 Sept.

“I thank (prime minister) Nikolai Denkov and his team, as well as Bulgarian parliamentarians who supported this move. Bulgaria sets an example of true solidarity,” Zelensky said on the X social media platform.

Restrictions imposed by the European Union in May allowed Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.

The restrictions, designed to ease excess supply, are due to expire on Friday.

The former PM has remained publicly quiet on Mr Sunak’s performance in recent months, despite taking on a highly-paid role as a columnist for the Daily Mail.

But in scathing remarks in a piece for The Spectator, the ousted Tory leader attacked his successor by saying the UK had given only a “fraction” of the arms that the US had provided to Kyiv.

Adam Forrest has the full report:

Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko will travel to Russia on Friday for a working visit, state news agency BELTA reports.

He will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, with plans for the two leaders to discuss regional matters and economic collaboration, including import sustitution.

On Wednesday the EU parliament called for the Internation Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenko for “enabling” Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s security detail spent several minutes disinfecting the chair that Kim sat on during a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Thursday.

Video footage published by the newspaper showed a North Korean security official in white gloves scrupulously wiping down Kim’s black chair and spraying around an unidentified substance.

The North Korean sprayed and wiped down the seat, the hands, the legs and even the area around the chair as a Kremlin bodyguard looked on in a slightly bemused way.

Another North Korean guard then gave some sort of order to the guard doing the disinfecting. The nature of the order was unclear.

“The chair turned out to be the subject of the greatest concern of the North Korean side,” wrote Kommersant’s Kremlin correspondent, Andrei Kolesnikov.

Apparently Kim’s security detail – of over 100 people – were unhappy with the first chair and another one – exactly the same – was produced by the Russian side, Kommersant said.

South Korea on Thursday expressed “deep concern and regret” over a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin that was apparently focused on expanding military cooperation as the two isolated, nuclear-armed leaders align over their escalating confrontations with the United States.

Washington has warned that the summit on Wednesday between Kim and Putin could lead to a deal to supply ammunition for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. There’s widespread concern in Seoul that the North in return would receive advanced weapons technologies from Russia, including those related to military spy satellites, which would increase the threat posed by Kim’s military nuclear program.