Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin launches night drone attack on Kharkiv ‘injuring three people’

Russian attack drones hit civilian targets in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, on Tuesday, triggering a fire and causing damage to infrastructure, local officials said.

Details on casualties and damage were being clarified. Emergency services were taking action.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said one drone had hit a residence and started a fire.

Kharkiv Region Governor Oleh Synehubov said there had been a number of strikes in the city and civil infrastructure had been damaged. At least six drones had been deployed in the region, he wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian billionaire Kostyantyn Zhevago has won a bid to throw out a London lawsuit over allegations he embezzled money from the now bankrupt lender Finance & Credit Bank.

Zhevago, who controls London-listed iron pellet producer Ferrexpo, was being sued on behalf of the bank by WWRT Ltd.

They brought the case at London’s High Court and accused Zhevago of procuring loans from the bank to companies controlled by him.

Zhevago, who served in Ukraine’s parliament from 1998 to 2019, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and argued that any case relating to the alleged fraud should not be heard in London.

Judge Richard Jacobs upheld Zhevago’s challenge in a written ruling delivered on Friday. Lawyers representing Zhevago and WWRT did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Moral Rating Agency (MRA) criticised the UK-headquartered firm and its Brazilian parent company Natura &Co after a BBC investigation found that Avon is still recruiting sales agents and continuing production at a plant near Moscow.

“We believe restricting their access to products would have an outsize impact on women and children there,” the firm wrote on its website.

“For 135 years, Avon has stood for women wherever they are in the world, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, age, or religion.

“There is no financial advantage to Natura &Co being in Russia. We will continue to assess our position as the situation evolves.”

But in light of the BBC’s new findings, the MRA accused the companies over maintaining operations in Russia and its support of the Russian economy under the guise of supporting women and children.

Mark Dixon, MRA founder, said: “This is not just a company failing to get out of Russia but also moralwashing what it has failed to do.”

He added: “By hiring new people, keeping production going, and keeping products on the shelves, Avon is supporting the economy that pays for the invasion of Ukraine.

“We are approaching the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine and they are actually hiring new reps.”

The average number of deaths among Russian troops has risen by over 300 a day in 2023, the UK’s defence ministry has said.

The MoD said that if numbers continue to rise at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron today blamed war-torn Ukraine for intensifying the European agricultural crisis by exporting sub-standard produce.

He spoke out on Tuesday as farmers continued to besiege major cities including Paris as they demanded better pay and conditions, and a reduction in EU red tape.

At a press conference in Sweden, Mr Macron said: ‘We have asked for clear measures on imports from Ukraine, because today we have things in volume and quality that are destabilising the European market, whether it comes to chickens or cereals.’

Saying it was ‘facile’ to blame all farming problems on the EU, Mr Macron continued: ‘As far as poultry is concerned, it is indeed the arrival, in particular, of poultry that was much cheaper from Ukraine.’ In turn, one French union leader called for all imports from Ukraine – which has been at war with Russia for a decade – to be cut completely.

Franck Laborde, head of France’s AGPM association of maize producers, said cheap Ukrainian poultry was not reared to adequate standards.

“We are opening our doors wide in Europe to Ukrainian production so that they can finance the war,” he said. “This is not acceptable. Agriculture is being sacrificed on the altar of war.”

It came after riot police prevented a tractor convoy blockading the largest fresh food market in Europe as militant French farmers attempted to “starve Paris”.

They aimed to surround Rungis, to the south of Paris, in the early hours of Tuesday morning. This would have caused chaos to the city’s food supply, which can last for three days before crisis shortages are announced.

Citing a Russian Telegram news channel Astra, they said the first bomb landed on a farm in Postnikov, whilst the second landed on an urban street in Strelestkoye – prompting an evacuation of up to 150 civilians.

“The increasing frequency of these occurrences likely demonstrates a degree of air and ground crew fatigue within the Russian front line, as well as exposing inadequate training,” the UK’s latest defence intelligence update reads.

A Ukrainian military spy official has said that Russia is showing no willingness to return the bodies of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war Moscow says died in a military plane crash in Belgorod region last week.

Kyiv has said Moscow has provided no evidence to support its assertion that 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers were aboard the Russian military transport plane, which crashed last Wednesday in Belgorod in Russia near the border.

Moscow says the plane was shot down by Ukraine on its way to a prisoner swap; Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces shot it down.

“It’s a statement from Russia that our prisoners were there, and so far we can analyse only their words. Now there is no readiness to transfer the bodies from the other side,” Andriy Yusov, the spokesperson, was quoted as saying by Suspilne broadcaster.

Russia’s state Investigative Committee said last week that body parts were being collected and removed for genetic testing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday he had no information on what would happen to the remains or whether they would be handed to Ukraine.

The Russian Investigative Committee has released footage from the site showing a single body in a snowy field as well as items of clothing. Reuters verified the location of the crash site seen in one of the videos but was unable to independently verify the date or other details.

Ukraine‘s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told Reuters last week that an unofficial list of Ukrainian POW casualties circulated in Russian media after the crash included soldiers who had already returned in a previous swap.

French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will ask for clear measures on imports coming from Ukraine as tensions with farmers continue to rise in France and across Europe.

“We have asked to have clear measures on imports from Ukraine because today we have things in volume and quality that are destabilizing the European market, whether it comes to chickens or cereals,” Mr Macron said during a state visit to Sweden.

Mr Kara-Murza had spent years speaking out against Russian President Vladimir Putin and has criticised the government’s crackdown on dissent, as well as the war in Ukraine.

Criticism of Russia’s invasion is the reason he is currently imprisoned for 25 years on treason charges decried by the international community and likened to a Stalinist show trial.