Russia Ukraine war latest: Russian state TV presenter probed over call for drowning of children

Norwegian oil and gas workers normally don’t see anything more threatening than North Sea waves crashing against the steel legs of their offshore platforms. But lately they have noticed a more troubling sight: unidentified drones buzzing in the skies overhead.

With Norway replacing Russia as Europe‘s main source of natural gas, military experts suspect the unmanned aircraft are Moscow‘s doings. They list espionage, sabotage and intimidation as possible motives for the drone flights.

The Norwegian government has sent warships, coastguard vessels and fighter jets to patrol around the offshore facilities. Norway’s national guard stationed soldiers around onshore refineries that also were buzzed by drones.

The French government has joined Ukraine in condemning Russia’s accusation that Kyiv was planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” as a disinformation campaign.

Taking to Twitter this morning, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had spoken with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna to coordinate his next steps in countering Russian “lies” and averting “any false flag operations”.

Ms Colonna called the Russian claim “transparently false.”

A Russian TV presenter has apologised for calling for Ukrainian children to be drowned, as Moscow’s investigative committee said it was investigating his remarks.

In a show last week on state-run broadcaster RT, presenter Anton Krasovsky said Ukrainian children who saw Russians as occupiers under the Soviet Union should have been “thrown straight into a river with a strong current” and drowned.

Ukraine said on Sunday that RT was an inciter of genocide and should be banned worldwide.

Margarita Simonyan, RT editor-in-chief, said she had suspended Krasovsky because of his “disgusting” comments, adding that no one at RT shared his views.

Seven vessels carrying grain bound for Asia and Europe sailed off from Ukrainian ports on Sunday, but Kyiv has accused Russia of blocking the full implementation of Black Sea grain deal.

“Russia is deliberately blocking the full realisation of the Grain Initiative. As a result, these (Ukrainian) ports in the last few days are working only at 25-30 percent of their capacity,” Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry said in a Telegram statement.

One of the ships had been chartered by the UN World Food Programme, carrying 40,000 tonnes of wheat from Chornomorsk and bound for Yemen.

“It is very important that today the sixth vessel sailed from our port with foodstuffs chartered in the context of the UN’s World Food Programme,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“This ship is bound for Yemen with wheat. Ethiopia, Yemen and Afghanistan – these three countries have already received foodstuffs thanks to our exports and the UN’s food programme.”

Russia is continuing to Iranian unscrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) against targets in Ukrainian territory, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its daily intelligence update.

Moscow is likely using the Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs to infiltrate Ukranian air defences and as a substitute for Russian-manufactured long-range precision weapons that are becoming increasingly scarce, its Twitter post reads.

Ukrainian efforts to contain the UAVs have been successful, the MoD said.

A direct and public plea for weaponry is pushing Israel’s balancing act to breaking point, writes Bel Trew

Russian-installed officials in the Kherson region of Ukraine have announced the formation of a local militia, saying that all men remaining in the city can join.

Moscow authorities have ordered civilians to evacuate from Kherson, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it had annexed last month even as Kyiv’s forces have made significant military gains.

Russia launched a series of missiles and drones into the Ukrainian-held southern town of Mykolaiv on Sunday, which struck and destroyed an apartment block.

The strike on the shipbuilding town about 35 km (22 miles) northwest of the front line in Kherson came as Russia ordered 60,000 people to flee the region “to save your lives” in the face of a Ukrainian counter offensive.

No fatalities have been recorded.

The war in Ukraine is trending towards “uncontrolled escalation”, a Moscow official has claimed following a series of phone calls to western defence officials.

Without evidence, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu also claimed that Ukraine was planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” – conventional explosives laced with radioactive material – as a means of intensifying the conflict.

Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons, while Russia has said it could protect its territory with its nuclear arsenal.

Mr Shoigu’s claim was denounced by Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, who referred to the accusation as “absurd” and “dangerous”, adding: “Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves.”

The west similarly rejected Moscow‘s warning about a “dirty bomb”. In a joint statement, Britain, France and the United States said: “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”