TOP HEADLINES

• Russia said it has downed 13 Ukrainian drones seeking to attack Moscow and the largest city in Russian-controlled Crimea. The majority of the drone strikes appeared to be targeting Sevastopol, the Crimean city that serves as Russia's Black Sea navy base, while two others were stopped on the way to the Russian capital. READ MORE BELOW

• Two women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. Zaporizhzhia's church was reportedly destroyed and about 15 high-rise buildings were damaged.

• Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was on the verge of a blackout after it lost connection to its last remaining main external power line overnight. According to Russian state news agency RIA, Moscow officials said Ukraine had tried to attack an out-of-service nuclear fuel storage facility at the plant with a strike drone. A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strongly denied the claim. 

• A child was killed and two people injured when a Ukrainian artillery shell hit a two-storey building in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, local Russian-backed officials said on Wednesday. Separately, four civilians were killed and two wounded by Ukrainian shelling in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia.

• Poland will move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus, the country's Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak has announced, saying that the decision was designed "to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us."

• Germany and Ukraine have agreed on the supply of additional Patriot air defence missile systems to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced. "This will definitely bring us closer to creating a full-fledged air shield for Ukraine," Zelenskyy said." Thank you very much, Olaf, it is necessary for the defence of our people." 

• German prosecutors have arrested a military officer on suspicion of passing secret information to Russian intelligence. The German national repeatedly approached Russia's consulate in Bonn and embassy in Berlin from May on his own initiative and offered his cooperation, the office alleges.

• Western powers, led by the U.S., have imposed new sanctions against Russian ally Belarus on the three year anniversary of widespread anti-government protests over the re-election of longterm President Alexander Lukashenko. Minsk said the West was using the anniversary of the vote for "hackneyed false accusations against Belarus," while accusing the EU of pursuing an "aggressive policy."

• One person was killed, eight were missing and 60 were injured in a blast on Wednesday at a factory in the Russian town of Sergiev Posad, 50km northeast of Moscow. Emergency services said the explosion occurred in a warehouse containing pyrotechnic equipment, dismissing early reports that the blast could have been caused by a drone attack.

IN DETAIL

More drone strikes target Crimea, Moscow

Russia said on Thursday that it had downed 13 Ukrainian drones seeking to attack the largest city in Russian-controlled Crimea and Moscow. Russia's defense ministry said two drones were hit by air defenses near Sevastopol, the city in Crimea which serves as Russia's Black Sea navy base, and nine more were jammed and crashed into the Black Sea.

One drone was shot down as it approached the Russian capital over the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, and another was shot down over the prestigious Odintsovo district of the capital.

"Today... attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles were thwarted," the defense ministry said. It added there were no casualties due to the drones.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.

In recent days, Ukrainian remotely piloted boats, also referred to as drones, have attacked a Russian fuel tanker and a navy base at Russia's Novorossiysk port on the Black Sea. Ukraine typically does not claim responsibility for attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.

The New York Times reported in May that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Ukrainian spies or military intelligence were behind the drone strike on the Kremlin.

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