Ukraine war briefing: five killed in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s Donetsk region

Russian shelling has killed five people in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, officials said . Region governor Vadym Filashkin said three people were killed and four injured in the town of Kostyantynivka, while two men in their 50s were reported killed in shelling near the town of Toretsk. The three killed in Kostyantynivka were men aged between 24 and 69, while a multi-storey block, administrative building and shop were also damaged in the attack, Filashkin said in a post on Telegram. Kostyantynivka been hit regularly by missiles, bombs and artillery.

Western leaders should not be intimidated by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the head of the CIA said on Saturday, amid a debate over whether Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles should be used inside Russia . William Burns, on a visit to London alongside the head of MI6 , said the US had brushed off a previous Russian nuclear scare in autumn 2022, demonstrating that threats from Moscow should not always be taken literally. “Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time,” Burns said. “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre rattling … we got to be mindful of it. The US has provided enormous support for Ukraine , and I’m sure the president will consider other ways in which we can support them.”

Multiple Russian attack drones were intercepted by Kyiv’s air defences overnight according to the Ukrainian air force. Sixty-seven drones were launched over the country and 58 drones were shot down, with three more destroyed by electronic weapons systems, the air force said. No injuries or serious damage were reported. Debris from one drone was photographed on the street outside Ukraine’s parliament. Ukraine’s parliamentary press service confirmed that drone fragments had been found but said there were no casualties and no damage to the parliament building.

Funeral services have been held in the eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava for the victims of one of the deadliest Russian airstrikes since the invasion began, which killed over 50 people at a military training facility. As grieving families and local residents mourned, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged to boost domestic weapons production by creating underground facilities to withstand Russian missile and drone strikes. He also renewed calls for the lifting of restrictions on using western-supplied weapons against Russian territory, noting that Ukraine is also developing its own missiles to put pressure on Russia.

US secretary of state, Antony Blinken , will head to London next week to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine, the state department announced on Saturday . Blinken’s visit to London on Monday and Tuesday will be the most senior by a US official since the Labour party won the general election in July, ending 14 years of Conservative rule. Blinken will take part in a strategic dialogue to discuss Asia as well as the Middle East and “our collective efforts to support Ukraine”, the state department said in a statement.

Three people were injured in Russia’s Belgorod region after Ukrainian shells hit the town of Shebekino, the regional governor said. “Ambulance crews brought a woman in serious condition with shrapnel wounds to the back and thigh and a man with a shrapnel wound to the chest to the regional clinical hospital,” Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a post on Telegram. A third person was taken to hospital with a shrapnel wound to the thigh, he said, adding that two houses and four outbuildings caught fire. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Ukraine says it had hit a Russian ammunition depot in a border region according to the country’s security services on Saturday. A large fire and several explosions were reported overnight in the Russian region of Voronezh, which borders Ukraine, prompting officials to evacuate locals living near the blaze. Russian anti-air defence systems “detected and neutralised a drone” early on Saturday morning over the western part of the region, Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram. “No one was injured,” but when the drone fell it sparked a large fire “that spread to explosive devices and caused them to detonate”, he said, without providing details of which facility was hit. Ukraine’s SBU security services later claimed it had hit a Russian ammunition depot.

The heads of the UK and US foreign intelligence agencies have praised Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia as an ‘audacious’ achievement that could change the narrative of the war . Richard Moore, the head of MI6, said Kyiv’s surprise August offensive to seize territory in Russia’s Kursk region was “typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians” and had “brought the war home to ordinary Russians”. CIA director William Burns, speaking alongside Moore at an event in London, said the offensive was a significant achievement that had exposed vulnerabilities in the Russian military.