Putin orders more drones as eight killed in missile attack on Donetsk

A Russian informant has been detained over a plot to assassinate Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv has said.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said it has detained a Russian informant “who was preparing a Russian airstrike in the Mykolaiv region during the visit of the President of Ukraine.”

The alleged informant “on the eve of the recent trip of the President of Ukraine to Mykolaiv region, was gathering intelligence about the planned visit,” the service said, referencing a trip Zelensky made to the region in July.

In a statement, the SBU said that the individual “tried to establish the time and list of locations of the approximate route of the Head of State in the territory of the region”, but agents had obtained information about the “subversive activities of the suspect” and subsequently introduced additional security measures.

Monitoring the communications of the woman – who has not been named, but is understood to be a resident of Ochakov in southern Ukraine – the service established that she had been tasked with locating electronic warfare systems and warehouses with ammunition of the armed forces.

The individual allegedly travelled around the district and filmed the locations of Ukrainian objects.

Joe Biden’s administration will announce $200m (£156m) of new weapons aid for Ukraine as soon as today, US officials told Reuters.

The tranche is coming out of $6.2bn (£4.8bn) of funds discovered in an accounting error by Pentagon which over-valued billions of Ukraine aid, two US officials said.

Washington is currently working on a supplemental budget request to continue to aid Kyiv, the U.S officials said.

This will be the first tranche of the $6.2bn windfall of previously authorised Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), the officials said.

Washington is packing mine clearing equipment, TOW and AT4 anti-tank weapons, guns and ammunition, air defense interceptors made by Lockheed Martin Corp for the Patriot system, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets and Javelin anti-tank missiles made by a joint venture between Lockheed and RTX Corp, along with other equipment in this tranche of military aid.

Ukraine needs weaponry that can be shipped from US stocks in a matter of days or weeks so it can keep up its fight to repel Russia’s invasion – the accounting error worked to Kyiv’s benefit because more equipment can be sent.

You can now watch The Independent’s documentary about Ukraine, Body in the Woods, and our exclusive interview with Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska on your smart TV:

Survivors in a deadly Russian missiles attack that struck the centre of Ukraine’s Pokrovsk said they heard a “bang” during twin strikes which left them with multiple injuries.

A 58-year-old resident of Pokrovsk, Kateryna, was at her home when she heard the first blast and thought that the attack spared her.

She even told someone who called to check on her that she was alright but at this moment the place was hit for the second time.

“That’s it, bang – and that’s all. A flame filled up my eyes. I fell down on the floor, on the ground. My eyes (hurt) a lot…,” Ms Kateryna said pointing at multiple scratches around her eyes. She had bandages on her forehead.

Another resident, 75-year-old Lidia, said she was also on the phone at the moment of the second blast. She had picked up from the floor a torn white curtain covered with broken glass.

“Suddenly this flew out and wrapped me up. Then the window fell on me,” she said sitting on her sofa.

“My back has cuts. I just got back from the hospital… My knee and my thigh have cuts. I had glass here,” she said pointing at her head.

The death toll includes five civilians, two rescuers and one military person. Officials said the second missile hit the Ukraine-controlled town near the frontline 40 minutes after the first. The explosion killed and injured first responders, witnesses said.

Nineteen police officers are among 31 people wounded in Russian missile strikes which have killed at least five people, according to Ukrainian officials.

Two Russian missile strikes hit the city centre of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region on Monday, officials said.

Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko said one of the strikes killed four civilians, and the other killed the deputy head of the regional branch of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

At least 31 people – including 19 policemen, five rescuers and one child – have been wounded in the attack, Mr Klymenko said. The strikes damaged a hotel, residential buildings and other civilian structures, according to Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has celebrated the return of 22 Ukrainian troops in a prisoner swap with Russia, some of whom are wounded.

The 20 soldiers and sergeants, and two officers, were captured in different areas of the front, Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address, adding: “We will do everything to bring back to Ukraine all our people who are now in Russian captivity. We remember everyone and are looking for everyone on the list of missing persons.

He added that every Ukrainian who captures Russian troops on the frontline “speeds up freedom for Ukrainians”, saying: “It is important to remember this.”

Belarus has initiated military exercises close to its border with Poland and Lithuania, amid existing tensions with the two Nato powers over Minsk’s decision to host Wagner mercenaries.

Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Belarus, with the leaders of both nations warning last week at a meeting near the Suwalki Gap – a region close to their nations’ borders with Belarus and Russia – that they are braced for further provocations.

The Belarusian defence ministry said the drills that began on Monday are based on experiences from Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, and includes the “use of drones as well as the close interaction of tank and motorised rifle units with units of other branches of the armed forces”.

The war games were taking place near the Suwalki Gap.

The UK government “echoes the frustrations” of Ukraine’s first lady over sanctions-busting efforts by Russian allies, a spokesperson for the foreign secretary has said.

To combat Putin’s regime the world must impose hefty sanctions, and “terminate the possibility of circumventing these sanctions,” Olena Zelenska told Independent TV from the heart of the presidential compound in Kyiv, in an interview now available to watch in full here.

The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, immediately backed the first lady’s call. A spokesman for Mr Cleverly told The Independent that the assessment the government has “echoes the frustrations the first lady has expressed about the use of third countries to circumvent sanctions”.