Ukraine updates: Kyiv destroys missile system in Crimea

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, died along with nine other passengers when their private jet crashed outside Moscow, Russian news agencies reported. 

"The plane that crashed in the Tver Region listed Yevgeny Prigozhin among its passengers, [Russia's aviation agency] Rosaviatsia said," state-owned TASS news agency reported, with RIA Novosti and Interfax issuing similar reports. 

Eight bodies were found at the crash site, Russian state news agency RIA reported, citing the emergency services.

It was not immediately clear if all the bodies had been found or if fewer people were on the plane than first reported.
Prigozhin, whose mercenaries fought alongside the Russian army in Ukraine, mounted an armed mutiny against Russia's military leadership in late June. 

DW spoke with Estonia's foreign minister, Margus Tsakhna, about the prospects of peace in Ukraine, ahead of its independence day on Thursday.

Tsakhna stressed the importance of not just finding "peace at any cost" as was done in 2014 when Russia first invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Instead, he called for support for Ukraine for "as long as it takes."

As for the recent strikes inside of Russia that the Kremlin has blamed on Ukraine, Tsakhna said that "Ukraine has all rights to defend itself" including through "attacks in Russian territory."

He pointed to the fact that Russia began the war and said Russia "is not following any rules."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reiterated his intention to take back control of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, illegally occupied by Russian forces since 2014.

"Crimea will be de-occupied like all other parts of Ukraine that are unfortunately still under the occupier," Zelenskyy told an international conference on Crimea on Wednesday.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also said Germany the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea Peninsula would "never be accepted."

"Russia's illegal annexations in Ukraine are null and void," she said in a video message broadcast at the Crimea Platform meeting in Kyiv.

She called the occupation "a direct attack on the United Nations Charter and on international law, which we will never accept - and which will not go unpunished."

Representatives from more than 60 countries were participating in the conference, which included messages from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Leaders from several other European countries, including Portugal, Lithuania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, also showed up in Kyiv on Wednesday, ahead of Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations on Thursday.

Ukraine said on Wednesday that it had carried out an attack on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, destroying an S-400 anti-aircraft system.

"At about 10 am (0700 GMT) an explosion occurred... destroying a Russian long- and medium-range S-400 Triumph air defense system," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.

The strike, which hit its target near the village of Olenivka on the Tarkhankut Peninsula, destroyed "the system, its missiles and personnel" according to the ministry.

"This is a painful blow to the occupiers' air defense system," the statement added.

Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to the attack, however, one Russian military blogger reported that a Ukrainian strike destroyed an S-300 system, according to the AFP news agency.

The number of people killed in a Russian drone strike that hit a school in the Ukrainian city of Romny on Wednesday morning has increased to four, Interior Ministry Ihor Klymenko said.

Rescuers found the bodies of the "school director, deputy director, secretary and librarian," Klymenko said. Earlier reports had said two people had been killed.

Another four people who had been passing by the building were also injured.

Romny, and the wider region of Sumy, have been spared from some of the heavier fighting seen in other parts of the country since the first few weeks of the invasion last year.

Increased Russian action in neighboring Kharkiv, however, has seen the number of strikes go up.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for a speedy end to the war in Ukraine on the second day of the BRICS summit in South Africa.

Brazil and Russia, along with India, China and South Africa, are members of the group of up-and-coming global economies.

"We see it as a positive development, that a growing number of countries, including BRICS countries, are in direct contact with Moscow and Kyiv," Lula said.

"The BRICS countries will support efforts to end this conflict through dialogue, mediation and negotiations," he added, stressing the global consequences of the war which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February last year.

Most BRIC members have shied away from fully condemning Russia's invasion, instead calling for both sides to agree to an end to the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending the summit in person due to an international arrest warrant being issued for him over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Wednesday that the amount of grain destroyed by Russian strikes since the end of the Black Sea grain deal last month has reached 270,000 metric tons.

He added that Moscow has hit Ukraine's port infrastructure eight times over that period.

"Tonight several private grain terminals and storage facilities, cargo infrastructure, [13,000 metric] tons of grain intended for shipment to Egypt and Romania were damaged on the Port of Izmail," Kubrakov wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "There was reduced by 15% of export capacity."

Russia has warned that cargo ships sailing through the Black Sea could now be considered military targets, nevertheless, a civilian cargo ship crossed the sea and arrived in Istanbul last week.

Germany has delivered 45 of its Gepard anti-aircraft tanks. DW correspondent Mathias Bölinger takes a look at how Ukraine forces are putting the tanks to use. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the war in Ukraine on Western countries in comments at a summit for the 5-member BRICS group of emerging countries.

Putin said that the influence of the BRICS bloc was increasing, but the group was against any "hegemony."

Russia's president reiterated Moscow's claim that it is seeking a political settlement to the war in Ukraine, which he said was "unleashed by the West and its satellites."

Putin attended the Johannesburg meeting virtually. The International Criminal Court (ICC), of which South Africa is a member, has put out an arrest warrant for Russia's president over alleged unlawful deportations of Ukrainian children.

Russia will host 2024's BRIC summit in the city of Kazan, Putin said.

At least two people were killed in an attack on a school in the city of Romny in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

He said that those killed were workers at the school. Three other people were wounded, according to the minister.

Klymenko said that two other workers were still under the rubble.

The Sumy region's military administration said a Russian drone hit the school at 10:05 a.m. local time (0705 UTC).

"The school building was destroyed, and this is just before the school year, which unfortunately will never start for some," Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.

Russia has appointed a new air force chief, the RIA state news agency reported, after Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed "General Armageddon," disappeared following the Wagner mercenary mutiny against the top cadre.

"Ex-chief of the Russian Air and Space Forces Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post, while Colonel-General Viktor Afzalov, head of the Main Staff of the Air Force, is temporarily acting as commander-in-chief of the Air Force," the agency reported, citing an an unnamed source.

Surovikin used to head Russia's operations in Ukraine until the mutiny. During the Wagner rebellion, he asked Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop the march on Moscow in a video. 

Various media reports have speculated that Russia put him under house arrest for investigations related to the mutiny.

His reported dismissal suggests that the Russian authorities could have found him guilty, but the details of his alleged wrongdoing remain unknown.

At least one grain storage unit was burned after Russia launched a series of drone attacks in the southern Odesa region and the Danube River area, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday.

Ukraine has used the Danube's port infrastructure to export grain to the Romanian port of Constanta since Moscow exited a UN-brokered deal that allowed Kyiv to ship grain via the Black Sea.

"The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and transhipment complex in the Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work," the Ukrainian military said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

According to Odesa governor Oleh Kiper, the attack on the region lasted three hours.

"Unfortunately, there were hits to the production and transhipment complexes where a fire broke out... The damage includes grain storage facilities," Kiper said on Telegram.

Ukraine's air defences on Wednesday said that it had downed 11 out of 20 drones launched by Russia overnight.
 

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the southern Russian region of Belgorod, said three civilians were killed after Ukraine launched a drone attack. 

The drones targeted a sanatorium in the village of Lavy which is close to the border with Ukraine, the governor added in a Telegram post.

"Ukrainian forces used a drone to drop an explosive device when people were on the street."

Gladkov said two people had died on the spot while the third person died during treatment.
 

The Netherlands will provide Ukraine with a thousand chargers for the remote diffusing of mines, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on a visit to Kyiv.

The decision comes as Russian mines along the frontlines continue to impede Ukraine's counteroffensive and its efforts to seize back territories occupied by Russia.

"There is a decision to provide about a thousand portable chargers for remote demining that can make passageways in engineered barriers," Ollongren was quoted as saying on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry website during a meeting with Ukrainian
minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had said that assisting Ukraine in crossing a massive land mine belt can become a joint effort by Germany and other partners.

Following days of air strikes inside Russia, a US State Department spokesperson said that Washignton does not encourage or enable attacks inside Russia.

He said that it is Ukraine's choice how it wants to respond to the Russian invasion, adding that Russia could end the war anytime by withdrawing from Ukraine.

Since May this year, drone attacks have not remained limited to war frontlines and have increasingly penetrated well inside Russia. 

The US, a major supplier of weapons and defense technology to Ukraine, has maintained that it does not support attacks inside Russia.