Ukraine updates: Kyiv schools on alert over bomb threats

Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US-Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, has been named a "foreign agent" by Russian authorities.

The term is commonly used to stifle voices critical of the Russian regime. Among other things, anyone with this status must mark any publications with a disclaimer stating that they have been designated with it.

The Russian Justice Ministry said Muratov "used foreign platforms to disseminate opinions aimed at forming a negative attitude towards the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation."

On March 22, 2022, shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Muratov decided to sell his Nobel Peace Prize medal to an auction, with the proceeds going to UNICEF to aid refugees from Ukraine. The medal sold for $103.5 million (€95.8 million).

The Novaya Gazeta frequently reported on sensitive issues such as human rights violations, corruption and abuse of power. While Muratov has been at the paper, six journalists working for it have been killed in the course of conducting investigations.

 In March 2022, the newspaper suspended its print activities under pressure from Russian authorities, with a a foreign version (Novaya Gazeta Europa) being launched shortly afterwards from Riga to avoid censorship. 

The drones that recently struck an airport in northwestern Russia were launched from within Russia, Ukraine's military intelligence chief said on Friday.

"Four Russian IL-76 military transport planes were hit as a result of the attack. Two were destroyed and two were seriously damaged," he added.

The Pskov airport is some 700 kilometers (more than 400 miles) from Ukraine, with the attack coming just weeks after Kyiv vowed to return the conflict that Moscow has unleashed with its unprovoked invasion to Russia itself.

Several sites within Russia have been targeted by a growing number of drone attacks in the past weeks, including the capital, Moscow.

The Kremlin said this week that its military was trying to ascertain which routes the drones were taking in order "to prevent such situations in the future."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the Ukrainian claims when asked, referring questions on the topic to the Defense Ministry.

Ukrainian forces have been making promising inroads into Russian defenses in southern Ukraine in the past few days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said.

While advances have been less swift than Kyiv hoped, "we have noted over the last 72 hours or so some notable progress by Ukrainian armed forces ... in that southern line of advance coming out of the Zaporizhzhia area, and they have achieved some success against that second line of Russian defenses," he told reporters.

"Any objective observer of this counteroffensive, you can't deny ... that they have made progress now," Kirby added, referring to criticism in Ukraine itself and from abroad of the slow speed of Ukrainian efforts to recapture territory from invading Russian forces.

Western analyses of the battlefield situation in the past few days have shown Ukrainian forces breaking through Russian lines for several kilometers (miles) between Robotyne and Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has been hampered by a multitude of deadly hindrances set up by Russian forces across the terrain, including tank traps and minefields.

Kyiv's aim is for its troops to make their way directly south to the Sea of Azov, thus cutting off the land bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea.

Denmark has decided to cap the number of Russian diplomats allowed at the Copenhagen embassy to five and administrative staff to 20, forcing Moscow to cut its staffing, the Danish foreign ministry said.

"The decision to introduce parity in the size of the two embassies means that the Russian embassy in Copenhagen must reduce its current staffing," the ministry said.

The reduction must be implemented by September 29, the ministry added. It was not immediately clear how many diplomats and other employees would have to leave the Russian embassy.

Denmark and Russia have been in long-term negotiations regarding visas for employees at the Danish embassy in Moscow. However, the talks have not led to results "due to repeated Russian attempts to include visa requests for Russian intelligence officers as part of those negotiations," the Danish ministry said. 

Ukraine could increasingly turn to drones to attack Russian positions as the counteroffensive continues, a military analyst told DW.

It comes after Russia thwarted a drone strike on Moscow on Friday. Kyiv said the attack was launched from inside Russian territory and, as a rule, does not claim responsibility for such operations.

Marina Miron from King's College London said there are three benefits of using drones over missiles or other weapons.

"It doesn't risk the loss of human life on the Ukrainian side," she told DW's Terry Martin.

"It also removes any responsibility from the Western backers because Ukrainian-made drones are used, according to Ukrainian sources. And it is much cheaper than sending something like a Storm Shadow missile, which would cost $3 million (€2.75 million) with a potential political fallout."

She believes that drone attacks on Russian positions were carried out with drones made domestically in Ukraine, which would minimize the fallout of such attacks.

She pointed to the UJ-22 drone, the Beaver drone, and potentially a third model that experts have yet to properly identify.

"It is indeed a miracle that the Russians still haven't found the factories where those drones are being produced," Miron said.

"Apparently the Beaver drone has been in design for several years, but it hasn't been used until the Russian invasion of Ukraine." 

Two more ships are sailing from a port in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa through a temporary corridor set by Ukraine to ensure safe navigation through the Black Sea, Kyiv said on Friday.

"Two vessels are sailing through a temporary corridor from Ukraine's Black Sea ports to the Bosphorus," Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on social media.

If the ships successfully leave, that would make them the third and fourth to leave since Russia pulled out in July of a UN-brokered deal allowing Ukraine to export its grains via the Black Sea amid the fighting.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is traveling to Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday, where he will be hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks, the Kremlin announced.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that "negotiations will indeed take place" between the two leaders.

Turkey has tried to position itself as mediator since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Last summer, Ankara brokered with the UN a deal that allowed Ukraine to export its grains via the Black Sea despite the war. 

However, Moscow pulled out of the agreement in July, accusing the other side of failing to uphold its side of the bargain.

Police forces were checking on Friday educational facilities in Kyiv, following reported bomb threats in the capital's schools as students returned to school for the new academic year.

"We have received information about explosives in Kyiv's schools," police spokesperson Yulia Girdvilis told the French AFP news agency. "All educational institutions are being checked by Kyiv police forces with the involvement of the State Emergency Service."

In a statement on messaging platform Telegram, the Kyiv City Military Administration (KCMA) said the educational administration and the police will take the decision to evacuate children and teachers.

"Stay calm and follow the updates," the KCMA wrote.

Some four million students are returning to schools, both physically and through virtual classes, Ukraine's education ministry said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reiterated that peace in Ukraine requires the recapture of all territories currently under Russian control.

Speaking at the European House Ambrosetti business forum in Italy on Friday, Zelenskyy said "sustainable peace" could not be achieved without Kyiv regaining full control of Crimea, Donbas and other territories under Moscow's control.

Earlier this summer, Ukraine launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive aiming to reclaim Russia-controlled territories.

Russian forces struck a private enterprise in Ukraine's Vinnytsia region, Ukrainian authorities said.

The strike was conducted with a long-range cruise missile, damaging property and causing a number of injuries, Governor Serhiy Borzov said.

"Unfortunately, there are victims, they are being provided with all necessary assistance," he wrote on Telegram.

The Ukrainian air force said the attack involved two cruise missiles. It shot down one of them over the central Kirovohrad region.

Moscow is "employing a range of passive… and active defense measures" to protect water crossings such as the critical Crimea Bridge and minimize potential damage in future attacks, the British Ministry of Defence said on Friday.

In its daily report on the war in Ukraine, the British ministry said Moscow was using smoke generators, underwater barriers and air defense systems to protect water crossings.

"As of 29 August 2023, imagery confirms Russia has created an underwater barrier of submerged ships and containment booms to deter against Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) attacks against the Crimean Bridge," the ministry said.

Moscow also added several vessels at the southern part of the bridge, 160 meters apart. The vessels are now placed where an Uncrewed Surface Vehicle attack struck the bridge on July 17. Moscow at the time accused Kyiv of being responsible for the damaging attack.

The Crimea Bridge is a crucial supply route for Russian forces deployed to Ukraine.

Russia's air defenses destroyed on Friday a drone en route to the capital Moscow, according to the city's mayor.

Sergei Sobyanin said the "attempt to fly a drone to Moscow" was thwarted near the Lyubertsy district in the capital's southern outskirts. He added that the attempted attack caused no casualties or damages. 

Moscow's Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports, meanwhile, temporarily suspended air traffic, Russian media reported.

The Russian capital has recently been targeted by drone attacks, as Kyiv vows to "return" the conflict to Russia. 

In the Russian town of Kurchatov, near the Ukrainian border, Governor Roman Starovoit said a Ukrainian drone attack damaged an administrative building and a residential one on Friday. The town lies in the Kursk region.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sharply reprimanded Western officials who have criticized the slow pace of Kyiv's push against Russian forces.

"Criticizing the slow pace of [the] counteroffensive equals ... spitting into the face of [the] Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometer of Ukrainian soil after another," Kuleba told reporters on Thursday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain.

"I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimeter by themselves," he added.

The comments come after officials in the US and other Western allies of Ukraine were quoted in several media reports as saying Kyiv's forces aren't making as much progress as expected.

Some of the officials, who were quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post and other outlets, said Ukraine was concentrating its forces in the wrong places.

Ukraine launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces three months ago.

Since then, Kyiv's forces have retaken some villages in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's military commanders say the slow pace is a purposeful strategy, aimed at weakening Russia's logistics and defenses ahead of a future larger attack.

Air defense systems brought down an object that was flying in the western Russian region of Pskov, local officials said on Friday.

Governor Mikhail Vedernikov said defense units "neutralized an unidentified object" overnight.

Russian state media posted a grainy video that appeared to show shots being fired in the air.

Vedernikov said there was no damage on the ground. The report could not be independently verified.

Earlier this week, a suspected Ukrainian drone attack in the same region hit and damaged Russian military transport aircraft.

Ukrainian forces used 16 drones made of cardboard to launch an attack on the military section of a Russian airport, Ukrainian media reported.

The attack took place on Saturday night in the Russian border region of Kursk.

The cardboard drones, which are more difficult for air defense radars to locate, were used in the attack, sources within Ukraine's SBU intelligence service told local media.

Several Russian fighter planes and air defense systems were reportedly damaged in the attack.

Ukrainian forces reportedly acquired Australian-made lightweight drones in the spring. The devices are constructed with cardboard and rubber bands.