Wallace said: “This ambitious new training program is the next phase in the UK’s support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression. Using the UK’s world-class military expertise, we will help Ukraine rebuild its forces and scale up its resistance as it defends its country’s sovereignty and right to choose its future.” Ukrainian troops training in England Photo: Louis Wood/The Sun/PA The training will give volunteer recruits with little or no military experience the skills to be effective in frontline combat. Based on basic UK soldier training, the course covers weapons handling, battlefield first aid, field craft, patrol tactics and the law of armed conflict. The government has procured thousands of AK rifles for the program, meaning Ukrainian soldiers can be trained on the weapons they will use on the front lines. Photo: Louis Wood/The Sun/PA Updated at 08.25 BST Important events: Show only key events Please enable JavaScript to use this feature Ukraine restores Danube river ports in urgent effort to remove grain Ukraine is rehabilitating and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate grain exports due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade. Before the war, Ukrainian river ports on the Danube were rarely used, with some of them completely dilapidated. However, after Russia invaded Ukraine and controlled the exit routes to the Black Sea, Kyiv is reviving the old river ports in order to avoid the sea blockade and speed up the export of the country’s wheat. “Take the example of the Reni River port,” Alla Stoyanova, head of the Odessa region’s agricultural policy department, told the Guardian. The port was one of the most important in the Danube region during the Soviet Union and a passage to Romania. “It hasn’t been used at all recently. So now we are working to expand it, alongside other river ports, to increase capacity. As we speak, over 160 ships are waiting in the Black Sea to enter the Sulina Canal, but they cannot because the capacity of this canal is only 5-6 ships per day.” Read more from my colleagues Lorenzo Tondo in Odessa and Pjotr Sauer: Russian shelling in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih has killed two people and wounded three, according to the governor of Dnipropetrovsk. In a Telegram post, Valentyn Reznichenko also said: A 43-year-old man is hospitalized. This is the father of the dead girl. How to tell him that his child is no longer there… Updated at 09.40 BST Earlier we reported on Ukrainian soldiers arriving in the UK for training. Around 1,050 UK service personnel are running the program which will train up to 10,000 Ukrainians in the coming months. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who visited the training this week, said: This ambitious new training program is the next phase in the UK’s support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression. Using the UK’s world-class military expertise, we will help Ukraine rebuild its forces and scale up its resistance as it defends its country’s sovereignty and right to choose its future. A female portrait painted in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag and also in red paint is among 300 images of Ukrainian children on display in a bomb shelter in Kyiv. The exhibition entitled Children. War. Future – opened to journalists on Friday in a central Kiev metro station that has been closed since the start of Russia’s invasion on February 24, Agence France-Presse reports. Olena Sotnyk, an exhibition organizer and Ukrainian politician and adviser to the prime minister, said: “It is worth reminding adults – all over the world – that children are seeing all this, experiencing it, feeling it. And, unlike us, they can’t make decisions. “They expect adults and people to act to stop the war.” Paintings by Ukrainian children from across the country depict the horrors of places like Mariupol – a city brutally besieged and bombed by Russian forces – and Butsa, one of the first cities to be found mass-killed civilians. Others are optimistic: a smiling soldier strapped to a helmet, a woman wearing a blue and yellow wreath of flowers with a dove surrounded by colorful flowers. But the captions are clear: “No to war” and “I don’t want to die.” A visitor looks at children’s drawings at the Kiev exhibition. Photo: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine and elsewhere via the news. Muslims perform the Eid al-Adha prayer in Dnipro, Ukraine. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Ukrainian soldiers hide underground in a cellar during heavy shelling in Shiversk, Ukraine. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images New recruits to the Ukrainian army are trained by UK armed forces personnel at a military base near Manchester. Photo: Louis Wood/The Sun/PAA Apartments of a building go up in flames during heavy shelling in Siversk, Ukraine. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images A wheat field burns after being bombed amid Russia’s offensive in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Photo: Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Russia launches bombing raids in eastern Ukraine
Russia launched a shelling attack on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday, according to the region’s governor. Pavlo Kirilenko said that according to “preliminary information” there was a rocket attack on the town of Druzkivka. He said a hospital, the Palace of Culture, residential buildings and a playground were damaged. They are awaiting information on victims. In Sloviansk, a house was targeted, burying the owner under rubble. Kirilenko said rescue crews are at the scene. Russians also fired at a train station in Chasovoy Yar, the governor said, injuring several people. And overnight, the town of Hirnyk came under fire, he said, cutting power lines, injuring two civilians and destroying residential buildings and infrastructure. Parts of Svitlodar are also under fire. “The only proper way out is to evacuate!” Kyrylenko said in a Telegram post. Smoke rises from the battlefield near Shiversk, Ukraine, July 8, 2022. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Updated at 08.56 BST Germany says it hopes to persuade Canada to hand over a turbine needed to maintain the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, with Russia awaiting the machine’s arrival before increasing supplies, Agence France-Presse reports. Germany seeks to shore up energy supply cuts, but Ukraine has accused Berlin of giving in to Russian “blackmail” after Moscow blamed supply cuts on the need for pipeline repairs rather than market conditions amid the war in Ukraine . The turbine is currently undergoing maintenance at a Canadian construction site owned by German industrial giant Siemens. Russian energy giant Gazprom last month blamed the issue on reducing supplies to Germany through the controversial pipeline, with Berlin facing a severe energy crisis. Berlin says it has been in regular contact with Ottawa in recent weeks to ensure the turbine’s swift transfer back to Europe without Canada violating Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. Germany is worried about a broader pipeline maintenance session starting Monday and lasting about 10 days. A German government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said Friday that Berlin had received “positive messages” from Canada. Updated 09.09 BST Russia is moving forces across the country and massing them near Ukraine for future offensive operations, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defence. The latest intelligence update from Saturday said a large percentage of the new infantry units are “likely” to be deployed with MT-LB armored vehicles taken from long-term storage. The briefing said Russia had long considered them unsuitable for most infantry transport roles. Despite President Putin’s July 7, 2022 claim that the Russian military “hasn’t even begun” its efforts in Ukraine, many of its reinforcements are ad hoc teams, deployed with outdated or unsuitable equipment. This is Geneva Abdul in London, I will update you in the next few hours. Updated at 08.13 BST A Ukrainian regional official has warned of worsening living conditions in a city seized by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Severodonetsk is without water, electricity or a functioning sewage system, while the bodies of the dead are decomposing in hot apartment buildings. Governor Serhiy Haidai said on Friday that Russian forces are firing indiscriminate artillery barrages as they try to secure their gains in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province. Moscow this week claimed full control of Luhansk, but the governor and other Ukrainian officials said their troops held a small part of the province. “Fierce fighting is taking place in many villages on the border of the region,” Heidai told The Associated Press. “The Russians rely on tanks and artillery to advance, leaving scorched earth.” Occupied Sievierodonetsk, meanwhile, “stands on the brink of a humanitarian disaster,” the governor wrote on social media. “The Russians have completely destroyed all critical infrastructure.” A resident of the area near a damaged apartment building in Sievierodonetsk. Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters The Guardian’s weekly wrap is here and contains a selection of highlights from last week’s coverage, from the fighting in the Donbas and the recapture of Snake Island to the $750bn ‘Marshall Plan’ to rebuild post-war Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers arrive in UK for training
Ukrainian soldiers training in the UK met the UK…
