Russia-Ukraine war live: fighter jet crashes in Russian city near Ukraine; Kyiv says 108 women freed in prisoner swap | Ukraine
Fighter plane crashes into building in Russian city near Ukraine
A Russian fighter plane has crashed into a residential building in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, near Ukraine.
Footage on social media, which has been verified by BBC News, showed a large fireball erupting from what appeared to be a multi-storey building.
Yeysk is located on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which separates southern Ukraine and southern Russia.
Russian news agencies said the pilots had ejected and officials were trying to establish information about casualties on the ground.
RIA news agency said the plane was a Sukhoi Su-34, a supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber, and crashed during a training flight from a military airfield. Tass said the crash was caused by an engine fire.
Interfax, another Russian agency, quoted the local emergencies ministry as saying five floors of the apartment building were on fire, the upper floors had collapsed and about 45 apartments were damaged.
A military plane has crashed into an apartment block in the Russian town of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov. The pilot is reported to have ejected himself. Data on civilian casualties to be confirmed. pic.twitter.com/uFYSuOpUJd
— The Insider (@InsiderEng) October 17, 2022
Key events
Canada is imposing further sanctions related to Russian disinformation, reported Reuters.
Canada is imposing sanctions on 34 individuals and one entity that it says are complicit in dissemination of Russian disinformation and propaganda, the Canadian foreign ministry said on Monday.
“As the number of Russian human rights abuses continues to increase, Canada is taking measures to counter the propaganda that attempts to excuse them,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement.
The US Pentagon is considering paying for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network, reported Politico today.
The satellite, operated by Musk’s SpaceX company, helped restore communications in Ukraine.
Money to pay for the satellite would come from a fund being used to supply weapons, according to two US officials involved in the potential arrangement.
At least four dead after military plane crashes in tower-block in Yeysk
At least four people have been killed after a Russian military plane crash into a residential area of Yeysk, near Ukraine, Russian news agencies have reported.
Previous updates had confirmed that at least two people died as a result of the crash.
Images circulating social media showed a nine-storey residential building on fire. A criminal investigation into the crash, which reportedly occurred during a training flight, has been launched. The pilots had ejected.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been informed and ordered “all necessary assistance be given to casualties from the military plane incident,” the Kremlin told the state-run news agency Tass.
“On 17 October 2022, while taking off to carry out a training flight from the military airfield of the southern military district, an Su-34 aircraft crashed,” the ministry said. Its statement said the military jet had malfunctioned after “one of its the engines caught fire during take-off”.
“At the site of the Sukhoi Su-34 crash, in the courtyard of a residential area, the aircraft’s fuel caught fire,” the ministry said.
The blaze reached five out of nine floors of a residential building, according to emergency services, quoted by Russian state-run agencies. It had spread over 2,000 sq metres (21,500 sq feet), the services added.
In case you missed it: here’s an article from the Guardian’s Daniel Boffey on indiscriminate drones that were falling on Kyiv today.
It flew like a kite propelled by a stern wind. Harmless enough to the unschooled eye. Swooping, a small triangle in the sky. Then there was the noise. Similar to a moped at first but ever more like the full-throated roar of a motorbike as the kamikaze drone swept closer into view.
It was one of an estimated 28 launched on Monday morning at targets around Kyiv’s central railway station and elsewhere in Ukraine’s capital; some people had fled at the sight of it, scattering to find cover, as the dark grey triangle swept above the high-rise apartments in the cloudless pale blue sky.
Others stood, staring upwards. Fixed to the spot even as the menacing outline of the Iranian-made Shahed-136, not dissimilar to a fighter jet in miniature, became ever more apparent.
A certain sense of fatalism took over as the drone hovered directly above, turning this way and that. A surreal yet bewitching calm. Then grim-faced soldiers and armed police broke the spell as they vainly fired their AK-47s in its direction, rat-a-tat-tat, as did the slightly heavier-sounding air defence systems. To some, the burst of fire was what first made them aware of the mortal danger.
Read the full article here.
There are reports of drones being shot down in Kyiv.
The Guardian’s chief reporter Daniel Boffey, who is in Ukraine, commented on the actions and tweeted out images of the downed drones:
Summary of the day’s events so far …
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At least four people have been killed and three others hospitalised after a series of “kamikaze” drone attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a dead woman was recovered from the rubble of a house in Shevchenkiv district, where an explosion has occurred as a result of a drone attack. He identified two other victims as “a young couple, a husband and wife who were expecting a child. The woman was six months pregnant. Earlier, Kitschko said 18 people had been rescued, and that there had been five explosions after 28 drones had been directed at the city.
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Four people were killed and several more wounded in the eastern region of Sumy after rocket strikes targeted energy infrastructure. The emergency services said an electrical substation was shelled, sparking a fire that damaged an administrative building. Three people were “rescued from the rubble”.
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “It seems that the current enemy unites in its evil all previous enemies of our statehood. It acts insidiously – kills civilians, hits housing, infrastructure. Terror must lose and will lose, and Ukraine will prevail. And will bring to justice every Russian terrorist – from commanders to privates who carried out criminal orders.”
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A Russian fighter plane crashed into a residential building in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, near Ukraine. Footage on social media showed a large fireball erupting from what appeared to be a multi-storey block. A criminal investigation into the crash, which reportedly occurred during a training flight, has been launched. The pilots had ejected.
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Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said after the fresh wave of drone attacks that Russia should be expelled from the G20 group.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the European Union to sanction Iran for providing Russia with suicide drones that killed at least four civilians in Kyiv today.
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Iran said again on Monday that it had not provided Russia with drones to use in Ukraine. “The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and it is circulated by western sources. We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said.
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EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc would look for “concrete evidence” about the participation of Iran in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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The European Union has agreed to create a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers and will also provide a further €500m to help buy weapons for the war-torn country under Russian attack. EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday approved the two-year training mission, which will involve different EU forces providing basic and specialist instruction to Ukrainian soldiers, in locations in Poland and Germany. Officials hope the mission, which is expected to cost €107m, will be up and running by mid November.
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Ukraine announced that more than 100 prisoners have been swapped with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow after nearly eight months of war. The head of the breakaway region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, confirmed the exchange, saying that out of 110 people agreed in the swap, two people had decided to remain in Russia.
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Israeli officials refused to comment on remarks from Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, that Tel Aviv is preparing to supply military aid to Ukraine. In a Telegram message on Monday, Medvedev, currently deputy chair of Russia’s security council, warned Israel against arming Kyiv, calling it a “a reckless move” that would “destroy relations between our countries”. Despite numerous attempts from Kyiv to buy Israeli aerial defence systems since the war broke out, Israel has tried to maintain a neutral stance in the seven-month-old invasion, as it relies on Russia to facilitate its operations against Iranian-linked actors in Syria.
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Marina Ovsyannikova, the former Russian state TV journalist who staged an on-air protest against the war in March, has fled the country according to her lawyer.
The US has warned that it will “not hesitate” to take action against nations and companies found to be assisting Iran’s drone program after it was implicated in this morning’s attacks on Kyiv, AFP reports.
“Anyone doing business with Iran that could have any link to UAVs or ballistic missile developments or the flow of arms from Iran to Russia should be very careful and do their due diligence – the US will not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions against perpetrators,” state department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“Russia deepening an alliance with Iran is something the whole world – especially those in the region and across the world, frankly – should be seen as a profound threat,” he said.
Citing previously released US intelligence, Patel said that some of Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicles being sold to Russia have malfunctioned.
The transfer shows the “enormous pressure” on Russia after losses in Ukraine, he said. Moscow is “being forced frankly to resort to unreliable countries like Iran for supplies and equipment,” he added.
Up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and around 170 tanks will be deployed in Belarus to build up a new joint force, the Belarus ministry of defence has said.
The creation of the new force tasked with defending the Belarusian borders against a perceived Ukrainian threat was announced last week following Russian setbacks in Ukraine. AFP reports:
The “total number” of Russian soldiers “due to arrive in Belarus is up to 9,000”, according to Valeri Revenko, the Belarusian defence ministry advisor for international military cooperation, speaking on Telegram.
Revenko said Russia will also send to Belarus “around 170 tanks, up to 200 (other) armoured vehicles and up to 100 weapons and mortars with a calibre exceeding 100 mm.” Russian units will be deployed to four training grounds in the east and the centre of Belarus, where they will take part in exercises involving notably “combat firing and anti-air missile firing”.
Belarus insists the force will be uniquely defensive and aims to secure its borders. Last week, the leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed Ukraine was plotting to attack his country and announced a joint force with Moscow.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of “trying to directly draw Belarus into this war” at a recent G7 meeting. Zelenskiy called for an international observer mission to be placed on the Ukraine-Belarus border.
Multiple Ukrainian reporters have identified the pregnant victim of a drone attack on a residential building in central Kyiv as Viktoriia, or Vika, who reportedly died along with her husband, Bohdan. Reporters say the 34-year-old worked as a sommelier.
This is Vika. She was a sommelier at the Goodwine store in Kyiv.
Her body was found today under the rubble of the destroyed building along with her husband and cat.
Vika was 6 months pregnant. pic.twitter.com/pHFP8CP4Gj
— Daryna Antoniuk (@daryna_antoniuk) October 17, 2022
Ukraine says 108 women freed in prisoner swap with Russia
Ukraine has announced that more than 100 prisoners have been swapped with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow after nearly eight months of war.
“Another large-scale exchange of prisoners of war was carried out today … we freed 108 women from captivity. It was the first all-female exchange,” the Ukraine presidency’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on social media.
The head of the breakaway region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, confirmed the exchange, saying that out of 110 people agreed in the swap, two people had decided to remain in Russia.
Another large-scale POWs swap was carried out today. Extremely emotional and really special: we freed 108 women from captivity.
Mothers and daughters. Their relatives have been waiting for them to come back. 37 Azovstal evacuees, 11 officers, 85 privates and NCOs. pic.twitter.com/6wIjS2ouJe— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) October 17, 2022
Yermak said that some of the people exchanged were mothers and daughters who had been held together. Thirty-seven, he said, had surrendered at the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.
Images released by Yermak showed dozens of women – some wearing coats and military fatigues – disembarking from white buses.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov in southeastern Ukraine, withstood weeks of relentless Russian bombardment, with resistance concentrated in a dense network of underground tunnels at its Azovstal steel plant.
Russia has launched a criminal investigation into the crash of a Su-34 fighter jet in the southern city of Yeysk, the country’s investigative committee said.
“Military investigators are establishing the circumstances and causes of the incident,” it said. The committee did not say what evidence pointed to potential foul play. Russian new agency TASS initially said the crash, which reportedly occurred during a training flight, was caused by an engine fire.
Further footage has emerged on social media of the aftermath. A large fireball was captured erupting from a multi-storey building. Anton Gerashchenko, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, shared the clip below. Claims about fatalities or ammunition have not been confirmed.
Combat plane lost control and fell on a residential building in Russian Yeysk city. The plane carried ammunition.
At least one person died, several were hospitalized.
🇷🇺 weapons fell on 🇷🇺 heads on their way to kill Ukrainians. Will this make them think and protest against war? pic.twitter.com/9dnUo4T7fL
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 17, 2022
Fighter plane crashes into building in Russian city near Ukraine
A Russian fighter plane has crashed into a residential building in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, near Ukraine.
Footage on social media, which has been verified by BBC News, showed a large fireball erupting from what appeared to be a multi-storey building.
Yeysk is located on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which separates southern Ukraine and southern Russia.
Russian news agencies said the pilots had ejected and officials were trying to establish information about casualties on the ground.
RIA news agency said the plane was a Sukhoi Su-34, a supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber, and crashed during a training flight from a military airfield. Tass said the crash was caused by an engine fire.
Interfax, another Russian agency, quoted the local emergencies ministry as saying five floors of the apartment building were on fire, the upper floors had collapsed and about 45 apartments were damaged.
A military plane has crashed into an apartment block in the Russian town of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov. The pilot is reported to have ejected himself. Data on civilian casualties to be confirmed. pic.twitter.com/uFYSuOpUJd
— The Insider (@InsiderEng) October 17, 2022
The UK and US will further their cooperation on sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as well as on other targets, Reuters reports.
Top financial officials for the two allied nations released a joint statement on Monday. Andrea Gacki, head of the US treasury department’s office of foreign assets control, and Giles Thomson, head the UK’s sanctions enforcement office, wrote:
Over time, we expect to realise the benefits of our collaboration not only in relation to the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also across other common sanctions regimes.
US, UK and European sanctions have targeted oligarchs and the Russian economy since the invasion began in February.
Further photographs from Kyiv show the extent of structural damage inflicted by Russian drones.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Monday’s barrage of 28 drones came in successive waves – in what many fear could become a more common mode of attack as Russia seeks to avoid depleting its stockpiles of long-range precision missiles.
One strike appeared to target the city’s heating network, hitting an operations centre. Another slammed into a four-story residential building, ripping open a gaping hole and collapsing at least three apartments on top of each other.
Four bodies were recovered, including those of a woman who was six months pregnant and her husband, Klitschko said. An older woman and another man also were killed there.
The Belarusian defence ministry has said that it will conduct live fire exercises and anti-aircraft guided missile launches as part of its joint grouping with Russian forces, Russian news agency Interfax reports.
“Military units from the formations are planned to be deployed at four training ranges of the Republic of Belarus in the eastern and central part of the country, after which they will start conducting combat training activities,” Interfax quoted a Minsk defence official as saying.
The defence ministry said last week that Russian troops would deploy to Belarus to form a new “regional grouping” amid claims from Minsk that Ukraine is preparing to attack its territory. Belarus has offered no evidence of Ukraine’s aggressive intentions.
Belarus is a close Russian ally that has provided logistical and political support to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Shortly before their invasion began in February, Russian troops arrived in Belarus for what Moscow described as military exercises, crossing the Ukrainian border soon after.
Dan Sabbagh
If you are wondering what so-called kamikaze drones are, and why Russia is using them, Dan Sabbagh has put together an explainer. He writes:
The Shahed-136s first appeared in the war in September, and although they are described as kamikaze drones, they are better thought of as small cruise missiles with a relatively limited destructive capacity given their 50kg payload. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia had bought 2,400 – a large-sounding number, but these are being depleted fast.
Read the piece in full here: What are kamikaze drones and why is Russia using them in Ukraine?
Sumy rocket attack death toll rises to four
In the eastern region of Sumy, emergency services said four people were killed and several more wounded after rocket strikes targeted energy infrastructure this morning.
The emergency services said an electrical substation was shelled, sparking a fire that damaged an administrative building. Three people were “rescued from the rubble”.
Russian strikes also hit energy facilities in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said, leaving one person injured. Power has since been restored.
The news from Sumy means eight people have died in total as a result of drone and rocket attacks in Ukraine on Monday.
