Russia-Ukraine war live: thousands evacuated after bomb scare in Russian city struck by own forces | Ukraine

Russia’s defence ministry has launched a major drive for volunteer recruits, pitching to their masculine pride and appealing for “real men” amid a limited pool of fighting-age men in Russia, the UK Ministry of Defence says.

The ministry’s latest intelligence briefing said a “pervasive” advertising campaign had been seen on Russian social media sites, billboards and television and it also highlighted the financial benefits of signing up.

But it was highly unlikely the campaign would attract Russia’s reported target of 400,000 volunteers, the ministry said in its briefing, posted on Twitter.

Since its access to prisoner recruitment was stopped, the Wagner Group private military company is also competing for the limited pool of Russian fighting-age men.

… The authorities are almost certainly seeking to delay any new, overt mandatory mobilisation for as long as possible to minimise domestic dissent.

More than 3,000 people in the Russian city of Belgorod were returning to their homes on Saturday after being evacuated while an explosive was disposed of, the local governor said.

Reuters reported that two days earlier, a Russian warplane accidentally dropped a bomb on the city, damaging local houses, authorities said. Those evacuated lived in the same area.

Military explosive experts decided to “neutralise” the explosive at a training ground, Belgorod’s region governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The operational headquarters decided to evacuate 17 apartment buildings within a radius of 200 metres. According to preliminary data, it is more than 3,000 people. Anyone who needs help with temporary accommodation, it will be provided.

Gladkov said later that people had started to return to their homes after a “shell” was removed from the area.

On Thursday, a Russian Sukhoi-34 supersonic warplane accidentally fired a weapon into Belgorod, causing an explosion and injuring three people, Russian officials said.

Hello, welcome back to our ongoing live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton with the latest developments.

More than 3,000 residents in the Russian city of Belgorod were returning to their homes on Saturday, an official said, after 17 apartment buildings were evacuated following the discovery of an explosive device.

It was found in the area that was hit by a bomb accidentally dropped by a Russian warplane days earlier, injuring three people and leaving a large crater in the city, near the Ukrainian border.

More on that story shortly. In other news as it approaches 9.30am in Kyiv:

• At least five Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and surrounding districts late on Saturday night, damaging civilian buildings, local officials said. One missile hit a house in the village of Kotliary, just to the south of Kharkiv, while another caused a fire in the city itself, said the regional governor, Oleh Sinegubov.

• Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had captured another three districts in the western part of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Troops who have continued into the heavily contested city are thought to be part of the Wagner group of mercenaries.

• Russia confirmed it would expel 20 German diplomats in retaliation for its own diplomats being sent home from Berlin, the Tass news agency said, citing Russia’s foreign ministry.

• Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has again refused to take sides in the war in Ukraine, calling for a “negotiated political solution” between Kyiv and Moscow. “We urgently need a group of countries to sit round a table with both Ukraine and Russia,” he said after a meeting with the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in Lisbon.

• Units from Belarus returned home from Russia on Saturday after training on how to use the Iskander tactical missile system to launch nuclear weapons, the Belarusian defence ministry said. It made the announcement exactly four weeks after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus.

• Ukraine plans to deploy software from the US data analytics provider Palantir Technologies to help it prosecute alleged war crimes committed by Russia, the company has said.

• Ukraine’s operational command has reported that 11 Russian warships are in combat readiness in the Black Sea, including two submarines armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. The press service of Ukraine’s Operational Command South reported this on Facebook, according to Ukrinform.

• Cyprus has cracked down on those named by the US and Britain for allegedly helping Russian oligarchs bypass sanctions on Moscow because of the Ukraine war, an official said. The financial commissioner, Pavlos Ioannou, told state broadcaster CyBC on Saturday that assets of the individuals and entities concerned had been frozen.

• A Ukrainian soldier who lost his leg and has been fighting on the frontline wearing a prosthesis will run the London Marathon on Sunday to raise money and share a message of unity against Russian aggression. Roman Kashpur, from Khmelnyk in Vinnytska, stood on a landmine in 2019. He fought on the frontline in Ukraine wearing a prosthesis for six weeks after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

• The UK Ministry of Defence has said Russia is struggling to maintain consistency in a core narrative used to justify the Ukraine war: that the invasion is akin to the Soviet experience during the second world war.

• The top Russian official in occupied Crimea said its air defence systems had been activated but there were no reports of damage or casualties. “Air defence forces worked in the sky over Crimea. No damage or casualties,” the official, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram. “I ask everyone to remain calm and trust only trusted sources of information.”