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Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day
189 of the invasion
Ukraine foreshadows ‘slow operation to grind the
enemy’ and retake Kherson; Russia deliberately shells inspectors’ route to
nuclear plant, Ukraine says
Samantha
Lock
@Samantha__Lock
Wed 31 Aug
2022 01.25 BST
Ukraine’s counteroffensive to retake Kherson will
be a “slow operation to grind the enemy”, the senior presidential adviser
Oleksiy Arestovych has said. “Of course, many would like a large-scale
offensive with news about the capture by our military of a settlement in an
hour,” he wrote. “But we don’t fight like that … Funds are limited.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said
“heavy fighting” continues in “almost the entire territory” of Kherson. A
spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, Natalia Humeniuk, said Ukraine’s
forces had succeeded in damaging bridges that join Kherson across the river,
rendering them “impassable for heavy machinery”.
A Moscow-installed leader of occupied Kherson has
reportedly fled to Russia. When asked by the Guardian about his location,
Kirill Stremousov said he was currently “travelling around Russian cities,
meeting different people for work”.
The previous head of Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6, welcomed Ukraine’s counterattacks in Kherson, saying
it is a key moment in the war. Sir Alex Younger told the BBC that the fightback
from Kyiv showed the two opposing forces had “reached some kind of balance,
which is an unexpected and frankly welcome situation”.
Ukraine is using wooden decoys of advanced US
rocket systems to trick Russia into wasting its missiles on them, according to
The Washington Post. The decoy versions of US-supplied rocket launcher systems
drew at least 10 Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, leading Ukraine to further
boost its production of replicas, in an effort to lure Moscow into firing its
expensive long-range missiles on fake targets, the publication said.
The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, has
died in Moscow aged 91. Gorbachev’s reforms led to the unlooked-for break-up of
his own country, and to the demise of communism across central and eastern
Europe. He died after a “difficult and protracted illness”, Russian news
agencies cited hospital officials as saying on Tuesday. Recent reports
suggested he was had a kidney ailment.
The UN’s cultural agency has said it supports a
bid by Ukraine to put its port city of Odesa on the Unesco world heritage list
of protected sites. The UN agency also said it wants to add Odesa, Kyiv and
Lviv to the list of world heritage sites “in danger”. Ukrainian officials said
Moscow’s forces are approaching Odesa and analysts believe Russia could soon
target the city to completely block Ukraine’s Black Sea access.
Ukraine’s parliament endorsed several laws and
ratifications on Tuesday to bring the country closer to the European Union,
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. “We are moving step by step towards full membership
in the EU,” he added.
Zelenskiy met with the UN nuclear watchdog chief
who will lead an expert team to inspect the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear
power plant in southern Ukraine this week. “It’s an important mission, and
we’re doing everything we can for it to be safe and work at full capacity,” he
said during a meeting with the director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, on Tuesday. The head of the
Russian-installed local administration, Yevgeny Balitsky, said he did not
expect much from the IAEA visit and told the Interfax news agency the
inspectors “must see the work of the station in one day”.
Ukraine has accused Russia of deliberately
shelling corridors to make it unsafe for the IAEA inspectors to visit the
plant. The senior presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Russia aimed to force
the UN team through Crimea and parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions temporarily
occupied by Moscow’s forces. “Russia is trying to disrupt the visit of the IAEA
mission to the nuclear power plant by simulating combat operations in Energodar
and shelling the area near the nuclear power plant,” he said. Zelenskiy also
claimed Russia “does not stop provocations precisely in those directions from
which the mission is supposed to arrive at the station”.
At least five people were killed and 12 wounded
in Russian shelling of Kharkiv, Zelenskiy said. “Only one Russian shelling of
Kharkiv took the lives of five people today, another 12 were wounded.”
The wholesale price of gas has dropped sharply in
a rare respite from recent highs on signs that Europe is preparing to intervene
directly in energy markets. The European Commission said it was working “flat
out” on an emergency package, and on a longer-term “structural reform of the
electricity market” to combat soaring prices while efforts to fill gas storage
facilities appear to be ahead of schedule. The day-ahead UK wholesale gas price
tumbled by more than 20% to 447p per therm on Tuesday, while the month-ahead
contract dropped by a quarter, to 473p per therm
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