Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow warns UK ‘playing with fire’ over plans to help Kyiv produce missiles

Three suspects allegedly planned an arson attack on a drone factory operated by Skyeton, a Ukrainian-founded company in eastern Slovakia, prosecutors said.

“The attack was supposed to aim at the Skyeton company’s factory,” a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor’s office said.

A 26-year-old Latvian suspect was detained in Hamburg and faces extradition proceedings, while Slovak authorities said a Latvian and a Ukrainian had been detained in Slovakia.

Skyeton makes drones for civilian and military use.

Six Russian drones crossed into the airspace of neighbouring Moldova during the latest wave of attacks on Ukraine, according to local authorities.

One of the drones was later found on Moldovan territory.

Moldovan president Maia Sandu “strongly condemn[ed] this intimidation” as the incident raised fresh concerns about the conflict spilling beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Ukraine has received a small batch of US-made Patriot missile interceptors, president Volodymyr Zelensky said, as Russian forces continue using ballistic missiles against Ukrainian cities.

The systems are among the few air-defence weapons capable of intercepting Russia’s ballistic missiles.

The delivery comes as Ukraine faces another major Russian barrage involving drones, ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons.

The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden are pushing the EU to reconsider using frozen Russian central bank assets to help fund Ukraine.

In a letter to the European Commission, the four countries said: “We believe now is the time to revert to the issue of how we can make further use of Russia’s immobilised assets for the benefit of Ukraine.”

The EU has struggled to agree on using the roughly €200bn held in frozen Russian assets, with Belgium raising concerns over potential legal liability.

A lunchtime Russian strike on a shopping centre in Kharkiv killed one person and injured two others, Ukrainian officials said.

The attacks also hit commercial and industrial infrastructure elsewhere in the country, including a retail distribution centre in the Kyiv region and a shipment hub belonging to a toy company.

Roshen, the chocolate company founded by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, said one of its warehouses outside Kyiv was destroyed.

Strikes were also reported in Poltava, Odesa and Kryvyi Rih.

A Russian strike on a thermal power plant in Kherson has wiped out all of its generating capacity, according to Ukraine’s state oil and gas company Naftogaz.

“The Russians struck a purely civilian facility that provides heat” to a significant portion of Kherson’s residential buildings, Naftogaz CEO Sergiy Fedorenko said.

Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin urged residents who can to leave, “especially families with children and elderly people”.

He warned: “Kherson may find itself without electricity or heating” for an extended period.

Russia launched a major overnight assault on Ukraine, with the Ukrainian military saying it shot down seven ballistic missiles and 258 drones.

The attack continued into Thursday, hitting ports, grain storage sites, energy facilities, industrial targets and other infrastructure.

“Overnight, Russia carried out a massive strike against Ukraine, targeting ports, grain storage, energy, industry and other infrastructure with ballistic ⁠and hypersonic missiles and combat drones,” foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said.

In Kyiv, commuters headed to work as air defences fired at waves of incoming drones.

Russian forces have struck warehouses belonging to Ukrainian delivery company Nova Poshta near Kyiv, according to local authorities.

The attack damaged logistics facilities in the area, adding to a series of Russian strikes targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilian sites.

Kyiv experienced a record 13 air-raid alerts in 24 hours on Thursday, keeping the capital under warning for nearly 15 hours as Russia launched waves of drones and missiles.

It was a single-day record for the capital since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

“For regions closer to the frontline, even longer alerts are an everyday reality,” the foreign ministry said in a post on X.

“But what Kyiv experienced on Aug. 27 shows another way Russia is using its weapons to disrupt civilian life: repeated drone launches keeping a city of millions under threat throughout the day.”

Explosions continued into the early hours of Friday, as Ukraine’s air defences face added pressure from a shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles, according to The Kyiv Independent.

Donald Trump has dismissed concerns about a possible Russian attack on Nato after CIA chief John Ratcliffe’s Moscow visit, saying he was “not concerned … at all” and that “there is no problem”.

Trump called the trip “standard business” with “no message” and “nothing unusual”.”Ratcliffe sees his Russian counterpart once every six months or once every year. They have a very good relationship. There was no message and there was nothing unusual,” Trump told Axios.

However, US media reports say Ratcliffe warned Moscow against attacking Nato, amid intelligence that Russia could test the alliance with a limited move against a Baltic state, while also urging Russia to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war.