Russia-Ukraine war live: British foreign minister says he opposes sending western troops to Ukraine | World news

A fire broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s Kursk Oblast after a Ukrainian drone was shot down over its grounds, Roman Starovoit, the region’s governor, claimed on March 10, according to a report by th Kyiv Independent.

Starovoit did not include any information pertaining to casualties or damage to the oil depot.

“Air defence is at work in Kursk. A Ukrainian drone fell and caught fire on the grounds of an oil depot. Fire brigades and emergency services are working at the scene of the incident,” Starovoit wrote on his official Telegram channel at 7:22 a.m. local time.

The website reports Russian Telegram channel SHOT claimed that a 3,000-ton tank was damaged at the oil depot in Kursk and that a “powerful fire” also broke out at an oil pipeline in the village of Lykhma in Russia Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to local residents, the fire was “visible several kilometers away from the scene.”

The Kyiv Independent wrote it is not able to verify this information.

As Russians prepare to give President Putin another six-year term this week, the Guardian’s Andrew Roth examines how an ex-rival has gone from protest candidate to war hawk.

You can read his report here:

A Russian night-time strike on the east Ukrainian town of Myrnograd wounded at least 11 people, Kyiv said Sunday, while Moscow launched attack drones across the country, AFP reports.

Myrnograd is a town in the Donetsk region around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the frontline with Russian forces.

“Around 03:00 AM on March 10, Russian forces launched three S-300 missiles at the city of Myrnograd. They targeted a residential neighbourhood,” the prosecutor’s office in the Donetsk region said on social media.

It said the strike wounded a “16-year-old boy, five women and five men aged 34 to 95” and that 17 “high rise buildings” were damaged in explosions.

Officials published photographs of destroyed cars, blackened walls of typical Soviet-era housing blocks with debris outside.

Ukraine has “almost certainly” accelerated the construction of defensive positions on several areas of the front line, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said today in its latest intelligence update.

This includes anti-tank dragon’s teeth and ditches, infantry trenches, minefields and fortified defensive positions.

The update adds this is indicative of the “attritional character” of the conflict, and attempts to breach “will highly likely be accompanied with high losses”.

Ukrainian air defence units destroyed 35 of the 39 Shahed-type drones that Russia launched overnight, the air force said today.

The drones were launched from Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region, the Kyiv Independent reports.

It said Russian forces also launched four S-300 surface-to-air guided missiles. No information was provided on the outcome of the missile launches.

The drones were intercepted over Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Odesa, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, and Zhytomyr oblasts. Mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Air Force were involved in repelling the air attacks, the report said.

UK vehicles that fall foul of London’s ultra low emission zone (Ulez) rules can be donated to Ukraine rather than being scrapped from next week, PA reports.

Applicants will be able to donate vehicles in return for the same grant payment available to drivers who scrap or retrofit their vehicles – up to £2,000 – Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced.

The donated vehicles will be permanently transferred to Ukrainian authorities for humanitarian and medical needs.

Ukraine’s infrastructure has been significantly damaged in the conflict and access to healthcare in many areas has been severely impacted.

The mayor had previously made it clear he did not believe altering the Ulez scheme for exporting vehicles would be possible under current laws, until he made an apparent U-turn on the issue in December.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, reportedly wrote to his London counterpart to suggest the idea of donating vehicles.

Transport for London collaborated with UK-registered charity British-Ukrainian Aid to allow the scheme, with support from the Ukrainian embassy, the Mayor of London said.

From March 15, the charity will facilitate the donation of the vehicles to Ukraine and provide the relevant documentation for Londoners to receive their scrappage grant.

London Ambulance Service is planning to join the effort by donating 50 decommissioned ambulances to Ukraine.

The EU is fighting anti-Ukraine propaganda ahead of the European parliamentary elections in June.

Experts warn that pro-Russian players are flooding social media with false claims about the war in Ukraine to boost support for far-right and nationalist parties, AFP reports.

According to the report:

Pro-Russian accounts have been pumping out posts on Facebook, X and TikTok that depict Ukrainian refugees as violent criminals or claim that Kyiv’s government officials siphon off financial aid sent by the West to buy luxury yachts and villas for themselves.Another theme with particular potency in countries closest to the conflict is that refugees receive higher state benefits than locals.

The aim of such propaganda is to weaken the EU’s resolve and benefit anti-immigration parties like Germany’s AfD, France’s National Rally or the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, said Jakub Kalensky, an analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE) in Helsinki, Finland.

Such disinformation will “definitely play a role” in the June 6-9 vote, when more than 400 million Europeans choose a new five-year parliament, he said.

“When you exaggerate the risk of Ukrainian immigrants, you boost anti-immigration parties,” Kalensky said.

David Cameron says he opposes sending western troops to Ukraine, even for training missions