Russia-Ukraine war latest: what we know on day 179 of the invasion

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Ukrainians to be vigilant in the coming week as they prepare to celebrate their independence day on Wednesday. In his nightly video address on Saturday, Zelenskiy said Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to “spread despondency and fear” as they mark the 31st anniversary of independence from Soviet rule. “We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” Zelenskiy said.

The curfew in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, will be extended for the entire day on Wednesday, regional governor Oleh Synehub said on Saturday. The north-eastern city is regularly hit by Russian shelling and normally has a curfew from 10pm to 6am but extra precautions were required on independence day.

Ukraine launched a fresh strike on Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters at Sevastopol earlier on Saturday. Officials in the annexed Crimean peninsula said that at least one drone had been shot down and that the city’s air defence system had been called into action again on Saturday night.

Video shared on Twitter appeared to show Russian air defences attempting to destroy the UAV and dark plumes of smoke rising from the city.

Three people with Russian and Ukrainian passports have been arrested for suspected spying after trying to break into a military base and arms factory in central Albania, the Albanian defense ministry said on Saturday. Two Albanian soldiers were injured in the incident at the Gramsh base, the ministry said, adding the conditions of the soldiers was stable. Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama said the three individuals are “suspected of espionage”.

The US is planning to buy about 150,000 metric tonnes of grain from Ukraine in the next few weeks for an upcoming shipment of food aid from ports no longer blockaded by war, the World Food Programme chief has said. The planned shipment, one of several the U.N. agency that fights hunger is pursuing, is more than six times the amount of grain that the first WFP-arranged ship from Ukraine is now carrying toward people in the Horn of Africa at risk of starvation.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said he was moved by the sight of Ukrainian wheat being shipped from Turkey. Russian fertilisers and agricultural products must be able to reach world markets “unimpeded” or a global food crisis could strike as early as next year, he said.

Four children have reportedly been injured following a Russian strike on a residential building in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine.

Three people with Russian and Ukrainian passports have been arrested for suspected spying after trying to break into a military base and arms factory in central Albania, the Albanian defense ministry said on Saturday. Two Albanian soldiers were injured in the incident at the Gramsh base, the ministry said, adding the conditions of the soldiers was stable. Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama said the three individuals are “suspected of espionage”.

Russian entities and individuals were attempting to use Turkey to bypass western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the US deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, told Turkey’s deputy finance minister, Yunus Elitas, that the US treasury department said. In a phone call, the department said, the two also discussed efforts to implement and enforce sanctions against Russia, Reuters reports.

Ukraine’s defence ministry on Saturday said its forces had killed a total of 44,900 Russian personnel – a rise of 200 on the day before.

Olaf Scholz has praised Alexei Navalny on the second anniversary of the jailed Russian opposition politician’s attempted poisoning.