Zelenskyy warns airlines over Russian airspace, as strikes hit railways and energy sites

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned airlines and passengers against using Russian airspace because it will be filled with Ukrainian drones for the duration of the war. “Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” said Ukraine’s president. “Ukraine does not threaten civilian aviation as such – not a single civilian aircraft. There will simply be drones in Russia’s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account.” Vladimir Putin responded by calling Zelenskyy’s comments “a declaration of state terrorism”.

Russia has started deliberately targeting the country’s railway network, Dan Sabbagh and Luke Harding write, with six employees killed on Tuesday in the latest strikes on Kyiv. Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said its workers died when a ballistic missile plunged into a locomotive depot. The Russians hit other railway facilities during a massive bombardment of Kyiv and surrounds. At least 12 people died, with a dozen wounded, including three children. The railway has been a lifeline for Ukraine’s civilians in wartime, transporting millions and bringing world leaders to Kyiv, including Joe Biden and Andy Burnham.

The German government has concretely blamed Russia for the botched drone attack at Leipzig airport that unsuccessfully targeted a Ukrainian cargo plane, Kate Connolly writes from Berlin. Berlin said all indications were the Russian state provided the knowhow and equipment to “low-level agents” on the ground. Russia will face penalties – its consulate in Bonn will be closed, and Russian House, a purported cultural and science institute in Berlin, will be evicted after allegedly serving as a base for hybrid attacks and spying. A clampdown on Russia’s shadow fleet operations in German waters is planned. New blacklists of Russians would be drawn up and border controls tightened on Russians entering Germany, said the foreign minister, Johann Wadephul. The EU is preparing to toughen sanctions against Russia.

The Russian wartime economy risks going “berserk”, Vladimir Putin’s international development envoy was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Boris Titov told business outlet RBC: “This is not an economy at all, it’s a kind of ‘berserk mode’ that can only exist for a very limited time, and the necessity of which should be considered very carefully.” Titov’s comments echo a statement by Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, who argued that “killing a normal economy is equivalent to killing the whole country”. Andrei Klepach, the chief economist at the state development bank, lost his job last month after a public speech highlighting the economic challenges posed by the war.

Ukraine damaged oil-processing units at Russia’s Novatek Ust-Luga complex in the Leningrad region during an attack on Tuesday, Kyiv’s military intelligence said. Key components of the oil refining facility and process equipment were damaged, said the GUR, and a major fire broke out. Russia attacked Ukraine’s Black Sea export infrastructure and a border crossing with Romania in the southern region of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz said Russia also damaged its Odesa combined heat and power plant with missiles and drones. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces struck two cargo vessels in the port of Pivdennyi, near Odesa, claiming they were carrying military goods. The claim could not be verified.

David Petraeus has urged the UK to help lead a reinvention of Nato by adapting to a fundamental shift in warfare in the wake of the Ukraine war. The retired US army general and CIA ex-director told the House of Lords that Ukraine was the “defining military laboratory” of this century. Swift US technological advances in the defence sphere were not enough, Petraeus said, and nor was other nations simply purchasing better technology. He said Britain had shown “strategic clarity” after Russia’s full-scale invasion. “That now presents Britain with another opportunity: to become the first major western nation to organise its defence institutions around the new concept of warfare that Ukraine has been pioneering, and, in doing so, to help lead the transformation of Nato itself.”

Russia’s presence at US-hosted G20 talks has caused unease among participants, the Canadian finance minister has said. Francois-Philippe Champagne said “it created discomfort, no doubt about that … The G7 has always been very united in our support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the face of the illegal invasion and the suffering that we see.”