Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia spy chief claims US, UK and Ukraine were behind Moscow attack | Ukraine

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has dismissed the security council secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, from his post, according to a decree published today.

The head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, was appointed in his place, another decree said. No reason was given for the change.

The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, has said, without evidence, that the US, Britain and Ukraine were behind Friday’s Moscow concert hall attack, in which at least 139 people were killed, state news agency Tass reported.

Ukraine has denied Russian accusations of involvement in the attack, for which the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility.

Western countries have said their intelligence indicates that Islamic State-K, Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot, was responsible.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said yesterday that the terrorist attack was conducted by radical Islamists, but repeated his earlier assertion the attackers had planned to escape to Ukraine before they were arrested.

Bortnikov has also reportedly said that the number of accomplices in the concert hall attack would increase past the current number of 11 detainees.

• The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, accused by Russia of spying, has had his pre-trial detention extended by three months to 30 June, a Moscow court said. The latest decision to extend Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention “feels particularly painful, as this week marks one year since Evan was arrested and wrongfully detained,” Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador, said. “Evan’s case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends, as the Kremlin is also doing in the case of Paul Whelan.”

• A Russian court on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack on the Moscow concert hall that killed at least 139 people, officials said. Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack on the Crocus City Hall. The court’s press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, AFP reported. Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least 22 May, without detailing the exact accusations against him.

• Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a close Putin ally, has said that Ukraine was “of course” behind Friday’s deadly attack on the Moscow concert hall, despite Kyiv denying any involvement in the shooting, which Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

• Russia is trying to expand its forces in the north-west of the country, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update, adding that most of Russia’s troops remain dedicated to fighting in Ukraine.

• Ukrainian security officers have arrested two people suspected of acting on behalf of Russia as they tried to blow up a railway line used to supply weapons to the east for Kyiv’s war effort, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Tuesday. The detainees, identified as residents of the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, planted an explosive device by the line in central Poltava region and planned to detonate it remotely, but they were caught red-handed by SBU officers, the statement said.

• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has demanded the west supply Kyiv with Patriot air defence missiles to help his country’s troops repel Russian forces. “Give us the damn Patriots,” Kuleba told Politico. “If we had enough air defence systems, namely Patriots, we would be able to protect not only the lives of our people, but also our economy from destruction.”

Russia is trying to expand its forces in the north-west of the country, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update.

The MoD said most of Russia’s troops remain dedicated to fighting in Ukraine, with recruitment adverts still being posted for soldiers.

Moscow will “almost certainly” have to decide whether new units such as the 44th Army Corps remain in their garrison locations once established or if they are sent to Ukraine to “maintain combat power there”, it wrote on X.

Both Russia and Ukraine have increased the tempo of their attacks in recent weeks as Kyiv, which has struggled to find weapons and soldiers after more than two years of war, has promised to retaliate by taking the fighting to Russian soil.

The Ukrainian navy has said it had damaged four Russian naval ships in a weekend missile attack on Crimea, as it has received updated information.

The armed forces had said previously that an overnight attack from Saturday to Sunday damaged only two amphibious landing ships: the Yamal and the Azov.

But according to updated information: “Ukraine’s defence forces (also) successfully damaged the spy ship Ivan Khurs and the Konstantin Olshansky large landing ship”, the navy said on Facebook.

Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.

Russia and Ukraine have increased their air attacks in recent weeks.

On Saturday, Russia said that it had repulsed a barrage of Ukrainian missiles fired at the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

A Russian court on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack on the Moscow concert hall that killed at least 139 people, officials said.

Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack on the Crocus City Hall.

The court’s press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, AFP reported.

Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least 22 May, without detailing the exact accusations against him.

Four men charged on Sunday with carrying out the attack are citizens of Tajikistan.

Three more suspects – reportedly from the same family and including at least one Russian citizen – were charged on terror-related offences on Monday.