Ukraine-Russia war – live: Kyiv launch deadly attack on bakery in occupied east, Moscow claims

More than two dozen people, mostly journalists, were detained on Saturday at a protest in central Moscow, as wives and other relatives of Russian servicemen mobilised to fight in Ukraine called for their return, according to independent Russian news reports.

The relatives gathered to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just outside the Kremlin walls.

They marked 500 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 ordered a “partial mobilisation” of up to 300,000 reservists following battlefield setbacks in Moscow’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

The call-up was widely unpopular and prompted hundreds of thousands to flee abroad to avoid being drafted.

Wives and relatives of some of the reservists called up in 2022 have campaigned for them to be discharged and replaced with contract soldiers.

Saturday’s demonstration was organised by one such campaign group, The Way Home, that on Friday posted on Telegram calling on “wives, mothers, sisters and children” of reservists from across Russia to come to Moscow to “demonstrate (their) unity”.

“We want our husbands back alive,” one of the protesters, who only gave her name as Antonina for fear of reprisals, is heard saying in a video published by independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision.

Antonina insisted she does not want compensation from the Russian government if her husband is killed, and said she would instead “either go to a convent or follow him”.

“I don’t want to live alone! And if (Russian authorities) don’t understand this … I don’t know. God be their judge,” she told a SOTAvision reporter, struggling to hold back tears.

Two Ukrainian attack drones struck the largest oil refinery in southern Russia on Saturday, a source in Kyiv told Reuters, detailing the latest in a series of long-range attacks on Russian oil facilities.

Local authorities in Russia said earlier that a fire had been extinguished at the Volgograd refinery following a drone attack. Oil producer Lukoil, which owns the refinery, later said the plant was working as normal.

The Kyiv source said the operation by the SBU security service struck the primary processing facility, without which the refinery could lose significant production capacity.

Ukrainian officials seldom take responsibility publicly for deep strike attacks on Russian territory.

The Volgograd refinery is the latest in a series of facilities to be targeted by drones. Kyiv sees such infrastructure as important for the Kremlin’s war effort.

The source told Reuters such drone attacks would continue.

“By hitting oil refineries working for the Russian military-industrial complex, we not only cut off the logistics of fuel supplies for enemy equipment, but also reduce funds into the Russian budget,” the source said.

The distance between the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv near the Russian border and the southern Russian city of Volgograd is more than 600km.

Russia has been conducting regular long-range missile strikes on targets in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, prompting Kyiv to scramble for ways to close the gap on Moscow’s more advanced military technology.

About 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home after the latest round of prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine – the first since the deadly crash of a military plane which Russia said carried Ukrainian soldiers sparked tensions between the two nations.

As many as 207 Ukrainians were freed on Wednesday in the 50th round of prisoner exchange since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, president Volodymyr Zelensky said. The Russian Ministry of Defence, however, claimed the countries exchanged 195 PoWs each.

It is clear that the country’s president would like to replace his most popular commander but that is proving more difficult than it looks, writes Askold Krushelnycky.

With key Western allies still unable to agree to fresh aid and Russia stepping up both air and ground attacks, the clash has boiled over at a bad time.

Read the full Independent Premium analysis here:

A Russian-installed health official in the occupied region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine said 8 people were killed and 10 injured after Ukraine shelled a two-storey building housing a bakery on Saturday.

“According to operational data, as a result of the shelling of the Lysychansk bakery, 8 people were killed, 10 were injured with varying degrees of severity,” Natalya Pashchenko, the Luhansk health minister, said on her Telegram channel.

Previously Russia’s emergencies ministry said the bodies of five people had been pulled from the rubble and six people were rescued.

Telegram channels of Russian-installed officials posted video of a crushed car being hoisted out of the rubble around a ruined building. Reuters could not immediately independently verify any details of the report coming out of an area Russian said it annexed in 2022.

Ukrainian officials have not made any statement on the incident.

The Russian-controlled Luhansk Information Centre said Ukraine shelled the bakery using the U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Dozens of people were detained by police in central Moscow on Saturday at a rally protesting against Russia’s mobilisation of men to fight in Ukraine, a human rights group said.

At least 27 people were detained as a group representing the wives of mobilised soldiers gathered at the Kremlin wall to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument, said OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia.

Most of the detained were journalists, it added, saying later that some of the people were let go.

Russia’s emergencies ministry said the bodies of five people were pulled from the rubble of a bakery in the Russian-occupied region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Saturday following what Russian-installed officials said was a Ukrainian attack.

“In Lysychansk, employees of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations rescued six people from under the rubble. The bodies of five victims were also recovered,” the ministry said on its Telegram channel.

Russia’s state-run TASS news agency quoted a spokesperson for Russian-installed operational services in the region as saying seven civilians had been killed. Previously Russian media quoted military police as saying two people were killed.

The emergencies ministry posted video of a crushed car being hoisted out of the rubble of a two-story building. Reuters could not immediately independently verify any details of the report coming out of an area Russian said it annexed in 2022.

Ukrainian officials have not made any statement on the incident.

EU leaders on Thursday sealed a deal to provide Ukraine with 50 billion euros ($54 million) to shore up its war-ravaged economy after Hungary dropped weeks of threats to veto the measure. The aid package — about two-thirds loans and one-third grants to be paid out over a four-year period — is not intended to fund arms and ammunition, which fall under a separate EU plan. Instead, it aims to stabilize Ukraine’s economy after nearly two years of fighting, pay for rebuilding, and set the country up for future EU membership. The package will help Kyiv plug budget gaps while avoiding the skyrocketing inflation seen in the first months after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine lost a third of its economic output to wartime destruction and occupation by Moscow, which took over the main heavy industry hubs in the east.

So what will it be spent on?

1. Paying state salaries and pensions – this means compensation for teachers, doctors, nurses, civil servants and other public-sector employees. 2. Ensuring smooth power and water supplies, and keeping other public services running. The Ukrainian government needs to maintain domestic support for the war and has tried to shield civilians from disruption, including in the face of mass Russian airstrikes last winter that led to widespread power outages. 3. Supporting the currency. Bohdan Yeremenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and former diplomat, told Ukrainian media on Thursday that he expected the government to use some of the funds to ease downward pressure on the hryvnia, saying it was important for macroeconomic stability. 4. Safety net for foreign investments in Ukraine. Yevheniia Kravchuk, another deputy from Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle Friday that Kyiv will use some of the aid to provide insurance and stable financing for foreign investments, including plants that produce arms and ammunition.

The Russian Justice Ministry designated Oleg Orlov, one of the leaders of the Memorial human rights group, a “foreign agent”.

The designation requires people and entities who allegedly receive “support” from abroad to place a disclaimer in all of their publishing and mandates strict financial reporting. It is broadly seen as a means to repress domestic opposition.

According to the Russian Justice Ministry, Orlov “opposed the special military operation in Ukraine (the Kremlin’s official name for its full-scale invasion), disseminated false information about decisions by official bodies of the Russian Federation, and participated in the creation of materials for foreign agents.”

Kyiv has informed the White House over plans to sack a top Ukrainian general who had differences with Zelensky over the conduct of the war.

The move to oust General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who has clashed with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over military strategy and other issues, follows a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year that failed to recover significant amounts of Russian-held territory.

A source close to Zelenskiy’s office said the pair also have disagreed over a new military mobilization drive, with the president opposing Zaluzhnyi’s proposal to call up 500,000 fresh troops, Reuters reported.