Ukraine-Russia war live: Putin’s forces breach Dnipropetrovsk while Moscow strikes key energy facility

Debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone sparked a fire on the roof of an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, forcing the evacuation of 15 residents, acting Rostov regional governor Yuri Slyusar said on Wednesday.

“Most importantly, no one was injured,” Slyusar said on the Telegram messaging app, adding the fire was contained.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 15 over the Rostov region, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.

The ministry publishes data on the number of drones Russia destroyed, not how many Ukraine launched.

Slyusar said drones were brought down in seven different districts in the region, with falling debris damaging roofs and facades of several residential houses.

Tass state news agency reported that at least seven apartment buildings were damaged following the drone attack in the centre of Rostov-on-Don.

The reports could not be independently verified.

US president Donald Trump’s doubling of tariffs on goods from India to as much as 50 per cent took effect as scheduled on Wednesday, escalating tensions between the world’s two largest democracies and strategic partners.

A punitive 25 per cent tariff imposed due to India’s purchases of Russian oil adds to Trump’s prior 25 per cent tariff on many products from India.

It takes total duties to as high as 50 per cent for goods such as garments, gems and jewellery, footwear, sporting goods, furniture and chemicals – among the highest imposed by the US and on par with Brazil and China.

The new tariffs threaten thousands of small exporters and jobs, including in prime minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

India’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, an official from the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said exporters hit by tariffs would receive financial assistance and be encouraged to diversify to markets such as China, Latin America and the Middle East.

A US Customs and Border Protection notice to shippers provides a three-week exemption for Indian goods that were loaded onto a vessel and in transit to the US before the midnight deadline.

These goods can still enter the US at prior lower tariff rates before 12.01am on 17 September.

A Russian attack overnight damaged an energy sector enterprise in Ukraine’s Poltava region, its governor said on Wednesday.

The attack temporarily cut power to consumers, which has since been restored, governor Volodymyr Kohut said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia has suffered around 1,078,750 casualties in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022, according to Kyiv’s military.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a Facebook post that 920 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded in the past 24 hours.

The US and Russian government officials discussed several energy deals on the sidelines of negotiations this month that sought to achieve peace in Ukraine, according to five sources familiar with the talks.

These deals were put forward as incentives to encourage the Kremlin to agree to peace in Ukraine and for Washington to ease sanctions on Russia, they said.

Russia has been cut off from most international investment in its energy sector and from striking major deals due to sanctions following the Ukraine invasion that began in February 2022.

The officials discussed the possibility of Exxon Mobil re-entering Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, three of the sources said.

Exxon, the top US oil producer, has held numerous discussions with Russian state-controlled oil firm Rosneft about re-entering the project after receiving approval from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control under the administrations of both former president Joe Biden and president Donald Trump, said a separate source familiar with the matter.

The talks were held during US envoy Steve Witkoff’s trip to Moscow earlier this month when he met with Russian president Vladimir Putin and his investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev, three of the sources said.

They were also discussed within the White House with Trump, two of the sources said.

Ukraine’s military has denied Moscow’s assertions that Russian forces have taken full control of two villages in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Russian defence ministry announced that its troops had seized Zaporizke and Novogeorgiivka, settlements situated just inside the oblast.

However, Ukraine’s general staff rejected the claim, saying that fighting was still ongoing.

Battlefield monitor DeepState, which maintains close connections with Kyiv’s military, reported on Tuesday that Russian units had “occupied” both villages and were “consolidating its positions [and] accumulating infantry for a further advance”.

The Dnipropetrovsk region does not fall among the five territories that Russia has illegally annexed – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea.