Russia-Ukraine war live: strikes on Odesa leave three injured; rouble falls to 16-month low against dollar

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops at brigade headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian frontline region of Donetsk on Monday, his website said.

According to the site, Zelenskiy visited brigades involved in attacks on the section of the frontline facing Soledar, the Russian-held town north of Bakhmut, Reuters reports.

Pictures on the website showed the president and his top aide talking to soldiers in a room with screens which had been pixellated out.

The US on Monday said it will send Ukraine new security assistance valued at $200m.

The aid includes air defense munitions, artillery rounds, anti-armor capabilities, and additional mine-clearing equipment, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.

Britain said its Typhoon fighter jets intercepted two Russian maritime patrol bomber aircraft in international airspace north of Scotland on Monday, within Nato’s northern air policing area.

James Heappey, British armed forces minister, said:

Pilots launched in their Typhoon jets to intercept two Russian long-range bombers this morning, monitoring them as they passed north of the Shetland Islands, ready to counter any potential threat to UK territory.

Romania’s navy said it deployed a ship and a helicopter on Monday to scout for stray mines on the country’s Black Sea coast, after a pier in the seaside resort of Costinesti was lighly damaged in an explosion.

According to Reuters, Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish military diving teams have been defusing those that have drifted into their waters. The sea is also shared by Ukraine and Russia and is crucial for shipments of grain, oil and oil products.

Russian strategic bombers have carried out routine flights over international waters in the Arctic, the defence ministry said on Monday.

Russia regularly flies its Tu-160 and Tu-95’S long-range bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear cruise missiles, over international waters.

In a statement, the ministry said:

All the flights were carried out in strict compliance with international airspace regulations.

It added that the longest flight had lasted for more than seven hours.

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmygal has thanked the German government for its support after Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister visited Kyiv this morning.

Shmygal wrote on the messaging app Telegram that he had had “an important meeting” with Lindner.

The German minister had stressed during the talks “that Germany will further support Ukraine, and our cooperation projects will be long term”, according to Shmygal.

The two countries were already working on five investment projects worth around 247 million euros, and were looking at three more projects totalling more than 70 million euros, Shmygal added.

He said:

We expect the participation of German business” in Ukraine’s post-war rebuilding.

I emphasised that it is necessary to strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation and confiscate Russian assets, which will be the main source of financing for reconstruction.

Lindner’s visit comes as Germany is under growing pressure from Ukraine to send long-range Taurus cruise missiles to boost its struggling counter-offensive against Russian troops.

The German government has so far resisted the pleas, on concerns that the missiles could reach Russian territory and widen the conflict.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, told Germany’s Bild newspaper that the Taurus missiles were “crucial” to Ukraine’s fightback.

Seeking to ease concerns about the long reach of the weapons, Podolyak said they would be used “exclusively on the territory of Ukraine, within the internationally recognised borders of 1991”.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko added to the calls on Monday, saying he had told Lindner during their meeting in the capital that Ukraine was “in dire need of the necessary armaments”.

Klitschko said on Telegram:

These are air defence systems and long-range weapons. And we count on the understanding of the situation by our partners, that it cannot be delayed.

The rouble has fallen to its weakest point in almost 17 months as a collapse in export revenues and growing military spending increase pressure on Russia’s economy.

The currency, which has been steadily losing value in a long fall since the beginning of the year, slid past the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar on Monday morning.

It has weakened 26% this year, making it the third-worst-performing global currency in 2023.

Russia’s central bank said on Monday said it was considering raising its key interest rate at its next scheduled meeting to stabilise inflation, but added that it saw no threat to the country’s financial stability from the rouble’s fall. The central bank blamed the slide in the value of the currency on a drop in export volumes and growing internal demand for imports.

The rouble has experienced a turbulent course since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2021, dropping to a record low of 150 to the dollar two weeks after the start of the war before sharply recovering after the Russian central bank imposed strict capital controls that limited the flow of money out of the country.

By last summer the rouble had rebounded to a seven-year high as a spike in oil and gas prices, partly a result of the invasion, helped Russia raise export revenue as consumer imports fell.

Russian oil revenues have been drastically reduced sincesince western price caps and embargos were imposed, while imports have recovered. The government has also spent billions on the defence industry to continue the war in Ukraine, with many critical goods still coming from abroad.

The fall in the rouble accelerated after the aborted uprising in June by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner group of mercenary fighters caused Russians to move money into foreign accounts.

Dr Janis Kluge, a researcher who focuses on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a thinktank, said:

The Russian rouble is still searching for its appropriate long-term war-sanctions exchange rate. Without capital controls, speculators would have priced in the poor outlook last year.

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The Dutch defence ministry said it scrambled two F-16s early Monday when two Russian bombers were tracked flying toward Dutch airspace as Russia launched an overnight attacks against Odesa, Ukraine.

In a statement, the ministry said:

This doesn’t happen often, but today’s incident demonstrates the importance of rapid deployment.

The F-16s are on standby 24 hours a day and can take off within minutes and intercept an unidentified aircraft.

According to AP, the two planes were identified by Danish F-16s in international airspace over the Baltic Sea but did not enter Danish airspace, the Danish air force said.

These images from the wire show Ukrainian army personnel preparing artillery in the Donetsk oblast region.