Ukraine president says long-distance strikes and modern air defences ‘crucial to halting Russian terror’

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has renewed his calls for more air defences and long-range weapons after a missile attack in southern Ukraine killed seven people including two children.

Ukrainian officials released photos showing bodies covered with picnic blankets in a park in Vilniansk, a town near the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, alongside deep craters in the scorched earth and the charred remains of a nearby building.

As a new recruitment drive looms, some are turning to online handlers and forgers to escape the horror of war

The autumn cannot arrive soon enough for Dmytro, when his handlers have promised to get him out of Ukraine.

For the past month, the 31-year-old photographer from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been holed up in his flat, rarely stepping outside, to avoid being conscripted into the army. “I want to leave the country. My mind can’t take being trapped here any more,” Dmytro said.