UK defence secretary says Russian aircraft released a missile near a British jet over the Black Sea; Ukrainians prepare for hours-long power outages
At a glance: what we know on day 239 of the invasion
Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, has posted a status update for Thursday which says that yesterday two people died and four more were injured when “a car with employees of the state emergency service was blown up by a mine” in the Izium district.
He also said “a 78-year-old resident of Izium district was hospitalised with injuries during the day”.
It is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
It likely indicates that the Russian authorities are seriously considering a major withdrawal of their forces from the area west of the Dnipro river.
A key challenge of any Russian withdrawal operation would be extracting troops and their equipment across the 1000m wide river in good order.