Russia has admitted launching an Iskander cruise missile at Chaplino railway station in a strike that killed 25 people, including two children.
The defence ministry in Moscow said, however, that it had hit a military train, and killed more than 200 Ukrainian servicemen, without providing supporting evidence.
The missiles slammed “directly” into four train carriages at the station in the Dnipropetrovsk region, President Zelensky of Ukraine said.
A further 31 people were said to have been wounded in the attack, which coincided with Ukraine’s Independence Day and a surprise visit by Boris Johnson.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a presidential aide, said that the death toll had risen from yesterday’s report of 22. He said an 11-year-old boy had been killed when a missile struck a nearby building
Uvalde's district police chief has been sacked over the hesitant response by hundreds of heavily armed law enforcement officers during the May massacre at Robb Elementary School.
In a unanimous vote, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District's (UCISD) board of trustees dismissed police chief Pete Arredondo, three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history.
He had been on unpaid administrative leave since shortly after the 24 May shooting.
Parents yelled "coward" in the room where the meeting took place.
Mr Arredondo did not attend, however minutes before it got underway his lawyer released a scathing 4,500-word letter that amounted to the police chief's fullest defence so far of his actions.
Over 17 defiant pages, it insisted Mr Arredondo was not the fumbling school police chief who a damning state investigation blamed for not taking command and wasted time by looking for keys to a likely unlocked door, but a brave officer whose level-headed decisions saved the lives of other students.
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The letter also accused Uvalde school officials of putting his life at risk by not letting him carry a weapon to the school board meeting.
"Chief Arredondo is a leader and a courageous officer who with all of the other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives saved, instead of vilified for those they couldn't reach in time," the letter stated.
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It also said the district was in the wrong for dismissing him, saying it did not carry out any investigation "establishing evidence supporting a decision to terminate" his employment.
Image:Parents and family members hold signs at a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District
Because Mr Arredondo was UCISD police chief, the school board had the power to fire him.
State police and a damning investigative report in July criticised the former police chief of the roughly 4,000-student school district for failing to take charge of the scene, not breaching the classroom sooner and wasting time by looking for a key to a likely unlocked door.
Investigations and body camera footage have laid bare how police rushed to the scene with bulletproof shields and high-powered rifles within minutes - but waited more than an hour before finally confronting the gunman in a classroom of fourth graders.
Superintendent Hal Harrell had first moved to fire Mr Arredondo in July but postponed the decision at the request of the police chief's attorney.
Only one other police official at the scene, Uvalde police lieutenant Mariano Pargas, is known to have been placed on leave since the shooting.
Mr Pargas was the city's acting police chief during the massacre.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which had more than 90 state troopers at the scene, has also launched an internal investigation into the response by state police.
The dugong has been declared functionally extinct in Chinese waters.
Fishing and ship strikes have caused a rapid decline of the "sea cows" since the 1970s, according to research by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
There has been no evidence of their presence in China since 2008, the teams found.
Their research said "this is the first functional extinction of a large mammal in China's coastal waters".
The marine mammal, whose diet is highly dependent on seagrass, has been classified as a Grade 1 National Key Protected Animal since 1998 by China's State Council.
The report said their marine habitats have been rapidly degraded by humans and although restoration and recovery efforts are a key priority in China they take "time that dugongs may no longer have".
Dugongs are found in coastal waters from East Africa to Vanuatu and as far north as Japan.
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The gentle animals are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Their appearance is thought to have inspired ancient stories of mermaids and sirens.
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Professor Samuel Turvey of ZSL's Institute of Zoology, a co-author of the study, said the likely disappearance of dugongs in China was a devastating loss.
"Their absence will not only have a knock-on effect on ecosystem function, but also serves as a wake-up call - a sobering reminder that extinctions can occur before effective conservation actions are developed," he said.
A team of international scientists conducted interviews in 66 fishing communities across four Chinese provinces along the coastal region of the South China Sea.
The authors said they would welcome any evidence dugongs might still exist in China.
They recommended the species' regional status be reassessed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct).
Japan is preparing a big shift on nuclear power, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announcing plans to look at the construction of new plants, in what would be a break with more than a decade of energy policy.
With energy prices soaring in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kishida said Japan would restart more nuclear plants shut down after the 2011 Fukushima disaster and also study the development of next-generation reactors.
The prime minister had already announced the restart of some plants after Tokyo came close to suffering a power blackout this year, but his tentative plans for new nuclear reactors would be a U-turn on post-Fukushima policy.
No new plants have been built since the 2011 disaster, when the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history led to the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The big increase in global energy prices largely driven by the Ukraine war has made other countries reconsider energy policy, notably Germany, which is rethinking its plan, decided in the aftermath of Fukushima, to exit nuclear power by the end of the year.
Japan’s energy policy has been in paralysis since the 2011 disaster prompted the shutdown of most of its nuclear reactors. That has forced Asia’s largest advanced economy to burn additional coal, natural gas and fuel oil even as it pledges to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Because Japan imports most of its energy, it has also been hit hard by the rise in commodity prices. The country relies on Russia for about 9 per cent of its liquefied natural gas.
Before Fukushima, Japan sourced about a third of its electricity from 54 nuclear reactors. Now, only six are operational with restarts hampered by a string of safety incidents and a deep public distrust of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the owner of the three reactors that melted down in Fukushima.
In July, Kishida unveiled plans to restart most of the 10 nuclear reactors that have been given clearance to avoid an electricity shortage in the winter months.
Russia's failure to secure a quick victory against Ukraine forced Vladimir Putin to adapt.
Over the past six months, Russiahas been fighting an information war alongside its military campaign.
How Moscow rerouted the internet
On 30 May the internet connection in occupied Kherson dropped. It returned within hours, but people could no longer access sites like Facebook, Twitter and Ukrainian news.
The internet had been rerouted to Russia. The online activity of those in Kherson was now visible to Moscow and was subject to censorship.
Internet traffic in Kherson was originally routed from network hubs elsewhere in the country and passed through Kyiv.
These connections remained in place during the first three months of the invasion before it was rerouted.
As Russia gained strength in southern Ukraine, reports emerged that it was taking over control of local internet providers in Kherson – either through cooperation or by force.
Once in control, Russia could reroute the internet to Moscow via a state-owned internet provider in Crimea.
This briefly happened on 1 May, before Ukrainian officials managed to reverse it. But on 30 May, with Russia now in control of more infrastructure, it happened again. It now appears permanent.
With the people of Kherson now forced to use Russian internet if they want to go online, they are subject to Moscow's censorship.
For three months they have been unable to access Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Some Ukrainian news websites are also blocked.
Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, an internet monitoring company, says the rerouting has "effectively placed Ukrainian citizens under the purview and surveillance of the Russian state at the flick of a switch."
Internet operators and monitors report internet access in large areas of Kherson is censored to a similar level as experienced in Russia. Some smaller areas are experiencing even tougher censorship, with some Google services blocked.
Ukrainians in Kherson are finding ways to evade Russia's efforts to monitor and censor their online activity.
When Ivanna (not her real name) leaves her home, she deletes social media and messaging apps like Instagram and Telegram in case she is stopped by a soldier who may search her phone.
"You need to be careful," she tells Sky News, using an online messaging app.
Image:Ivana deletes apps like Telegram from her phone when she leaves the house
She goes online using a VPN (virtual private network) which hides the user's location and allows them to bypass Russian censorship.
Searches for the software spiked in Kherson when internet controls tightened.
Image:Searches for 'VPN' rose in June and July. Pic: Google Trends
Russia has also shut down the mobile phone network in Kherson and new SIM cards are being sold for locals to use.
Ivanna told Sky News a passport is needed to buy the sim cards, prompting fears their use may be tracked.
Cautious, she paid a stranger to buy a SIM under his name.
TV and phone communications targeted
In the unoccupied parts of Ukraine, Moscow has sought to destroy the communication infrastructure - such as TV towers and communication centres.
It's a tactic Russia initially wanted to avoid as it did not want to damage resources that would be useful as an occupying force, explains William Alberque, director of strategy, technology, and arms control for the Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Russia thought they were going to win so fast [so wouldn't] destroy infrastructure as it was going to own that infrastructure," he tells Sky News.
But by keeping the lines open, Ukrainians were able to communicate with one another and the wider world.
Ultimately Russia moved to destroy what it was unable to quickly seize.
Examples of the attacks on communication infrastructure have been logged by the Centre for Information Resilience, which has been tracking and verifying attacks like these using open-source information.
One incident logged by the group was a communication centre in southern Ukraine.
Russia's attempt to control information has also included targeting TV towers.
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Kyiv TV tower hit by missile
Power cuts in Ukraine have also caused the nation's biggest broadband and mobile internet providers to lose connectivity.
Disinformation has doubled since the war began
Russia has used disinformation during the war to influence those in Ukraine, the country's allies, as well as its own population at home.
Examples of pro-Russian fake news include a clumsily faked video of the Ukrainian president telling people to surrender (known as a deepfake video) and social media posts accusing bombing victims of being actors.
Image:A faked video of Zelenskyy, where his head was noticeably too large for his body, was shared online
Some of Russia's efforts have been effective. Moscow claimed the invasion was in part to tackle nazism in the Ukrainian government. Searches for "nazi" in both Russia and worldwide spiked in the first week of the war.
Image:Searches for the word 'Nazi' in Russia spiked around the time of the invasion. Pic: Google Trends
Image:Searches for the term 'Nazi' also rose across the world around the time of the invasion. Pic: Google Trends
The number of disinformation sites has more than doubled since the Russian invasion in February, according to Newsguard, which provides credibility rankings for news and information sites.
In March, its researchers found 116 sites publishing Russia-Ukraine war-related disinformation. By August, that number had risen to 250.
Image:RT, a Russian state-controlled international news television network, was one of the sites identified by Newsguard. Pic: RT
It's not possible to show that all of those sites are run on the orders of Russia, however, Moscow has allocated a boosted pot of funds for its propaganda arm.
The independent Russian-language news site The Moscow Times reported the government had "drastically increased funding for state-run media amid the war with Ukraine".
The article cited figures provided by the Russian government. It said 17.4bn rubles (£244m) had been allocated for "mass media" compared to 5.4bn rubles (£76m) the year before.
It said in March, once the war was underway, some 11.9bn rubles (£167m) were spent. This is more than twice as much as the combined spend of the two months before, which was 5bn rubles (£70m).
The research comes as no surprise to Mr Alberque, who says Russia's disinformation campaign has been "constant".
"As they shift into war mode, [Russia] has to go to directly paying salaries and no longer hoping that people will echo its messages but paying them to send a certain number of messages per day," he told Sky News.
Looking forward, Mr Alberque believes the death of the daughter of an ally of Vladimir Putin will be a distraction for those directing Russia's disinformation efforts.
Image:Darya Dugina with her father and Putin's ally Alexander Dugin. Pic: Twitter
Russia has pointed the finger at Ukraine for carrying out the fatal car bombing in Moscow but Kyiv denies any involvement.
An apparent high-profile assassination in the capital has sparked a number of conspiracy theories, including claims the responsibility may lie with a Russian group looking to influence the war.
"The Russian government is going to have to try to control this narrative," Mr Alberque explains.
He adds that propaganda resources that would be focused on Ukraine may now be drawn into the fallout of the death, saying: "I think it's going to be a huge information sink for them because it's going to take up time and attention."
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Estonia has hit back at Russian claims that a woman blamed by Moscow for planting a deadly car bomb on Saturday later fled to the Baltic country.
As tensions spread over the six-month-long Ukraine war, Tallinn dismissed the allegations over the whereabouts of the woman the Kremlin has accused of killing the daughter of a prominent supporter of President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking on television on Tuesday, Urmas Reinsalu, Estonia’s foreign minister, said: “We regard this as one instance of provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation, and we have nothing more to say about it at the moment.”
Russia’s FSB security services claimed that Natalya Vovk, a 43-year-old Ukrainian, was responsible for the killing of Daria Dugina, the daughter of far-right ideologue Alexander Dugin. Vovk then supposedly fled to Estonia, leading Russian nationalists to demand tough action against the Baltic country that has been one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters.
Estonian police said on Monday that Russia had not made any official requests about Vovk.
Indrek Kannik, head of the state-backed think-tank the International Centre for Defence and Security, said the car bomb attack could have been a “false-flag” operation by Russia.
“It is possible that this was the FSB’s own operation, since these people had become a threat. At the same time, it is convenient to blame it on the Ukrainians. Now we are seeing that Estonia can also be dragged into this,” he told Estonian television.
Estonia suffered its biggest cyber attack in 15 years last week following the removal of a Soviet-era tank memorial from the eastern city of Narva, close to the border with Russia.
The attack had no visible impact on the Baltic country known for its digital infrastructure. In 2007 it was hit by a crippling cyber strike that Estonian officials said originated in Russia after the removal of a bronze monument to a Soviet Red Army soldier in the capital, Tallinn.
Reinsalu said the attack last week was part of a pattern of pressure from Moscow on Tallinn for its support of Ukraine, as Estonia has given more aid per capita to Kyiv than any other country.
“Why did Estonia experience the biggest cyber attacks since the Bronze Soldier night? Why did the former president of Russia say two weeks ago that it was their failure that Estonia is still a free country?” he said on Estonia’s public broadcasting channel, ETV.
Estonia has led the calls for increased sanctions against Russia, pushing for a ban on Russian gas inside the EU and Russian tourists in Europe. It has stopped Russians entering the country with an Estonian visa, although Russians can use visas issued by other EU member states.
Tallinn has also provided substantial military support to Ukraine, more than some larger EU countries despite Estonia only having a population of 1.3mn.
Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas told the country’s media on Tuesday that the governing three-party coalition failed to reach agreement on a proposal to stop Russian citizens from voting in local elections. The move would have been controversial as Russian citizens are in the majority in parts of eastern Estonia. The government is already planning to make Estonian the sole language used in schools and kindergartens.
Estonia was forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union during the second world war and regained its independence in 1991. Tens of thousands of Estonians were deported to Siberia during the Soviet era, while ethnic Russians moved into Estonia, leading to high numbers of Russian speakers in areas around the Russian border and in the capital of Tallinn.
Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked a federal judge to prevent the FBI from continuing to review documents recovered from his Florida estate.
They are calling for the appointment of a special master not connected to the case who would inspect the records recovered and set aside those that are covered by executive privilege - a principle that permits presidents to withhold certain communications from public disclosure.
The request was included in a court filing that takes broad aim at the FBI investigation into the discovery of classified records at Mar-a-Lago.
The filing casts the 8 August search, in which the FBI said it recovered 11 sets of classified documents, as a "shockingly aggressive move" and describes the former president and his representatives as having cooperated for months.
"Law enforcement is a shield that protects America. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes," the lawyers wrote on Monday.
"Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid at Mar-a-Lago."
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"This matter has captured the attention of the American public. Merely 'adequate' safeguards are not acceptable when the matter at hand involves not only the constitutional rights of President Trump, but also the presumption of executive privilege," the lawyers wrote.
Image:An aerial view of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home
Separately on Monday, a federal judge acknowledged that redactions to an FBI affidavit spelling out the basis for the search might be so extensive as to make the document "meaningless" if released to the public.
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But US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said he continued to believe it should not remain sealed in its entirety because of the "intense" public interest in the investigation.
Justice Department officials want to keep the entire document sealed, saying disclosing any portion of it risks compromising an ongoing criminal investigation, revealing information about witnesses and divulging investigative techniques.
