? Live: Poland plans to send up to 10,000 soldiers to border with Belarus

8:27am: Poland plans to send up to 10,000 soldiers to border with Belarus

Poland is planning to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the Border Guard, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Thursday.

“About 10,000 soldiers will be on the border, of which 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in the reserve,” the minister said in an interview for public radio.

“We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us,” Blaszczak said.

Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik said on Wednesday that Poland would send 2,000 additional troops to its frontier with Belarus.

5:33am: Russia says it downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea, plus 2 headed to Moscow

Russia‘s defence ministry said early on Thursday it had downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea overnight, as well as two drones flying towards the capital Moscow.

“Two UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) flying in the direction of the city of Moscow were destroyed,” the ministry said in a statement on Telegram.

It said two Ukrainian drones were shot down near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, and “another 9 were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea“. The ministry said there were no reports of damage or casualties in any of the affected areas.

Key developments from Wednesday, August 9:

A deadly Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia Wednesday left two dead and many injured, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a post on social media. Zelensky also posted a video that showed a partially damaged church with fire in its courtyard and smoke rising. The footage also showed another building heavily destroyed and on fire, as well as a damaged basketball pitch.

Poland said it would send an additional 2,000 troops to reinforce its eastern border with neighbouring Belarus, a deputy interior minister said Wednesday, as a record number of migrants try to cross. “This will not be a reinforcement of 1,000 but of 2,000 soldiers,” Maciej Wasik told the PAP state news agency, adding that the move was approved by the defence minister following a request from the national border agency for additional manpower.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(C) France M?dias Monde graphic studio

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)