Ukraine’s state emergency services said on Thursday that it had ended rescue attempts in Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, where it is now known that nine people died in a suspected Russian drone attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that on Wednesday shelling in the Donetsk region killed two people and injured four others, while one person was killed and two were wounded in the Kherson region.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, said “The aggressor does not give up hope of taking Bakhmut at any cost, despite the losses in manpower and equipment”. He added that Russia is losing “considerable strength” and that “very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we once did near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliia and Kupiansk”, all areas that Ukraine has previously liberated from Russian occupation.
The UK Ministry of Defence said that “Russia has made gains of up to several kilometres” in the Luhansk region, and that “Russian commanders are likely trying to expand a security zone west from the defence lines they have prepared along higher ground, and integrate the natural obstacle of the Oskil River. They likely seek to recapture Kupiansk, a logistics node.”
Any attempt to arrest President Vladimir Putin after the international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for the Kremlin chief would amount to a declaration of war against Russia, his ally Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, while directly threatening to attack the seat of any government that allowed it to happen.
A video is circulating on social media of the Ukrainian national flag flying from a tall mast in Crimea, a region annexed by Russia in 2014. It appears to have been filmed near the village of Hrushivka.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday he would discuss a peace plan for Ukraine with Chinese President Xi Jinping during an official visit to China next week.
Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas on Thursday spoke against any weakening of sanctions against Russia under a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, and called for the G7 to tighten its oil cap to squeeze Russia’s revenue more.
A former New Zealand soldier who drew an online following with his dispatches from the frontline of the Ukraine war has been killed. The death of Kane Te Tai, 38, was confirmed by New Zealand’s foreign ministry Thursday, citing Ukrainian government sources. Te Tai, who fought with the International Legion, is the third New Zealander known to have died in Ukraine.
The UN nuclear agency’s chief said Wednesday that the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant “remains perilous” following a Russian missile strike this month that disconnected the plant from the grid. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant needs a reliable electricity supply to operate pumps that circulate water to cool reactors and pools holding nuclear fuel.
Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia was a “journey of friendship, cooperation and peace”, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Wednesday, as China’s president ended his three-day visit to Moscow. Wang Wenbin reiterated Beijing’s claims that it remained neutral in the Ukraine conflict and said China would “continue to play a constructive role in promoting a political settlement of the Ukrainian issue”.
Vladimir Putin has no immediate plans for peace in Ukraine, so the west needs to brace itself to supply lethal aid to Kyiv for a long time to come, Nato’s secretary general has warned in an interview with the Guardian. The fierce fighting, currently centred around Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, demonstrated Russia was willing “to just throw in thousands and thousands more troops, to take many casualties for minimal gains”, the head of Nato said.
Russia’s foreign ministry has warned that Moscow will not leave “unanswered” a UK plan to supply Ukraine with tank shells made with depleted uranium. “This decision will not remain without serious consequences both for Russian-British bilateral relations and at the international level,” it said on Wednesday. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Britain’s decision took the situation to new and dangerous levels.
The UK foreign secretary has said there is no “nuclear escalation” in the country’s decision to supply Ukraine with shells made with depleted uranium. “They are not nuclear munitions. They are purely conventional munitions,” James Cleverly said, a day after Vladimir Putin accused the west of “beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component”.
The Prince of Wales travelled to Poland as part of a surprise two-day trip to Poland to thank British and Polish troops for their efforts supporting Ukraine, as well as to learn more about how the country has cared for displaced Ukrainian refugees.
