Ukrainian troops have advanced by more than a kilometre in the last day against Russian forces near the eastern city of Bakhmut, a military spokesperson said on Friday. “The defence forces continue to hold the initiative there, putting pressure on the enemy, conducting assault operations, advancing along the northern and southern flanks,” military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi told Ukrainian television. Russia has contested the claims.
At least 10 people were killed after a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, far from the frontline of the war. Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, called the attack the biggest so far of the war on civilian areas of Lviv. On Friday morning emergency services announced they had ceased rescue operations.
The US is poised to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, according to reports. Two US officials told Reuters that the Biden administration will announce a new Ukraine weapons aid package on Thursday that will include cluster munitions.
Human Rights Watch urged the US not to supply the cluster munitions to Ukraine, and called on Moscow and Kyiv to stop using the controversial weapons. Transferring cluster bombs to Ukraine would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians, the group said.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters at a climate conference in Vienna that her country would not support such a move.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted in Prague Thursday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was “not fast” but said Kyiv’s troops were advancing. Zelensky arrived in Prague as part of a diplomatic push for Ukraine to join Nato and woo allies for more weapons for its mounting pushback against Russia. “The offensive is not fast, that’s a fact. But nevertheless, we are advancing, not retreating, like Russians,” Zelensky told reporters alongside Czech leader Petr Pavel. “We now have the initiative.”
In a joint press conference with Zelenskiy on Friday morning, the Czech Republic’s prime minister Petr Fiala emphasised how much support his country had already given to Ukraine, and committed to sending more military helicopters and to aid the training of pilots on F16 fighter planes. Zelenisky also visited Slovakia.
The inaugural meeting of a new Nato-Ukraine council, made up of the 31 Nato allies, and Ukraine, will take place next week in Vilnius. Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg describes it as being made up of “equals”. It would allow any member, including Ukraine, to call a crisis consultation meeting if they felt threatened.
In its latest update on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), the International Atomic Energy Agency writes: “IAEA experts have received additional access at the site of Ukraine’s ZNPP without – so far – observing any visible indications of mines or explosives”. It added that inspectors “still need more access, including to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 and parts of the turbine halls.”
Russia’s security forces on Friday claim to have detained a man in illegally annexed Crimea accused of sabotaging the railways in the region on behalf of Ukrainian forces.
In his daily operational briefing, Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, said that one man was killed by Ukrainian shelling in the last 24 hours. He also recorded damage in a number of settlements caused by falling debris after air defence had been in action.
Russian-imposed authorities in occupied Kherson have raised the death toll from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam up to 55.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that overnight Russia struck the right-bank of the Dnipro river near the Antonivka road bridge. Five civilians in Kherson were left wounded. There were, it claimed, 29 strikes in all.
US president Joe Biden’s administration did not sanction or support secret meetings that former top US national security officials held with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other Russians on potential talks to end the Ukraine war, the White House and state department said on Thursday. NBC News reported that the former US officials met Lavrov in New York in April, joined by Richard Haass, a former US diplomat and outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and two former White House aides.
Zelenskiy will visit Turkey on Friday for talks with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the Black Sea grain deal and developments in the war in Ukraine.
Romania is reportedly considering opening a regional training hub for F-16 fighter jet pilots which would ultimately be available to its Nato allies and partners, including Ukraine. Romania, both an EU and Nato member, is host to a US ballistic missile defence system and, as of last year, has a permanent alliance battlegroup stationed on its territory.
The Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has returned to Russia, the Belarusian president has said Thursday, despite a peace deal with the Kremlin under which Prigozhin had agreed to move to Belarus. “As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Alexander Lukashenko said. “Where is Prigozhin this morning? Maybe he left for Moscow.”
