Kyiv defended itself against the eighth consecutive nightly drone attack early on Thursday morning, the Kyiv Regional Military Admistration (KMVA) said on Telegram. No damage was recorded in preliminary reports. The Ukrainian air force claimed to have shot down all 15 “Shahed” suicide drones launched overnight.
Three civilians and four emergency service workers have been injured in a Russian strike on Kherson, according to Ukraine’s state broadcaster. Serhiy Kruk, the head of Ukraine’s state emergency service, posted to social media images of bloodied and injured emergency workers and damaged emergency equipment as a result of what Ukraine claims has been a “double tap” attack near a church.
Russian forces have made no headway along the front lines, but are entrenched in heavily mined areas they control, making it difficult for Ukrainian troops to move east and south, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday. Deputy Ukrainian Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Russian forces had “tried quite persistently to halt our advance in the Bakhmut sector. Without success”. Russian forces, she wrote on the Telegram messaging app, were beefing up reserves and equipment in three areas further north, where heavy fighting has also been reported in recent weeks.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s security council, told Ukrainian national television on Wednesday that Russian forces had ample time in months of occupation to prepare defences and lay extensive minefields. “The number of mines on the territory that our troops have retaken is utterly mad. On average, there are three, four, five mines per square metre,” he said. Danilov restated assertions by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the advances, while slower than hoped, could not be rushed as human lives were at stake. “No one can set deadlines for us, except ourselves... there is no fixed schedule,” he said.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has said Ukraine’s counteroffensive is being hindered by Ukraine’s plant life. In its daily intelligence briefing it noted “Undergrowth regrowing across the battlefields of southern Ukraine is likely one factor contributing to the generally slow progress of combat in the area. The predominately arable land in the combat zone has now been left fallow for 18 months, with the return of weeds and shrubs accelerating under the warm, damp summer conditions. The extra cover helps camouflage Russian defensive positions and makes defensive mine fields harder to clear.”
Russia claims overnight it downed six drones in the Kaluga region, followed by another in the morning. “There are no consequences for people and infrastructure,” regional governor Vladislav Shapsha said. Kaluga region is to the south-west of Moscow region, and the north-east of Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine.
Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory are being forced to assume Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including possible deportation or detention, a new US report has said. Yale University researchers found that residents of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were being targeted by a systematic effort to strip them of Ukrainian identity. Ukrainians who do not seek Russian citizenship “are subjected to threats, intimidation, restrictions on humanitarian aid and basic necessities, and possible detention or deportation, all designed to force them to become Russian citizens,” the report said.
Fighters from Russia’s private Wagner mercenary force are being moved close to Nato’s eastern flank to destabilise the military alliance, Poland’s prime minister alleged on Thursday. Wagner soldiers have begun training with the Belarus national army, prompting Poland to start moving more than 1,000 troops closer to the border. On Tuesday it accused Belarus of violating its airspace with military helicopters. “We need to be aware that the number of provocations will rise,” Reuters reports Mateusz Morawiecki said after meeting Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda in eastern Poland.
The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, on Thursday again ruled out supplying Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles, saying it was “not a top priority” right now.
Russia has added Norway to its list of foreign states that have committed “unfriendly” acts against Russian diplomatic missions, news agencies reported on Thursday. Countries on the list are limited in the number of local staff they can hire in Russia, with Norway restricted to 27. Norway expelled 15 Russian diplomats in April for alleged spying, and Russia responded by ordering out 10 Norwegian diplomats.
The European Union has warned developing countries that Russia is offering cheap grain “to create new dependencies by exacerbating economic vulnerabilities and global food insecurity,” according to a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote to developing and Group of 20 countries on Monday to urge them to speak “with a clear and unified voice” to push Moscow to return to a deal that allowed the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain and to stop targeting Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure.
Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said the country is considering the possibility of insuring ships going through a “grain corridor”.
