The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces has reported that it has seized the village of Andriivka in the partially-occupied Donetsk region. In a statement on Facebook, the general staff said of the battle around Bakhmut: “In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy does not abandon the attempt to break through the defence of the armed forces of Ukraine in the Bohdanivka area. In their turn, the defence forces of Ukraine during the offensive actions had partial success in the area of Klishchiivka. During the assault operations they had success and mastered Andriivka, causing the enemy significant losses in manpower and equipment.”
Air force Col Yuriy Ihnat said in televised comments in Ukraine that an overnight Russian drone attack on the region of Khmelnytskyi was an attempt to target warplanes used this week to attack Russian-occupied Crimea. Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 17 drones at the central Khmelnytskyi region that is home to the Starokostiantyniv airbase. Debris damaged 12 homes and shattered windows in a school, but no one was hurt, regional official Serhiy Tiurin said.
The Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko told Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday that the country has recently supplied 60,000 tons of diesel and 60,000 tons of petrol to Russia, and is ready to further increase shipments
Putin has told journalists that he is open to negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine, but Ukraine does not want them.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that the Russian navy has received two new ships this year, and is to receive another 12 by the end of 2023. The figure is significantly lower than the 30 new ships that in July the president claimed would be arriving. Shoigu was visiting the Russian Pacific fleet to check on the repair and modernisation of its nuclear submarines at the Zvezda plant in the town of Bolshoi Kamen.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence appears convinced of Ukrainian claims to have inflicted significant damage on the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, suggesting that satellite images show the destroyed landing ship Minsk and the “catostrophically damaged” submarine Rostov.
Romania’s plan to double Ukrainian grain transit capacity through its Constanța port in the coming months remains achievable, the country’s transport minister Sorin Grindeanu said on Friday.
A Belgian government official said on Friday it expects the G7 to announce an indirect ban on Russian diamonds in the next two-to-three weeks.
Senior diplomats and defence officials of South Korea and the US agreed on Friday that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is a serious violation of UN sanctions and urged Moscow to show responsibility as a security council permanent member.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to meet Joe Biden in Washington next week. His visit comes as Congress is debating providing as much as $21bn in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion. Zelenskiy is expected to be in the US to attend the United Nations general assembly.
Nato has confirmed to the media that its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, will travel to New York next week to attend the UN general assembly.
Putin and Kim Jong-un gifted each other rifles when they met in far eastern Russia, the Kremlin said on Thursday, and confirmed the isolated Russian leader would visit North Korea though no further details have been revealed. The Russian president, who has sought to strengthen alliances with other hardline leaders, met Kim on Wednesday amid speculation they would agree on an arms deal to bolster Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Britain’s most senior military officer, Sir Tony Radakin, said that Ukraine “continues to hold the initiative, it is pushing Russia back” in a short assessment of the current state of the fighting.
Russia said it is expelling two US diplomats accused of working with a Russian national who is accused of collaborating with a foreign state. The US said the move was unprovoked and wholly without merit. Separately, Slovakia has expelled a diplomat based in Russia’s embassy, the Slovak foreign ministry said on its website on Thursday. The ministry said: “The reason is his activities, which were in direct violation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.”
Satellite images appear to show the dismantling of a Wagner militia base south-east of the Belarus capital, Minsk. The images of activity in recent weeks showed tents being taken down at the Tsel military base in Mogilev region, and may indicate the winding down of the Russian mercenary company’s presence in the country after a brief mutiny inside Russia.
