Russia is ready to hand over to Ukraine the bodies from a military plane crash in January, according to the Russian state-run RIA news agency, which cited human rights official Tatyana Moskalkova. Russia accused Ukraine of shooting down the Ilyushin Il-76 plane in Russia’s Belgorod region and said all 74 on board were killed including 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers en route to a prisoner swap.
Russia has not presented evidence. Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied it shot down the plane, and has challenged Moscow’s account of events, including who and what were on board. Ukraine’s military said Russia failed to warn it of any plane carrying prisoners and the need to temporarily “deconflict” the airspace. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at the time accused Moscow of “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners”.
Ukraine’s military said on Thursday it had shot down three more Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers, continuing a string of successes. On Telegram, army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said: “After successful combat operations against an enemy aircraft in the night on Feb 29, two more Russian aircraft were destroyed: Su-34 fighter-bombers in the Avdiivka and Mariupol sectors.”
Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops from the village of Orlivka, west of Avdiivka, but the situation on the eastern front remains difficult, Syrskyi has said. Orlivka is less than 2km north-west of Lastochkyne, which was recently occupied by Russian forces.
Syrskyi said the Russian army was trying to seize the towns and villages of Tonenke, Orlivka, Semenivka, Berdychi and Krasnohorivka in the eastern Donetsk region. Those are places where military officials had said they would form a new line of defence after Ukrainian troops pulled out of Avdiivka on 17 February.
In the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces were focusing on retaking Verbove and Robotyne, towns that Ukraine won back in last summer’s counteroffensive in 2023, Syrskyi said.
The Russians carried out dozens of shelling attacks on border territories and settlements in Sumy oblast on Thursday, the Ukrainian military said. “Yunakivska, Khotynska, Bilopolska, Vorozhbyanska, Krasnopilska, Velikopysarivska, Shalyginska, Seredino-Budska, Znob-Novgorodska, Druzhbivska communities came under fire.” In one case, in Vorozhbyan, one person was injured and a warehouse caught fire.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said the west is attempting to “destroy us” and to “contain our development” in his annual address to parliament. Putin said western countries risked provoking a nuclear war if they sent troops to fight in Ukraine.
Nuclear war is a familiar threat raised by the Putin regime and its supporters, and after his speech the US said it did not have any sign Russia was preparing to use such a weapon. “It is not the first time we have seen irresponsible rhetoric from Vladimir Putin. It is no way for the leader of a nuclear-armed state to speak,” said Matthew Miller, state department spokesperson.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has appointed Volodymyr Karpenko as new commander of Ukraine’s logistics forces, according to a presidential decree. Karpenko, previously logistics commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, replaced Oleh Huliaka, who had held the position since 2021.
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts air national guard member accused of leaking highly classified military documents on social media, including information about Ukraine’s air defences, is expected to plead guilty, according to court papers.
European defence and foreign ministers would meet in Paris in coming days to discuss further support for Ukraine and Moldova, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
Ukraine has identified 511 people suspected of war crimes since Russia’s February 2022 invasion and has already handed down 81 convictions, its prosecutor general said in Kyiv on Thursday. Andriy Kostin was speaking at a war crimes conference alongside the chief prosecutors of Poland, Lithuania and Romania and the president of the EU justice arm, Eurojust.
Ukraine planned to export a high volume of electricity on Thursday, taking advantage of lower domestic consumption during a spell of mild weather, the energy ministry said. The country’s electricity exports, which began shortly before it was invaded by Russian troops in 2022, were halted after numerous Russian attacks on power infrastructure and the seizure of the largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia.
A Russian court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a Russian-American woman against her detention on a treason charge. The FSB security service said last week that Ksenia Karelina had been detained on suspicion of raising funds for Ukraine’s armed forces. The Los Angeles resident had been collecting funds for a Ukrainian organisation whose ultimate beneficiary was the Ukrainian army, the FSB said.
Sri Lanka has decided to stop issuing free long-term visas to Russian and Ukrainian nationals who have lived there for the past two years, a government official said.
