Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
Ukrainian forces have recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and are successfully encircling Russian troops in the city, the deputy defence minister in Kyiv has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Hanna Maliar said Russian soldiers could no longer move around Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region and progress was being made in outflanking enemy forces after months of deadly battle.
Two people have been killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian village of Chausy in the Bryansk region, the region’s governor has claimed. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram: “Currently, two civilians have died from the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Bryansk borders Ukraine to the north-east.
Russia’s defence ministry said early on Thursday it had downed 11 Ukrainian drones near Crimea overnight, as well as two drones flying toward the capital Moscow. It said two Ukrainian drones were shot down near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, and “another 9 were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in the Black Sea”. The ministry said there were no reports of damage or casualties in any of the affected areas.
Ukraine claims to have shot down seven of ten “Shahed” drones launched at it overnight by Russia. Air defence was said to be active in Kyiv region and Khmelnytskyi.
Six residents of Bilozerka in the Kherson region have been hopitalised after Russian artilerry fire hit people receiving humanitarian aid, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Three people are now known to have died after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Wednesday. Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. Zaporizhzhia city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said a church had been destroyed and about 15 high-rise buildings had been damaged. The authorities received requests from residents of at least 400 apartments to repair smashed windows and damaged balconies.
Russian drones destroyed a fuel depot in Ukraine’s western Rivne region on Thursday, governor Vitaly Koval wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant again lost connection to its last remaining main external power line overnight and was switched to a reserve line, state-owned power generating company Energoatom said on Thursday. Additionally, the station’s Russian-installed administration said the Number 4 reactor had been moved from a “hot” to a “cold” shutdown because of signs of a steam leak.
The co-founder of Russian internet giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, condemned what he described as Russia’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, days after criticism in Russia over his apparent efforts to distance himself from the country. Volozh described himself as a “Kazakhstan-born Israeli tech entrepreneur” on a personal website, drawing some criticism in Russian media and on the Telegram messenging platform for apparently playing down his links to Russia. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it,” Reuters reports Volozh said in a statement. “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day.”
Poland is planning to move up to 10,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus to support the Border Guard, the defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said on Thursday. “About 10,000 soldiers will be on the border, of which 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in the reserve,” the minister said in an interview for public radio. “We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us,” Błaszczak said. Last week Poland said Belarusian helicopters had violated its airspace and has warned of provocations.
The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed Russian authorities have stepped up efforts to block citizens’ access to virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to bypass restrictions on the internet. It notes “VPNs are hugely popular in Russia, despite being illegal since 2017. They allow users to access objective international news sources, including about the war in Ukraine.”
Reuters reports that a Zaporizhzhia city official claims Russia attacked a “civilian infrastructure object” in the city on Thursday evening.
Anatoliy Kurtev, Zaporizhzhia city council’s secretary, said on Telegram that a fire broke out at the site of the attack and two people were injured. He did not give more details about the incident.
