Summary
Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
Russian forces in Ukraine are so degraded they cannot mount any significant offensive moves and are focused for now on consolidating control of occupied territory, the US intelligence chief said. Avril Haines said Putin’s strategy is likely to be to prolong the conflict until western support for Kyiv wanes.
The White House denied any involvement in an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin. The spokesperson for its National Security Council John Kirby told MSNBC: “We had nothing to do with this.”
Moscow has accused Kyiv of attempting a drone strike on the Kremlin with the aim of killing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said two drones had been used in the attack but were disabled by Russian defences. In a statement on its website, the Kremlin said it considered the attack a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov blamed the US for the attack, saying “decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”. He said “Washington is definitely behind this attack, we are aware of this.”
Zelenskiy denied Ukraine was responsible. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” he said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US could not confirm Russian reports that Ukraine targeted Putin.
Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to The Hague, where the international criminal court (ICC) is based. “We all want to see a different Vladimir here in the Hague, the one who deserves to be sanctioned for his criminal actions here, in the capital of international law,” Zelenskiy said in a speech. “I’m sure we will see that happen when we win,” he said, adding: “Whoever brings war must receive judgment.”
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. No casualties were reported.
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country of that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”. It said, “In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast.”
Russian emergency services extinguished a fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, Tass news agency reported early on Thursday. TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, and that four drones were used. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Residents of the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson were stocking up on food and water after another night of heavy Russian shelling and before an announced 56-hour curfew due to begin on Friday evening. A number said they planned to stay indoors before the curfew and planned closure of the city, adding that they had slept in their clothes or gone to shelters because of the intensity of the Russian attack.
Finland has received a diplomatic note from Russia complaining over vandalism at a Russian consulate on the demilitarised Aland island located in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Zelenskiy handed out watches to wounded Ukrainian soldiers at a Dutch military base on Thursday as part of his surprise visit to the Netherlands, Reuters reports.
The Ukrainian president earlier met the king and prime minister and called for a new international tribunal to be set up in The Hague to try Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression over its invasion of Ukraine.
In his visit to the military base in Soesterberg, near Utrecht, the president met a handful of soldiers who are undergoing rehabilitation treatment in the Netherlands after suffering severe wounds in fighting against Russian forces.
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