New foreign secretary David Cameron meets Zelensky
Vladimir Putin will set out Russia’s view of the “deeply unstable world situation” in a shock G20 speech this week, the Kremlin has said, as Ukraine claimed growing numbers of Moscow’s troops were deserting the frontline in Donetsk.
Ukraine’s military has been bracing for a “third wave” of Russian assaults on the key city of Avdiivka – but a spokesperson claimed Moscow was being forced to rely increasingly on penal recruits and reservists due to its soldiers refusing to take part in casualty-heavy assaults.
Further south, Kyiv’s forces claimed to have pushed Mr Putin’s forces three to eight kilometres back on the banks of the Dnipro River, in what would mark the first significant advance by Kyiv’s forces months into a grindingly slow counteroffensive.
Ukrainian and Russian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the vast waterway in Kherson for more than a year, until Kyiv claimed last week to have finally established multiple footholds on the river’s eastern bank.
