Russia is planning a “full-scale victory in Ukraine by autumn” and may again try to take the capital city of Kyiv, according to independent news source Meduza. Officials close to the Kremlin have said confidence has spread to the leadership of United Russia, the country’s ruling party, that a full-scale victory in Ukraine is possible before the end of the year.
The besieged Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk appears to be almost completely surrounded by attacking Russian forces. “The Russians are pounding residential neighbourhoods relentlessly,” the governor of Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, wrote in a Telegram post on Friday. The Kremlin continued to make incremental gains in its offensive in the Donbas region, backed by withering shell fire.
