Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv troops retreat from key eastern town as Moscow conducts nuclear drills
Kyiv’s troops ‘cannot hold what is ruined’, says battalion commander
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Ukraine has pulled back its soldiers from the outskirts of eastern Chasiv Yar town where they are losing territory to Russian forces.
Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 255th assault battalion, which has been fighting in the area for six months, claimed the Russians burned every building not destroyed by shelling after capturing the neighbourhood.
“I regret that we are gradually losing territory,” he said, speaking by phone from Chasiv Yar, but added, “we cannot hold what is ruined”.
He said Russia is using scorched-earth tactics in an attempt to destroy anything that could be used as a military position in an attempt to force the Ukranian troops to retreat from the strategic town.
Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. The intensity of the Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defensive line in the area has increased over the past month, Kyiv said.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were carrying out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency reported this morning.
Russia‘s Defence Ministry said on Friday it was conducting drills involving Yars mobile nuclear missile launchers, less than a month after it held tactical nuclear weapons deployment exercises alongside ally Belarus.
The ministry said Yars missile launcher crews in at least two different regions were set to move over 100 kilometres (62 miles) and practice camouflage and deployment.
It published a video showing a mobile launcher manoeuvering along forest roads and taking up position before troops covered it in camouflage netting.
“Similar exercises will be held by other missile units in the near future,” the defence ministry said.
In June, Russia conducted tactical nuclear weapons drills with Belarus after what Moscow said were threats from Western powers.
Vladimir Putin said then that Moscow had no need to use nuclear weapons to secure victory in Ukraine, but added that he did not rule out changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.
Lord Coe says Ukraine trip reaffirmed his Russian and Belarusian athletes stance
World Athletics president Lord Coe revealed a trip to Ukraine reaffirmed his stance that the governing body remains right to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from its competitions.
Coe, who also met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, praised the resilience of athletes he met at the country’s national championships, which also served as trials for this summer’s Paris Olympics.
Lord Coe says Ukraine trip reaffirmed his Russian and Belarusian athletes stance
Coe praised the resilience of athletes he met at the country’s national championships, which also served as trials for this summer’s Paris Olympics.
Russia carries out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, Interfax says
Russia‘s defence ministry is carrying out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency cited the ministry as saying on Friday.
Yars missile launcher crews from two units are set to move over 100 kilometres and practice camouflage and deployment, it said, with more crews joining drills in the future.
Hungary’s Orban says he is in no position to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday he was not in a position to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia following media reports that he would travel to Moscow during the day to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Putin, said the fact that Hungary currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency does not give him a mandate to negotiate on its behalf.
“I do not need a mandate as I do not represent anything,” Orban said on his regular Friday morning radio interview, without saying whether he would travel to Moscow later in the day.
“All I do is go to places where there is a war or threat of war that threatens the European Union and Hungary, or has a negative consequence on them, and ask questions,” he added.
Russia warships taken defensive posture, Ukraine’s navy chief says
In a sign of their more defensive posture, some Russian warships that seldom entered the Sea of Azov to the east of Crimea are now stationed there regularly, Ukraine’s navy chief said.
Monitoring data compiled by the Ukrainian Navy and provided to Reuters showed that as of June 27, 10 Russian warships were stationed in the Sea of Azov compared with none in 2023.
Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa said the Black Sea Fleet is primarily used now for logistics, a small amount of coastal territorial control and for firing Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukraine.
He declined to say what Ukraine‘s future plans in the Black Sea would involve.
Ukraine‘s operations in the Black Sea have allowed it to establish and secure its own shipping corridor without Russia‘s blessing after Moscow pulled out of the wartime food export deal brokered by the United Nations last year.
Neizhpapa said the delivery of U.S.-made F-16 fighter aircraft, expected to happen soon, would be a boost allowing it to challenge what he called Russia‘s “full dominance” of the skies over the Black Sea.
“F-16s with the right armaments will be able to push away Russian warplanes. The northwestern part of the Black Sea, particularly the corridor for civilian ships, will be almost 100% secure,” he said.
Ukraine navy chief says Russia is losing Crimean hub in Black Sea
The Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet has been forced to rebase nearly all its combat-ready warships from occupied Crimea to other locations, and its main naval hub is becoming ineffectual because of attacks by Kyiv, Ukraine’s navy chief said.
Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa said Ukrainian missile and naval drone strikes had caused heavy damage to the Sevastopol base, a logistics hub for repairs, maintenance, training and ammunition storage among other important functions for Russia.
“They were established over many decades, possibly centuries. And clearly they are now losing this hub,” Neizhpapa told Reuters in a rare interview in the port city of Odesa ahead of Ukraine Navy Day on Sunday.
“Almost all the main combat-ready ships have been moved by the enemy from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, and the ships are kept in Novorossiisk, and some of them are kept in the Sea of Azov,” he said.
Neizhpapa said Ukraine had destroyed or damaged 27 naval vessels, including five that he said were destroyed by sea mines laid by Ukrainian naval drones near the Bay of Sevastopol.
Russia says it thwarted attack on defence facility in Samara, RIA reports
Russia‘s Federal Security Service said it had prevented an attack on a defence facility in the Samara region in southwest Russia, the RIA state news agency reported on Friday.
Ukraine’s forces pull back from part of key eastern town of Chasiv Yar
Ukraine’s troops had pulled back from part of the strategically important town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region – having faced a months-long Russian assault.
Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. For months, Russian forces have focused on capturing Chasiv Yar, a town which occupies an elevated location. Its fall would put nearby cities in jeopardy and compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes.
The Ukrainian army retreated from a northeastern neighborhood in the town, Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson for the Khortytsia ground forces formation, told The Associated Press in a written message Thursday.
Ukraine’s forces pull back from part of key eastern town of Chasiv Yar
Months of relentless Russian artillery strikes have devastated the town
Child killed after Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Krasnodar
A six-year-old girl died in hospital after a Ukranian drone attack on the town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, the regional governor, said on Friday.
He said six people were hospitalised after the attack. Ukraine has not commented on the incident so far.
Russian court detains air commander linked to Bucha killings
A Russian military court has placed the commander of the country’s 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade in pre-trial detention for two months on charges of large-scale fraud, the Tass state news agency reported.
In 2022, The New York Times reported that Colonel Artyom Gorodilov was in command of Russia’s 234th Air Assault Regiment which Ukraine and the West say killed Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in March that year.
Vladimir Putin has dismissed the Bucha allegations as “a provocation” and said the Russian army had nothing to do with the killings which Russian officials have suggested were staged for propaganda purposes.
Gorodilov, who was promoted for his exploits in what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine, is the latest in a series of high-ranking Russian military officers and senior defence officials to be arrested on charges of corruption in recent months.
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