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.
Ukrainian military says it downed all 32 drones launched by Russia overnight
The Ukrainian air force said it downed all 32 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack. Three drones were shot down over the southern region of Mykolaiv, its governor said.
Three more were downed over Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the governor.
The Kyiv region governor reported that the air defence was at work to shoot down the drones in the early hours today.
Orban’s plans to visit Moscow sparks concern
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, Radio Free Europe and the Financial Times reported.
Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as neither confirming nor denying the visit. State news agency RIA cited Peskov as saying that Putin had a “busy schedule” on Friday about which the Kremlin would inform reporters later.
It would be the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Putin and Orban have met inside Russia.
Orban, who has maintained a closer relationship to Moscow than other EU nations since the invasion, visited Russia in 2022 without meeting Putin and has met him in other countries.
From the start of this month, Hungary has taken over the rotating presidency of the European Union, a largely ceremonial role tasked with agenda-setting and brokering agreements in legislative affairs.
Earlier this week, Orban visited Kyiv where he urged Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to consider a ceasefire to accelerate an end to the war with Russia.
“The EU rotating presidency has no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU,” Charles Michel, president of the Council of European Union leaders, said on X.
“No discussions about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine,” he said, reacting to Orban‘s visit to Moscow. Hungary, a member of the EU and Nato, has refused to send weapons to Ukraine and vocally criticised EU sanctions against Russia, while stopping short of using its veto power to block them.
Trump camp plan to pressure Ukraine into peace talks
Donald Trump has been presented with a plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine by two key advisers that would require Kyiv to sit down for peace talks with Russia or receive no further US weapons:
Trump military aides give him plan to pressure Ukraine into peace talks with Putin
Proposal would see US use leverage to force Kyiv and Moscow to negotiate
Modi to meet Putin during 2-day visit to Russia
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia next Monday and Tuesday and hold talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said yesterday. The visit was first announced by Russian officials last month, but the dates have not been previously disclosed.
Russia has had strong ties with India since the Cold War and New Delhi’s importance as a key trading partner for Moscow has grown since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China and India have become key buyers of Russian oil following sanctions imposed by the US and its allies that shut most Western markets for Russian exports.
Under Modi’s leadership, India has avoided condemning Russia’s action in Ukraine while emphasizing the need for a peaceful settlement.
The partnership between Moscow and New Delhi has become fraught, however, since Russia started developing closer ties with India’s main rival, China, because of the hostilities in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s army retreats as Russia gets closer to seizing strategically important town
Ukraine’s army has retreated from a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble during a months-long Russian assault, a military spokesperson said yesterday.
Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle.
The Ukrainian army retreated from a northeastern neighbourhood of the town, Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson for the Khortytsia ground forces formation said yesterday.
Ukraine’s defensive positions in the town were “destroyed”, he said, adding that there was a threat of serious casualties if troops remained in the area and that Russia did not leave “a single intact building”.
Months of relentless Russian artillery strikes have devastated Chasiv Yar, with homes and municipal offices charred, and a town that once had a population of 12,000 has been left deserted.
Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 255th assault battalion which has been based in the area for six months, said after Russian troops captured the neighbourhood, they burned every building not already destroyed by shelling.
Shyriaiev said Russia is using scorched-earth tactics in an attempt to destroy anything which could be used as a military position in a bid to force Ukranian troops to retreat. “I regret that we are gradually losing territory,” he said, speaking by phone from the Chasiv Yar area, but added, “we cannot hold what is ruined”.
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, compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
Russia broke international law by jailing reporter, UN experts say
UN experts say Russia violated international law by imprisoning Wall Street Journal reporter
U_N_ human rights experts say Russia violated international law by imprisoning Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and should release him “immediately.”
Putin says he thinks Trump is sincere about ending Ukraine war
Vladimir Putin said he believed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was sincere about wanting to end the war in Ukraine, but expressed ignorance about the former US president’s plan.
“The fact that Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine, we take this completely seriously,” the Russian president said at a news conference in Kazakhstan.
“I am not, of course, familiar with possible proposals for how he plans to do this. This is the key question. But I have no doubt that he means it sincerely, and we support it” he said when asked about Mr Trump’s statement.
The Washington Post reported in April that Trump had privately spoken about allowing Russia to keep Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and the Donbas area, which Russian forces partially control, in return for peace, something that Trump’s campaign has not confirmed.
Russia holds drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers – report
Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces are carrying out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency reported this morning.
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.
Russian attacks kill two and wound 26 in Ukraine
Russian strikes killed two people and wounded 26 in Ukrainian regions stretching from the south to the east and northeast, local authorities said yesterday.
A missile strike in southern Odesa region killed a woman, injured seven people and damaged port infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
In northeastern Kharkiv region, a second woman was killed and a man wounded in a strike by a Russian guided bomb on the village of Ruska Lozova, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Nine others, including four children, were wounded in a drone attack and shelling in the town of Novohrodivka, in the frontline Donetsk region, governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak reported seven wounded in the southern town of Nikopol. He had said earlier that Russian forces had attacked areas near Nikopol with drones and artillery on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.
Russia claims 190,000 troops join this year
Around 190,000 recruits have signed contracts to join the Russian military so far this year, the state-run RIA news agency has quoted former president Dmitry Medvedev as saying.
Mr Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the current average recruitment rate was about 1,000 people a day.
Russia is encouraging people to sign up for the war in Ukraine by paying them well above average wages.
President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no need to enforce a new round of compulsory mobilisation because so many men are signing up on voluntary contracts.
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