Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky admits troops cannot retake Donetsk as Kyiv unveils Trident laser weapon
Uzbek citizen held by Russia in connection with chemical weapons chief Igor Kirillov’s killing
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that the country’s military are not capable of recovering the territory currently occupied by Russia without diplomatic pressure from Kyiv’s allies.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Parisien, Mr Zelensky said: “We cannot give up our territories. The Ukrainian constitution forbids us to do so. [But] we do not have the strength to recover them.
“We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table.”
It comes as Ukraine has unveiled a laser weapon capable of downing drones from more than a mile away in a bid to combat Russian aerial attacks.
Colonel Vadym Sukharevsky, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said the laser would be capable of downing aircraft at distances of more than 2km.
“It really works; it really exists,” he said at the Europe Defence Industry conference, adding that efforts are underway to scale up its capabilities.
The announcement follows the UK introducing a cutting-edge ‘Trident’ laser weapon earlier this year. They said at the time they would be sharing its prototypes with Ukraine.
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Russia claims Kirillov killing suspect offered $100,000 for attack
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement today that the unnamed suspect had told them during questioning that he had come to Moscow where he had received an improvised explosive device for the hit.
The statement said he had described how he had placed the device on an electric scooter which he had parked outside the entrance of the apartment block where Igor Kirillov lived.
The statement said the suspect, who was born in 1995, had been offered $100,000 for his role in the murder and residency in a European country.
Investigators cited him as saying that he had set up a surveillance camera in a hire car nearby and that the organisers of the assassination, who he said had been based in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had used the camera to track Kirillov and remotely detonated the device when he had left the building.
Investigators said they were identifying other people involved in the hit and the daily Kommersant newspaper reported that one other suspect had been detained.
Photos show blast scene after Russian general Igor Kirillov was killed
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