Ukraine-Russia war live: Putin’s forces launch major drone attack as they claim key hill town of Vuhledar
Vuhledar has been a bastion of Ukrainian resistance since Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion in February 2022
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Putin’s forces have launched a major drone attack on 15 Ukrainian regions, causing widespread damage to commercial and residential infrastructure.
The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 78 out of 105 Russian drones during the assault, with 23 more likely impacted by active electronic jamming.
Authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv said the air force had downed around 15 drones over the city and its surroundings during an air alert that lasted more than five hours.
An attack on the southern region of Odesa damaged power lines, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. Workers restored power to more than 3,000 consumers, though a further 2,000 people remained without power in one of the districts.
It comes as claimed a key town in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops were forced to withdraw from the area after years of fighting.
The Russian Army said it had seized Vuhledar, Donetsk, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Control of the area, which lies at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefields, is significant because it will ease Russia’s advance as it tries to pierce deeper behind the Ukrainian defensive lines.
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The airport in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan is temporarily closed for flights today, the RIA news agency cited the aviation watchdog as saying.
Russia typically announces airspace closures when there are an ongoing or expected Ukrainian drone attacks.
Officials at the Russian defence ministry have not confirmed drones heading towards Moscow or Kazan.
Russia claims key eastern Ukrainian town
Vladimir Putin’s forces have claimed a key town in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops were forced to withdraw from the area after years of fighting.
The Russian Army said it had seized Vuhledar, Donetsk, on Wednesday, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Kyiv’s eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops.
The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era apartment buildings smashed apart and scarred.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov praised China’s approach to the war in Ukraine and said both countries wanted to eliminate the problems that Moscow says lie behind the conflict.
Mr Lavrov wrote about Sino-Russia ties in an essay published in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, marking the 75th anniversary of Russia’s diplomatic relations with communist China.
He praised China’s “balanced and consistent” approach to the war in Ukraine and said its initiatives rightly called for the elimination of its root causes, including Nato’s eastward expansion and the creation of an “anti-Russian military bridgehead in Ukraine”.
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Why has Ukraine pulled out of frontline town Vuhledar?
After more than two years of grinding battle, Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from the frontline town of Vuhledar, military officials announced yesterday.
The loss of Vuhledar, perched atop a tactically significant hill, is a significant development on the war’s eastern frontline. But why has Ukraine yielded the territory after Vladimir Putin threw Russian reserve forces into the fight?
Ukraine’s Khortytsia ground forces formation, which commands eastern regions including Donetsk, said it was withdrawing troops from Vuhledar to “protect the military personnel and equipment.”
“In an attempt to take control of the city at any cost, [Russian] reserves were directed to carry out flanking attacks, which exhausted the defence of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result of the enemy’s actions, there arose a threat of encircling the city,” the statement said.
The tactical significance of the town, situated at the confluence of two major roads, is two-fold. Dominant heights and proximity to railway lines offer Moscow greater protection for their own logistics routes, and a better vantage point for attacks against Ukrainian forces and supply lines feeding the south.
Its capture is another notch in Moscow’s belt, bringing it closer to the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Russia rejects nuclear talks with US over Nato expansion
Russia has dismissed the possibility of nuclear talks with the United States citing Washington’s stance on Nato expansion, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“We see no point in dialogue with Washington without respect for Russia’s fundamental interests. First of all, this is the problem of Nato’s expansion into the post-soviet space, which poses threats to common security,” Ms Zakharova said yesterday.
A day earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will not discuss signing a new treaty with the United States to replace an agreement limiting each side’s strategic nuclear weapons that expires in 2026 as it needs to be broadened and expanded to cover other states.
10 injured as Russian bomb hits Kharkiv apartment
At least 10 people were injured, including a three-year-old child, after a Russian guided bomb struck a five-storey apartment block in Kharkiv, local officials said.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said the bomb hit between the third and fourth floors of the building in the city’s Saltivka district.
“Several floors have been destroyed. An apartment by apartment search is under way. People could be under the rubble,” Syniehubov said in a video posted online.
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said guided bombs had struck two city districts.
Photos posted on social media showed cars ablaze outside the apartment block and firefighters making their way through smoke rubble to get inside the building.
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Ukraine’s troops pull back from key eastern town as Putin’s forces advance
After more than two years of intense fighting, Kyiv’s forces have withdrawn from a key town in eastern Ukraine after Russian troops advanced on the area.
Ukraine’s eastern military command pulled back from Vuhledar, Donetsk, as Vladimir Putin’s troops claimed it had seized the area.
The town, which had a population of 14,000 before the war, was a bastion of resistance that saw off Russian attacks ever since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Alexander Butler reports:
Ukraine’s troops pull back from key eastern town as Putin’s forces advance
The town was a bastion of resistance for over two years since Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February 2022
Russian forces fully control bastion of Vuhledar in east Ukraine, war bloggers say
Russian troops have taken complete control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense Russian attacks since the beginning of the 2022 war, Russian war bloggers and media said on Wednesday.
Russian Telegram channels published video of troops waving the Russian tricolour flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era apartment buildings smashed apart and scarred.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said that Vuhledar had finally fallen after the last Ukrainian forces from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, a unit famous for its resistance, abandoned the town late on Tuesday.
The Shot Telegram channel and pro-Russian war bloggers confirmed that Vuhledar was under total Russian control, though there was no official response from either the Russian or Ukrainian militaries.
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