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Putin visit comes after Ukarine claims hains on southeastern front
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Ukraine war: Footage appears to show moment drone attack hits building in central Moscow
Kyiv said it shot down 15 Russian drones overnight as the Kremlin targeted sites across Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Vladimir Putin’s troops used Iranian-made Shahed drones to attack targets in the country’s central, northern and western regions.
Seventeen drones were launched in total, Ukraine said, and it was not immediately clear what happened to the other two.
Elsewhere, the Russian president made a visit to his top military brass in Rostov-on-Don, the Kremlin said in a statement.
“Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the headquarters of the special military operation group in Rostov-on-Don,” the statement read.
The visit came after Ukraine claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front.
The Kremlin added that Putin, Russia’s supreme commander-in-chief, listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Army in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military commanders and officers.
Five people have died and 37 wounded, including 11 children, have been injured in a Russian missile strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
People had been on their way to church to celebrate a religious holiday when a central square in the city was hit, the ministry said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was on a working visit to Sweden, said in a message posted on Telegram: “A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre.”
“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss,” he added.
A video accompanying Zelensky’s post showed debris scattered across a square in front of the regional drama theatre, where parked cars were heavily damaged.
The newfound presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus, exiled from Russia after their mutinous march on Moscow, has fuelled fresh anxieties in Ukraine and on Nato’s eastern flank.
Belarus’s neighbours have moved to a heightened state of alert since dictator Alexander Lukashenko appeared to broker a last-minute deal with the Kremlin to defuse the shortlived mutiny on 23 June and host Wagner troops on Belarusian soil.
During a recent meeting at the strategically important Suwalki Gap, a sparsely populated land corridor near their countries’ borders with Belarus and Russia’s enclave of Kaliningrad, Lithuania’s president Gitanas Nauseda warned that north of 4,000 mercenaries were believed to be in Belarus, while Poland’s premier Mateusz Morawiecki branded them “extremely dangerous”.
Read more from Andy Gregory here:
Any attempt to breach Ukraine’s northern border would make no logistical sense, experts tell The Independent
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that people had been killed and wounded after a Russian missile struck a central square in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.
“A Russian missile hit right in the center of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the polytechnic university, a theater,” he posted on Telegram along with footage of the aftermath.
“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss. There are dead, there are wounded.” Zelensky did not specify the number of casualties.
File photo: Volodymyr Zelensky
Separate Russian courts on Friday ordered the liquidation of a human rights organization that preserved the legacy of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and the arrest of a prominent election monitor, in the latest moves in a widespread crackdown on dissent.
Sakharov, who died in 1989, was a key figure in developing the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb program but later become renowned for his activism in promoting human rights and freedom of conscience.
He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1975 but was not allowed to travel to Norway to receive it. In 1980 he was sent into internal exile, which lasted six years.
Jim Heintz reports:
Russian courts have ordered the liquidation of a human rights organization that preserved the legacy of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and have ordered the detention of a prominent election monitor
Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Sweden today and meet with the country’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson.
The Ukraine president will also meet with Sweden’s royal family and other officials to thank them for supporting his country during Russia’s invasion.
“Our primary task is the strengthening of Ukrainian warriors on the ground and in the sky, the development of bilateral cooperation, in particular in the defence industry, Ukraine’s European integration and common security in the Euro-Atlantic space,” he wrote in a Telegram post announcing his arrival.
File photo: Volodymyr Zelensky
The number of troops killed or wounded in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion is approaching 500,000, according to US officials, in an estimate not accounting for civilian deaths.
Russia’s military casualties are approaching 300,000, including up to 120,000 deaths, while Ukraine has lost 70,000 troops, with between 100,000 and 120,000 injured, according to Washington officials quoted by the New York Times.
In addition, Ukraine has suffered at least 26,384 civilian casualties since the beginning of the invasion on 24 February, 2022.
Andy Gregory, Chris Stevenson and Laura Sharman report:
Russia’s military casualties are approaching 300,000, compared to Ukraine’s 170,000
President Vladimir Putin visited the commander of Russia’s operation in Ukraine and other top military brass, the Kremlin said on Saturday, a meeting that came after Ukraine claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front.
“Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the headquarters of the special military operation group in Rostov-on-Don,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Russia, which launched its invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, calls its actions a special military operation.
The Kremlin added that Putin, Russia’s supreme commander-in-chief, listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Army in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military commanders and officers.
The meeting came after Ukraine, whose counteroffensive to recapture land taken by Russia in the first months of the war has been slower than expected, said it liberated a small village along the frontline, its first since July.
The Kremlin did not provide any additional details of the meeting and it was not clear when the meeting took place. Videos published by the RIA state news agency showed Gerasimov greeting Putin in what appeared to be night-time and leading him into a building after a brief handshake.
Putin meets with Valery Gerasimov
Ukraine has said it shot down 15 of 17 attack drones launched by Russia overnight.
Kyiv said the aircraft were Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Ukraine’s northern, central and western regions.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the two drones that were not downed.
The reports could not immediately be independently verified.
It was not immediately known what objects and areas Russia targeted in its strikes.
File photo: Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone
Ukraine’s forces have continued to make gains in the south despite most of the front lines in the war elsewhere remaining static, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said.
The MoD said Kyiv’s troops made progress along the course of the Mokri Yaly river and had secured the village of Urozhaine in the face of “stiff Russian resistance”.
“In the north, Russian forces have continued probing attacks in the Kupiansk area but achieve no significant advances,” the MoD added.
Canada is imposing sanctions on 15 Russian individuals and three entities in what Ottawa said was a response to rising levels of human rights violations and violence faced by political opponents and critics in Russia, the foreign ministry said on Friday.
The sanctioned individuals and entities are senior officials of the Russian government, judiciary and investigative committee, as well as federally funded courts, the ministry said in a statement.
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File photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, speaks with Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov
Sputnik
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