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Putin’s forces said to be building new defences in southern Ukraine amid ‘growing concern’
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Russia’s war in Ukraine
Ukraine has claimed the recapture of the eastern village of Klishchiivka on the southern flank of Bakhmut after a period of reported heavy fighting.
It follows the recapture of Andriivka, another village in the region, earlier in the week and Kyiv forces are said to be gaining ground. On Sunday they sent drones to disrupt air traffic in Moscow and causing a fire at an oil depot, according to Russian reports.
“Klishchiivka was cleared of the Russians and liberated,” Alexander Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said Russia is likely building new defences in southern Ukraine amid “growing concern” among Vladimir Putin’s forces about Kyiv’s success in breaching its first defensive line.
Moscow’s troops are believed to be “deploying additional checkpoints, ‘hedgehog’ anti-tank defences and digging new trenches” near the Zaporizhzhia village of Tokmak, which is situated just 16km from Ukraine’s forces, and is set to become a “lynchpin” of Russia’s second defensive line, the ministry said.
The general in command of Ukraine’s ground forces said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had recaptured the eastern village of Klishchiivka on the southern flank of Bakhmut, which the Russians claimed control of in January.
“Klishchiivka was cleared of the Russians and liberated,” Alexander Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko also confirmed on Telegram that the village was recaptured in heavy fighting by the “Liut” national police united assault brigade, the 80th airborne assault brigade and the 5th assault brigade. Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield report.
Klishchiivka is around six miles (nine km) south of Bakhmut and had a pre-war population of around 400 people. It is several miles (kilometres) north of Andriivka, which was recaptured earlier this week.
Both settlements were substantially destroyed in months of fighting for Bakhmut.
Soldiers hold flags as they speak in front of destroyed buildings in Klishchiivka, Ukraine
An Ultra-Orthodox Jew blows a shofar during a celebration of the Rosh Hashanah holiday
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Sochi
Yulia and Alexander with their children, who fled the town of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, sit at the humanitarian aid warehouse of the Mayak Foundation in Moscow on August 9, 2023. For a year and a half Galina Artyomenko had been raising funds to help refugees from Ukraine after the Kremlin sent troops
Exterior view of the grain storage terminal during visit of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the Odesa Sea Port, in Odesa, Ukraine
Ukraine released footage on Saturday of troops moving through a war-ravaged settlement in the Donetsk Oblast after Kyiv announced its recapture, reports my colleague Holly Patrick.
Video published by Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade showed troops moving through rubble in Andriivka, 6 miles (10km) south of the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut after three months of intense fighting.
The clip also shows soldiers taking cover behind a broken wall amid mortar fire.
It comes after Ukraine announced a tactical victory in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, taking back the village of Robotyne in late August.
Donald Trump has said he was pleased to hear Vladimir Putin’s recent remarks praising the ex-US president for suggesting that, were he elected to the White House again, he would negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Russian president said on Tuesday that Mr Trump’s statements were “good” and brought “happiness.”
Speaking to NBC, Mr Trump said: “Well, I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right.”
Mr Trump said he had had a good relationship with Putin, something he has said several times before, and denied that any deal he would seek in Ukraine would be a win for Russia and allow it to keep territory it has seized.
“That’s something that could have been negotiated,” Mr Trump said, adding: “They could have made a deal where there’s lesser territory right now than Russia’s already taken, to be honest.”
Here are some of the images from Kim Jong-un’s lengthy visit to Russia this week, where he met with Vladimir Putin and toured various military sites:
Kim Jong Un visits an exhibition of military equipment, uniforms and weapons in Vladivostok on Sunday
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) shaking hands with Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu (R) during a visit to Vladivostok
Kim Jong Un looks at a military jet cockpit while visiting a Russian aircraft plant that builds fighter jets in Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Russia has concentrated more than 50,000 troops near Bakhmu, an eastern Ukrainian military spokesperson has told domestic broadcasters, reports the Kyiv Independent..Eastern Force Grouping press officer Illia Yevlash said on Ukrainian TV on Sept. 17.
Russia has also amassed nearly 275 tanks, more than 1,000 armored fighting vehicles, 150 artillery systems, and more than 120 multiple launch rocket systems in the area, the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
A Ukrainian self-propelled artillery system fires towards the Russian positions at the frontline in Donetsk
Kim Jong-un was gifted with five kamikaze drones, a bulletproof vest and anti-thermal imaging clothes before departing Russia for North Korea, Russian state news outlets say.
The leader’s lengthy visit this week marked “a fresh heyday of friendship and solidarity and cooperation is being opened up in the history of the development of the relations between the DPRK and Russia,” North Korean state news agency KCNA said.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has insisted that Washington “controls” the war in Ukraine, on the sidelines of a domestic economic forum in Vladivostok.
“No matter what it says, it controls this war, it supplies weapons, munition, intelligence information, data from satellites, it is pursuing a war against us,” he claimed.
It comes a day after Norway’s chief of defence argued that Vladimir Putin knows “very well” that Nato poses no direct threat to Russia, given that the forces stationed by Moscow in the Arctic near Norway are currently “20 per cent or less” of the number they were prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
An anti-Moscow guerilla group claims to have destroyed two Russian vehicles in Kherson, according to a think-tank.
“The Crimea-based Atesh partisan group stated that one of its agents destroyed two Russian trucks with an improvised explosive device (IED) in occupied Henichesk, Kherson Oblast, on September 15,” said the Institute for the Study of War.
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Soldiers hold flags as they speak in front of destroyed buildings in Klishchiivka
Col. Gen. Syrskyi via REUTERS
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