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The White House also confirmed that Ukraine was ‘not in a stalemate’
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Ukraine war: Footage appears to show moment drone attack hits building in central Moscow
Ukraine has broken the “stalemate” on the frontline and is making progress in its counteroffensive against Russia, a senior Kyiv official claimed.
The embattled nation began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June this year against the Russian invaders.
But progress has been slower than anticipated as Ukrainian forces try and take heavily fortified Russian positions, surrounded by landmines.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar brushed aside any suggestion that Kyiv’s progress was too slow and said Ukraine had military doctrine by attacking an enemy that has a numerical advantage in manpower and weaponry.
Ms Mailar said: “It’s incorrect to measure this advance by metres or kilometres. “What’s important is the very fact that despite everything, we’re moving forward even though we have fewer people and fewer weapons.”
Her claims were also backed up by the US as White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told a briefing on Tuesday: “We have been clear all along that this battlefield is very dynamic.”We are seeing it (Ukraine) continue to take territory on a methodical, systematic basis.”
Ukraine has made progress in its counteroffensive against Russian forces simply by proving it can push back a better-armed and numerically superior enemy, a senior Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian troops have faced vast Russian minefields and trenches in the counteroffensive launched in early June, and a US official said last week it looked unlikely that Kyiv would be able to recapture the strategic southern city of Melitopol.
But Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar brushed aside any suggestion that Kyiv’s progress was too slow, and said Ukraine had effectively defied military doctrine by attacking an enemy that has a numerical advantage in manpower and weaponry.
“It’s incorrect to measure this advance by metres or kilometres,” Maliar said in an interview. “What’s important is the very fact that despite everything, we’re moving forward even though we have fewer people and fewer weapons.”
She said she was unaware of any Western pressure being exerted on Ukraine‘s military to accelerate operations, and challenged the idea of a universally “correct” tempo.
Ukrainian soldiers of the 28th brigade prepare a mini-multiple launch rocket system at the frontline close to Bakhmut
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be notably absent when Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economie s start a three-day summit in South Africa on Tuesday.
The bloc, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is holding its first in-person meeting since before the COVID-19 pandemic, but Putin will participate via video call after his travel to South Africa was complicated by an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued for him in March over the abduction of children from Ukraine.
Xi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend in person as the bloc — home to 40% of the world’s population and responsible for more than 30% of global economic output — mulls a possible expansion.
That will top the agenda at Wednesday’s main summit meeting in Johannesburg’s financial district of Sandton. More than 20 nations have applied to join the bloc, according to South African officials, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Read the full report below.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be notably absent when Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economies begin a three-day summit in South Africa on Tuesday
Russian air defense systems thwarted four nighttime Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, with the falling wreckage of one drone shattering an apartment building’s windows and damaging vehicles in Moscow’s western suburbs.
There were no reports of injuries in the latest drone attacks that Russia blamed on Kyiv, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone.
Though the drone attacks on Russian soil have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, they have caused little damage. Even so, they have unnerved some Russians and are in line with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pledge to take the war into the heart of Russia.
Flights at several Moscow airports were temporarily suspended Tuesday as a security precaution amid the attacks, authorities said.
Read the full report below.
Russian officials say air defense systems have thwarted four nighttime Ukrainian drone attacks
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Tuesday that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus, a move that Duda said will shift the security architecture of the region and the entire NATO military alliance.
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko said last month that Moscow already had shipped some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus after announcing the plan in March. The U.S. and NATO haven’t confirmed the move.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg denounced Moscow’s rhetoric as “dangerous and reckless,” but said in July that the alliance hadn’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
Read the full report below.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda says that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the BRICS grouping of countries was on course to meet the aspirations of most of the world’s population, according to recorded remarks at a summit of the BRICS countries in South Africa on Tuesday.
“We cooperate on the principles of equality, partnership support, respect for each other’s interests, and this is the essence of the future-oriented strategic course of our association, a course that meets the aspirations of the main part of the world community, the so-called global majority,” Putin said.
The BRICS members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – represent more than 40% of the world’s population and the summit is expected to discuss adding new members, but he did not address that question in his remarks.
Putin was unable to attend the summit in person because of an arrest warrant issued for him in March by the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing him of war crimes in Ukraine.
Putin was unable to attend the summit in person because of an arrest warrant issued for him
Ukrainian saboteurs coordinated by Kyiv’s military intelligence services carried out a pair of recent drone attacks that hit parked bomber aircraft at air bases deep inside Russia, Ukraine media claimed Tuesday. The attacks on Russian airfields on Saturday and Monday destroyed two Russian bombers and damaged two other aircraft, according to Ukrainska Pravda, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone. That newspaper and Ukraine’s NV news outlet said groups of saboteurs were behind the audacious strikes, which suggest that Ukraine’s scope of action is broadening. It was not possible to verify the claims on the ground. Ukrainian media attributed two attacks to the saboteurs: a strike Saturday on the Soltsy air base in the Novgorod region in northwestern Russia, about 700 kilometers (360 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, and Monday’s strike against the Shaikovka air base in the southwestern Kaluga region that is about 300 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian border. The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the attack on Soltsy damaged one aircraft. It didn’t comment on the reported attack on Shaikovka, but Russian media did.
Ukrainian saboteurs coordinated by Kyiv’s military intelligence services are said to have carried out drone attacks on airfields deep inside Russia – one of which appears to have destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber.
It is one of a number of recent assaults on Russia and its military hardware, as well as drone attacks on Moscow. The latest such attack on the capital came overnight into Tuesday.
Responding to the attack on the Russian airfields, British military intelligence said that the weekend attack is highly likely to have destroyed a nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 supersonic long-range bomber. Kyiv says Russia has used the Tu-22M3 to bomb targets across Ukraine with conventional munitions. Western military experts believe Russia has around 60 of the aircrafts.
The destruction of the plane, which can be fitted with conventional or nuclear warheads, underscores the vulnerability to drone attacks of Russia’s fleet of ageing but lethal long-range bombers that are a major part of Moscow’s war effort.
Read the full report here.
UK military intelligence says drone assault on one airfield ‘highly likely’ destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber, as Moscow also faces another drone strike
A prominent Russian journalist said on Tuesday that General Sergei Surovikin, former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, had been dismissed as head of the country’s aerospace forces.
There was no official confirmation of the report by Alexei Venediktov, the well-connected former head of the now-defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station, but it was cited by some other Russian news outlets on social media.
Venediktov said on his Telegram channel that Surovikin had been removed by official decree, without providing any further details.
The general has not been seen in public since a short-lived mutiny on June 24-24 by the Wagner mercenary group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin against Russia’s defence establishment.
Sergei Surovikin has reportedly been sacked
The United States does not think the conflict in Ukraine is a stalemate, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told a briefing on Tuesday.
“We have been clear all along that this battlefield is very dynamic … there is attacking and defending taking place on both sides at multiple points along a very extended front line,” he said. “We are seeing it (Ukraine) continue to take territory on a methodical, systematic basis.”
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan briefs the press ahead of the trilateral summit at Camp David
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Tuesday that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus, a move that Duda said will shift the security architecture of the region and the entire NATO military alliance. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko said last month that Moscow already had shipped some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus after announcing the plan in March. The U.S. and NATO haven’t confirmed the move. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg denounced Moscow’s rhetoric as “dangerous and reckless,” but said in July that the alliance hadn’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture. Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia said it would maintain control over those it sends to Belarus.
President Andrzej Duda said Tuesday that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus
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The Orthodox Church seen between apartments damaged by a drone strike in Moscow, August 22, 2023.
EPA
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