Wars 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

Russia says captured two more east Ukraine settlements

Russia said Sunday it had captured another two settlements in east Ukraine, one in the Donetsk region and one in the Kharkiv region.

www.thedailystar.net

Russia says captured two more east Ukraine settlements

This handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service on July 6, 2025 shows local residents outside a damaged residential building following a Russian drone attack in Vyshgorod district, Kyiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Handout/Ukrainian State Emergency Service/AFP

Russia said Sunday it had captured another two settlements in east Ukraine, one in the Donetsk region and one in the Kharkiv region.

Ukraine did not immediately comment on Russia's claims.

Moscow has been grinding forward on the front line for over a year, pressing its advantage against overstretched and outmanned Ukrainian troops.

On Sunday, Russia said it had captured the village of Piddubne in Donetsk and Sobolivka in Kharkiv.

Piddubne was home to around 500 people before the conflict and lies just seven kilometres (four miles) from the border of Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Sobolivka village lies some three kilometres (two miles) west of the town of Kupiansk, outside of areas Russia claims it is holding, according to battlefield maps by the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

In two separate Telegram posts, the Russian defence ministry said its army units had "liberated" the settlements of Poddubnoye and Sobolevka, using Russian spellings for the localities.

The Russian military accelerated its advances for a third consecutive month in June.

Its territorial gains for that month were the biggest since November last year, according to an AFP analysis of ISW data.​

 

[Saif]

Russia claims new foothold in Ukraine region

Russia said Monday it captured its first village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region after grinding towards the border for months, dealing a psychological blow for Kyiv as its worries mount...

www.newagebd.net

Russia claims new foothold in Ukraine region
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 08 July, 2025, 00:50

Russia said Monday it captured its first village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region after grinding towards the border for months, dealing a psychological blow for Kyiv as its worries mount.

Moscow launched a fresh large-scale drone and missile barrage before the announcement, including on Ukraine’s army recruitment centres, as part of an escalating series of attacks that come as ceasefire talks led by the United States stall. The Russian defence ministry said its forces captured the village of Dachne in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial mining territory that has also come under mounting Russian air attacks.

Russian forces appear to have made crossing the border a key strategic objective over recent months, and deeper advances into the region could pose logistics and economic problems for Kyiv.

Kyiv has so far denied any Russian foothold in Dnipropetrovsk. Moscow first said last month its forces had crossed the border, more than three years since launching its invasion and pushing through the neighbouring Donetsk region.

Earlier Monday, Ukraine’s army said its forces ‘repelled’ attacks in Dnipropetrovsk, including ‘in the vicinity’ of Dachne.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea—that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Russia used its main city of Dnipro as a testing ground for its ‘experimental’ Oreshnik missile in late 2024, claiming to have struck an aeronautics production facility.

An AFP reporter in the eastern city of Kharkiv saw civilians with their belongings being evacuated from a residential building damaged during Russia’s overnight attacks, and others sheltering with pets in a basement.

At least four people were killed and dozens wounded across Ukraine, mostly in the Kharkiv region bordering Russia and in a late-morning attack on the industrial city of Zaphorizhzhia.

‘Air defence remains the top priority for protecting lives,’ President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media after the attacks, as fears mount over the continuing deliveries of US military aid.

Zelensky said Ukraine was ‘strongly counting on our partners to fully deliver on what we have agreed’.

The air force said Moscow had launched 101 drones across the country and four missiles. Seventy-five of the drones were downed, it added.

Attacks on Monday targeted two recruitment centres in separate cities wounding four people, the Ukrainian army said, in what appears to be a new trend following similar strikes over the weekend and last week.

‘These strikes are part of a comprehensive enemy operation aimed at disrupting mobilisation in Ukraine,’ Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications, a government-funded body, wrote on social media.

It added that Russia had attacked recruitment centres last week in the cities of Kremenchuk, Kryvyi Rig, and Poltava.

In Russia, the defence ministry said that it had shot down 91 Ukrainian drones overnight, including eight in the Moscow region, with the majority of the rest in regions bordering Ukraine.​

 

[Saif]

US to send more weapons to Ukraine: Trump

President Donald Trump has said the United States will send additional weapons to Ukraine, triggering Russian criticism after Moscow claimed new gains in its grinding war against its neighbour...

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US to send more weapons to Ukraine: Trump
Agence France-Presse . Washington 09 July, 2025, 02:10

President Donald Trump has said the United States will send additional weapons to Ukraine, triggering Russian criticism after Moscow claimed new gains in its grinding war against its neighbour.

The Kremlin warned Tuesday that sending arms to Ukraine only serves to prolong the conflict, a day after Trump’s pledge for ‘more weapons’ for Ukraine to defend itself.

‘It is obvious of course that these actions probably do not align with attempts to promote a peaceful resolution,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying in a briefing.

Trump’s announcement to send weapons to Ukraine Monday followed Washington saying last week that it was halting some weapons shipments to Kyiv, leaving Ukrainian officials caught off guard and scrambling for clarity.

A pause poses a potentially serious challenge for Kyiv, which is contending with some of Russia’s largest missile and drone attacks of the more than three-year war.

‘We’re going to have to send more weapons—defensive weapons primarily,’ Trump told journalists at the White House.

‘They’re getting hit very, very hard,’ he said of Ukraine, while adding that he was ‘not happy’ with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Trump has reportedly promised to immediately send 10 Patriot interceptors—anti-missile systems—to Ukraine, according to US news website Axios.

Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has shown little willingness to end the conflict despite pressure from Trump.

The US president’s pledge to ship more arms to Ukraine came after Moscow said Monday that its forces captured its first village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region after advancing towards it for months.

Russia launched a fresh large-scale drone and missile barrage before the announcement, including on Ukraine’s military recruitment centres.

Kyiv also said it carried out a drone attack on a Russian ammunition factory in the Moscow region.

Russia said its forces captured the village of Dachne in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial mining territory that has come under mounting Russian air attacks.

Last month, Moscow said its forces had crossed the border into the Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time in its campaign.

Russian forces appear to have made crossing the regional border a key strategic objective in recent months, and deeper advances there could pose logistical and economic problems for Ukraine.

Kyiv has so far denied any Russian foothold in Dnipropetrovsk.

Ukraine’s military said earlier Monday its forces ‘repelled’ attacks in Dnipropetrovsk, including ‘in the vicinity’ of Dachne.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea—that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Describing the situation in Dnipropetrovsk as ‘difficult’ for Kyiv’s forces, Ukrainian military expert Oleksiy Kopytko said Russia hopes to create some kind of buffer zone in the region.

‘Our troops are holding their ground quite steadily,’ he told AFP.

The White House said last week it was halting some key weapons shipments to Ukraine that were promised under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, without providing details on which weapons programs were affected.

It said the decision was taken after a review of US defence needs and of its military assistance to foreign countries.

Kyiv has long feared halts to US aid after Trump returned to the White House in January, having criticised the tens of billions of dollars in support and weapons sent by Biden.

Under the Biden administration, Washington committed to providing more than $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.

Trump has announced no new military aid packages for Kyiv since taking office for the second time.

The Republican president instead has pushed the two sides into peace talks, including in phone calls with Putin. The Russian leader has rejected pleas for a ceasefire and demanded Ukraine cedes more territory if it wants an end to the war.

Ahead of Trump’s remarks on Monday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said air defence remained the ‘top priority for protecting lives,’ and his country was counting on partners to ‘fully deliver on what we have agreed.’​

 

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Russia says it has evidence Ukraine has repeatedly used anti-personnel landmines

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it has evidence that Ukraine has repeatedly used anti-personnel mines which have injured civilians and so Kyiv's exit from the Ottawa Convention would have no impact on the battlefield. Ukraine last month announced its withdrawal from the Ottawa Con

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Russia says it has evidence Ukraine has repeatedly used anti-personnel landmines

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 09, 2025 19:17
Updated :
Jul 09, 2025 19:17

Representational image: A Ukrainian serviceman fires a 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position in Donetsk region, Ukraine September 13, 2023. Photo : Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii Nuzhnenko

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it has evidence that Ukraine has repeatedly used anti-personnel mines which have injured civilians and so Kyiv's exit from the Ottawa Convention would have no impact on the battlefield.

Ukraine last month announced its withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention which banning the production and use of anti-personnel mines. It said it was a necessary step in view of Russian tactics in their 40-month-old war.

Russia is not a party to the treaty and Ukraine says Russia has used landmines extensively in the war.

"The use of anti-personnel mines by the Kyiv regime against civilians is regularly recorded by our law enforcement agencies," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.

"Ukraine's decision to withdraw from the mechanism... fits into the general course of the collective West and its satellites to revise and undermine the international legal system in the field of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation."

Zakharova noted that under the text, opens new tab of the Ottawa Treaty withdrawal during an armed conflict from the convention should not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.

"The decision to withdraw from the convention comes into force only after the end of the said armed conflict," Zakharova said. "We proceed from the fact that this provision is fully applicable to the withdrawal process launched by Ukraine from this mechanism."

"At the same time, the obligations of the Convention were not fulfilled by Kyiv even before the aforementioned decision," she said, adding that Ukraine had been obliged to destroy all stocks of anti-personnel mines back in 2010 but had not.

Lithuania and Finland look set to start domestic production of anti-personnel landmines next year to supply themselves and Ukraine because of what they see as the military threat from Russia, officials from the two NATO member states told Reuters.

The two countries, which border Russia, have announced their intention to pull out of the Ottawa Convention banning the use of such mines, and the officials said production could be launched once the six-month withdrawal process is completed.

Russia dismisses claims that it will attack a NATO member as Russophobic "nonsense" spread by European powers in an attempt to convince their populations to accept soaring defence spending.​

 

[Saif]

Russia strikes Ukraine with 728 drones

Russia targeted Ukraine with a record 728 drones overnight, shortlyafter US President Donald Trump pledged to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv and aimed unusually direct criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

www.thedailystar.net

Russia strikes Ukraine with 728 drones
Nato member Poland, allies scramble jets to ensure air safety; Trump vows to send more weapons to Kyiv

​

• Zelensky wants secondary sanctions on Russia's war income​
• Trump aims unusually direct criticism at Putin​
• Europe working on a new sanctions package against Moscow​

Russia targeted Ukraine with a record 728 drones overnight, shortlyafter US President Donald Trump pledged to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv and aimed unusually direct criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian air defence units destroyed almost all the drones, including through electronic jamming systems, Ukraine's air force said on the Telegram messaging app.

Part of Russia's strike was aimed at a western region close to Nato-member Poland. The northwestern city of Lutsk, some 200 km from Poland, was the main target, Ukraine's President Zelensky said, listing 10 other provinces across the country where damage was also reported.

Polish and allied aircraft were activated to ensure air safety, Poland's Operational Command of the Polish armed forces said.

Buildings were damaged but no deaths or injuries reported in what amounted to the biggest air strike of the war on Lutsk, a city of 200,000 people, regional authorities said.

A storage facility of a local enterprise and some parking structures were ablaze, the mayor of Lutsk, Ihor Polishchuk said.

Ivan Rudnytskyi, governor of the Volyn region that includes Lutsk, said 50 Russian drones and five missiles were in the region's airspace overnight.

The attack, which follows a series of escalating air assaults on Ukraine in recent weeks, showed the need for "biting" sanctions on the sources of income Russia uses to finance the war, including on those who buy Russian oil, Zelensky said on Telegram.

Trump said on Tuesday he was considering supporting a bill in the Senate that would impose steep sanctions on Russia, including 500 percent tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports.

"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin ... He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

When asked by a reporter what action he would take against Putin, Trump said: "I wouldn't tell you. We want to have a little surprise."

Separately, Europe is working on a new sanctions package against Moscow.

Trump has shifted US rhetoric away from staunch support for Kyiv towards accepting some of Moscow's justifications for the full-scale invasion it launched in 2022.

But initial rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine have so far borne little fruit.

​

 

[Saif]

Paris to be new headquarters of 'coalition of the willing' for Ukraine

Britain said on Thursday that Paris would be the new headquarters for the so-called 'coalition of the willing' to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, with plans underway for a future coordination cell in Kyiv. Following a three-day state visit in Britain for French President Emmanuel Macr

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Paris to be new headquarters of 'coalition of the willing' for Ukraine

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 10, 2025 23:28
Updated :
Jul 10, 2025 23:28

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron host a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing during a joint military visit to the Northwood Headquarters, on July 10, 2025 in London, England. Photo : Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS

Britain said on Thursday that Paris would be the new headquarters for the so-called 'coalition of the willing' to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, with plans underway for a future coordination cell in Kyiv.

Following a three-day state visit in Britain for French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain said preparation for a ceasefire in Ukraine should "continue on an enduring, business as usual footing, to ensure that a force can deploy in the days following the cessation of hostilities".

As part of that the two leaders held virtual talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, other international leaders and US representatives including Special Presidential Envoy, General Keith Kellogg, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Richard Blumenthal.

They agreed the headquarters would be in Paris and led by Britain and France to oversee all tactical and operational arrangements. The HQ will then rotate to London after the first 12 months.​

 

[Saif]

Rubio has ‘frank’ talks with Russia’s Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expressed the United States’ frustration that more progress has not been made on ending the war in Ukraine in a meeting on Thursday with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. “It was a frank conversation. It was an important one,” Rubio said hi

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Rubio has ‘frank’ talks with Russia’s Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 10, 2025 21:32
Updated :
Jul 10, 2025 21:32

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 10, 2025. Photo : MANDEL NGAN/Pool via REUTERS

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expressed the United States’ frustration that more progress has not been made on ending the war in Ukraine in a meeting on Thursday with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“It was a frank conversation. It was an important one,” Rubio said his 50-minute talks with the Russian foreign minister on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia.

He said he expressed to Lavrov what U.S. President Donald Trump has said publicly, “that there’s not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict.”

The envoys’ second in-person meeting came amid intensified Russian attacks in Ukraine. Trump has grown increasingly - and publicly - frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war drags on.

Rubio said he and Lavrov shared some ideas, including “a new or a different approach” from the Russian side, which he would relay to Trump upon his return.

“We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude,” Rubio said.

Russian drones and missiles bore down on the Ukrainian capital early on Thursday, as escalating Russian attacks have strained Ukrainian air defenses, forcing thousands into bomb shelters overnight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had launched 18 missiles and around 400 drones in an attack that primarily targeted the capital Kyiv.

There was no comment from Moscow, which the previous night launched a record 728 drones at its smaller neighbor.

Trump returned to power this year promising a swift end to the war, which began in 2022, and had been more conciliatory toward Moscow than his predecessor Joe Biden, who backed Kyiv staunchly.

But on Tuesday, a day after ordering a resumption of deliveries of U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine, he was unusually critical, saying Putin’s statements on moving towards peace were “meaningless.”

Trump has also said he is considering supporting a bill that would impose steep sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium or other exports.

Rubio said the Trump administration has been engaging with the U.S. Senate on that bill.

Rubio spoke with Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday evening, having already met with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in his first trip to Asia since taking office.

The two diplomats first met in Saudi Arabia in February as part of Trump’s effort to re-establish relations and help negotiate an end to the war.

The counterparts also spoke by phone in May and June.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was relaxed about Trump’s criticism and would keep trying to fix “broken” relations with Washington.

At a conference of Ukraine-friendly nations in Rome on Wednesday, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg met with Zelenskiy.​

 

[Saif]

Russia seizes $50bn in assets as economy shifts

Russian authorities have confiscated assets worth some $50 billion over the past three years, underscoring the scale of the transformation into a “fortress Russia” economic model during the war in Ukraine, research showed on Wednesday.

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WAR IN UKRAINE
Russia seizes $50bn in assets as economy shifts

Russian authorities have confiscated assets worth some $50 billion over the past three years, underscoring the scale of the transformation into a "fortress Russia" economic model during the war in Ukraine, research showed on Wednesday.

The conflict has been accompanied by a significant transfer of assets as many Western companies fled the Russian market, others' assets were expropriated and the assets of some major Russian businesses were seized by the state.

In response to what Russia called illegal actions by the West, President Vladimir Putin signed decrees over the past three years allowing the seizure of Western assets, entangling firms ranging from Germany's Uniper to Danish brewer Carlsberg.

Besides the Western assets, major domestic companies have changed hands on the basis of different legal mechanisms including the need for strategic resources, corruption claims, alleged privatisation violations, or poor management.

Moscow law firm NSP said that the scale of what it called the "nationalisation" amounted to 3.9 billion roubles over three years.​