Wars 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

Russia captures another village in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces said yesterday they had captured another village in their offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

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Russia captures another village in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces said yesterday they had captured another village in their offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

The defence ministry said Russia had "liberated" the village of Pivdenne, on the outskirts of Toretsk, a larger town which Russian forces have advanced towards in recent months.

Before Russia launched its full-scale military offensive in 2022, the village had a population of around 1,400, according to Ukrainian government estimates.

Moscow has claimed to have taken a string of villages in the Donetsk region in recent weeks -- many consisting of just a few streets.

Russia claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region -- along with three others in eastern and southern Ukraine -- in 2022, despite not fully controlling it.

Its forces have been closing in on Toretsk, a town that was once home to around 30,000 people, in its latest assault.

Pivdenne -- which Russia referred to by its former name of Leninske -- is around six kilometres (four miles) southeast of Toretsk.​

 

[Saif]

Russia says fighting off Ukrainian border attack

Russia said Tuesday it was holding off Ukrainian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles trying to break across the border into its Kursk region, the latest in several such attempted incursions throughout the conflict...

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Russia says fighting off Ukrainian border attack
Agence France-Presse . Moscow 07 August, 2024, 00:10

Russia said Tuesday it was holding off Ukrainian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles trying to break across the border into its Kursk region, the latest in several such attempted incursions throughout the conflict.

Moscow's defence ministry said it had rushed troops and aviation units to the southwestern region after Ukrainian units tried to attack Russian positions just inside the border.

'Border defence troops, together with military units of the FSB border force, are repelling attacks and inflicting fire damage on the enemy,' the defence ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

It said Ukraine launched the attack with up to 300 troops, 11 tanks and more than 20 armoured combat vehicles at 08:00 Moscow time (0500 GMT) and Moscow had responded with air strikes on Ukrainian positions.

The Russian governor of the Kursk region said three people had been killed by Ukrainian forces throughout the day — a woman in the attempted border incursion and two people whose vehicles were hit in separate drone attacks.

The defence ministry said the attack was focused on the settlements of Nikolaevo-Darino and Oleshnya—just across from Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region.

Ukraine did not comment on the reports but the head of the Sumy region military administration, Oleksiy Drozdenko, told residents to pay attention to air raid alerts.

Ukrainian forces said there was 'cynical shelling' of border settlements in the Sumy and neighbouring Chernigiv regions.

In May, Russian forces launched a new offensive, crossing the border into Ukraine's Kharkiv region and taking a string of settlements in what it said was a move to create a security zone to protect Russian border villages.

Russian authorities also said Tuesday that Ukrainian 'saboteurs' had attempted a landing by sea on the Russian-held Tendra Spit in southern Ukraine.

'According to preliminary information, 12 high-speed craft were used—eight of them with the saboteurs and four with fire support,' Moscow-appointed governor Vladimir Saldo said on social media.

'Russian marines opened fire as the boats were approaching the Tendra Spit. Three boats were destroyed with their crews and sank. The others turned back,' Saldo said.

Meanwhile Russia's defence ministry said its forces had captured another village in eastern Ukraine, the latest in a series of gradual advances in recent weeks.

Russian units 'liberated the settlement of Timofeevka,' it said on social media, using the Russian name for the village which is known as Timofiyivka in Ukrainian.

Earlier in the day, the head of Russia's General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, had visited troop positions in occupied parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said.

The general 'heard reports from the commanders of units, summed up his conclusions and set tasks for future actions', the ministry said, posting video of Gerasimov meeting soldiers in underground locations.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine, Russia both claim advances in Kursk region

Ukraine on Thursday claimed fresh advances in its cross-border offensive into Russia, where it said it had seized over a thousand square kilometres, the biggest attack by a...

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Ukraine, Russia both claim advances in Kursk region
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 16 August, 2024, 01:16

Ukraine on Thursday claimed fresh advances in its cross-border offensive into Russia, where it said it had seized over a thousand square kilometres, the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.

Russia said it had recaptured a first village from Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region and announced it was sending ‘additional forces’ to the neighbouring Belgorod region.

Ukraine said it now controlled dozens of settlements and Sudzha, a town eight kilometres from the border.

‘We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometres of territory and 82 settlements,’ said top military commander Oleksandr Syrsky.

Syrsky’s troops launched the offensive on August 6, breaking months of setbacks for the Ukrainian army that has been battling a Russian invasion for over two years.

The top general also told president Volodymyr Zelensky his army had set up an administrative office ‘to maintain law and order and meet the priority needs of the population in the controlled territories’.

Zelensky announced ‘the completion of the liberation of the town of Sudzha from the Russian military’.

At an Orthodox church in the centre of Sumy, the regional hub across the border from Kursk, dozens of mourners gathered Thursday to pay their final respects to six Ukrainian servicemen killed since Kyiv launched its offensive.

Tearful family members of the victims received a steady stream of friends and relatives wearing black and clutching wreaths as the priest intoned a funeral mass and incense hung in the air.

‘It is hard to say goodbye to them, because we want them to live forever, to live among us as honoured sons of their homeland,’ the priest told mourners.

‘Our task is to pray for our heroic fighters and their families.’

Pallbearers lifted the coffins one by one for burial as a choir sang hymns in harmony. Air raid sirens echoed over Sumy as the service ended.

In Kursk, AFP reporters saw around 500 evacuees from border areas queueing for food and clothes being distributed by the Russian Red Cross.

Russia says over 1,20,000 people have left or been evacuated.

The assault took Russian troops by surprise and triggered the evacuation of tens of thousands.

The fighting killed at least 12 civilians and wounded 121 others according to Russian authorities, who have not released a toll since Monday.

Moscow scrambled reinforcement and announced the recapture of a first village in the Kursk region on Thursday.

The ministry said the army had ‘completed destruction of the enemy and restored control of the settlement of Krupets.’

The Russian army also announced measures to prevent attacks on neighbouring regions, particularly Belgorod.

The Russian army has prepared ‘concrete actions’ to defend the Belgorod region from Ukrainian attacks, minister Andrei Belousov said at a meeting with officials including Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

They include ‘the allocation of additional forces.’

Both Kursk and Belgorod regions have seen small incursions since Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine had however never launched an assault of this scale.

Kyiv officials have argued the offensive was a needed act of ‘self-defence’ and experts suggest it could be aimed at alleviating pressure from the eastern front.

Ukrainian troops are however still struggling in the eastern Donbas region, a key prize for Moscow.

‘Most Russian attacks are taking place’ in the eastern Donbas,’ Zelensky said, adding: ‘We are paying maximum defensive attention.’

Russia said Thursday its forces had captured Ivanivka, a frontline village just 15 kilometres from the Kyiv-held transport hub of Pokrovsk in east Ukraine.

Pokrovsk lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern front and has long been a target for the Russian army.

In a daily briefing, the Russian defence ministry said its army units had ‘liberated the village of Ivanovka’ in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, using the Russian name for the village.

Russian forces have been inching towards Pokrovsk for months, taking a string of tiny villages in recent months as they seek to reach the outskirts of the city.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine strikes another bridge in Kursk region

Ukrainian forces have struck another bridge in Russia’s Kursk region as they seek to disrupt Moscow’s combat operations and supply routes, Ukraine’s air force said yesterday.

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Ukraine strikes another bridge in Kursk region
Repels Russian missile attack on capital

Ukrainian forces have struck another bridge in Russia's Kursk region as they seek to disrupt Moscow's combat operations and supply routes, Ukraine's air force said yesterday.

The strike appeared to target a bridge crossing the river Seym near the village of Zvannoye, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of the Ukrainian border.

"Minus one more bridge. The Air Force aviation continues to deprive the enemy of logistical capabilities with precision air strikes," Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram.

He published an aerial video of a blast tearing through the bridge, leaving a large rupture on the road.

It was not clear when the attack took place. Russian military bloggers shared photos of destruction from what appeared to be the same bridge dated Saturday.

Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia's southern Rostov region

Ukraine announced it had destroyed a separate bridge near the town of Glushkovo late on Friday, both of which cross the river Seym.

Ukrainian forces also said they thwarted a Russian missile attack on the capital Kyiv where air raid sirens sounded before dawn yesterday.

"This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack," the Kyiv City Military Administration posted on Telegram after the early morning barrage.

Simultaneous to the missile attack, drones were spotted heading to Kyiv. "All enemy drones were destroyed far outside the city," it added.

No damage or casualties were reported from the attack, which the administration said had "most likely used North Korean ballistic missiles of the KN-23 type".

The United States and Seoul have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Early yesterday morning, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia's southern Rostov region, sparking a large fuel fire, the local governor said.

Videos published on social media showed thick black smoke and bursts of flames coming from the site of the blaze, which the governor said was in the town of Proletarsk.

"In the south-east of the Rostov region, air defences repelled a drone attack. As a result of falling debris on the territory of industrial storage facilities in Proletarsk, a diesel fuel fire broke out," Governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram.

"At 05:35 (0235 GMT), firefighting at the industrial facility in Proletarsk was suspended due to a second drone attack," he added in an update to the post.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine ‘achieving our goals’ in Kursk assault

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday said his troops were meeting their objectives during their offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, launched almost two weeks ago.

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Ukraine ‘achieving our goals’ in Kursk assault
Says Zelensky; Russia rules out peace talks with Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday said his troops were meeting their objectives during their offensive in Russia's Kursk region, launched almost two weeks ago.

"We are achieving our goals. This morning we have another replenishment of the (prisoner of war) exchange fund for our country," Zelensky said, a day after saying Ukraine was attempting to create a "buffer zone" in Russia.

The Kremlin said yesterday it "will not talk" to Ukraine given its incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Kyiv sent troops over the border on August 6, and has since held onto a part of the Kursk region, going on the attack in an offensive that has rattled Moscow.

"At the current stage, given this escapade, we will not talk," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told the Russian Shot Telegram channel, adding that "at the moment it would be completely inappropriate to enter into a negotiating process".

Russian troops capture 'major' settlement in Ukraine's Donetsk region

Authorities in the southern Russian city of Proletarsk introduced a state of emergency yesterday as firefighters battle for more than 24 hours to extinguish a blaze at an oil facility hit by a Ukrainian drone.

Russia said Kyiv struck the fuel storage warehouse -- located in the city of 20,000 people in the southern Rostov region -- on Sunday morning and that the blaze was raging for a second day.

Local governor Vasily Golubev said the "liquidation of the fire is continuing" and that 18 firefighters were hurt tackling the blaze.

Meanwhile, Russia said yesterday its troops captured a "major" settlement in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, where Moscow's forces are advancing.

Russia's defence ministry said it had "liberated" the village of Artemovo, describing it as one of the area's "major population centres," located outside the town of Toretsk, where there has been heavy fighting.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine civilians flee advancing Russian troops in east

Ukrainian civilians on Wednesday fled areas close to the frontline as Russian troops steadily seized more territory across the eastern Donetsk region...

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Ukraine civilians flee advancing Russian troops in east
Agence France-Presse . Myrnohrad, Ukraine 22 August, 2024, 00:16

Ukrainian civilians on Wednesday fled areas close to the frontline as Russian troops steadily seized more territory across the eastern Donetsk region.

The Russian army has captured several towns and villages in recent days, even as Moscow scrambles to fight off a Ukrainian counterattack into its western Kursk region.

Civilians in Myrnograd — under 10 kilometres from the frontline — said that increased shelling had finally prompted some people to leave, two and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

‘I need to leave, because the situation is really getting worse. Every day, not even every day, but every hour, like an avalanche,’ said Maksim, a 40-year-old mine worker.

A recent strike hit the nine-storey residential building where he lives smashed the windows.

‘Thank God I wasn’t home but I decided to leave, because life is precious.’

AFP reporters saw civilians watching as houses burned after a Russian shelling attack on the small town. Firefighters tackled a blaze at another house hit in a recent barrage.

Russian troops are fighting towards the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, a strategically important city five kilometres west of Myrnograd.

Officials on Monday ordered families with children to evacuate Pokrovsk and the surrounding areas, where they said more than 50,000 people still live.

Galina, 74, also left the area on Wednesday, heading to the relative safety of central Ukraine.

‘My son-in-law found a one-room apartment. It’s ok, we’ll cope. We used to live in a dormitory,’ she said.

‘I feel sorry for the children,’ she said, explaining how members from multiple generations of her family were fleeing.

Anatoliy, 60, decided to leave after witnessing two strikes on residential areas.

‘What a mess, but everyone’s alive, thank God,’ he said.

Asked whether he would return one day, Maksim said: ‘I’d like to believe so.’

Russia on Wednesday claimed its latest territorial advance, with the defence ministry saying its forces had captured the town of Zhelanne, around 20 kilometres to the southeast.

Moscow claims to have annexed the industrial Donetsk region, as well as three others in eastern and southern Ukraine, despite not having full control over any of them.

The region has been at the centre of the war between Russia and Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow-backed separatists tried to seize control of the Donbas region and secede from Kyiv.

Ukrainian military units disputed Russia’s claim that it had taken control of the town of New York, one of its key targets in recent months.

Moscow’s defence ministry said Tuesday its forces had seized it in a recent advance.

Kyiv might have hoped its shock border incursion into Kursk, now in its third week, would force Moscow to divert troops from other parts of the frontline.

It claims to have captured dozens of settlements and more than 1,000 square kilometres of territory in the unprecedented cross-border assault.

So far there has been little sign fighting on the frontlines in Ukraine’s east has subsided.

Both countries also launched attempted overnight drone strikes aimed at Kyiv and Moscow.

Russia said it destroyed 45 drones — 1 headed for the Russian capital.

‘This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,’ Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Ukraine’s air force said it detected 72 air targets over Ukraine, with 50 drones and one missile downed, including some headed for Kyiv.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine attacks Moscow in one of largest ever drone strikes on Russian capital

The Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, August 12, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Files Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defences in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February

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Ukraine attacks Moscow in one of largest ever drone strikes on Russian capital
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 21, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Aug 21, 2024 20:00

The Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, August 12, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Files

Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defences in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

The war, largely a grinding artillery and drone battle across the fields, forests and villages of eastern Ukraine, escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region.

For months, Ukraine has also fought an increasingly damaging drone war against the refineries and airfields of Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter, though major drone attacks on the Moscow region - with a population of over 21 million - have been rarer.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences destroyed a total of 45 drones over Russian territory, including 11 over the Moscow region, 23 over the border region of Bryansk, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.

Some of the drones were shot down over the city of Podolsk, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The city in the Moscow region is some 38 km (24 miles) south of the Kremlin.

“This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones ever,” Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app in the early hours of Wednesday. “The layered defence of Moscow that was created made it possible to successfully repel all the attacks from the enemy UAVs.”

Along Moscow’s boulevards, the cafes, restaurants and shops of the capital - which has been carefully insulated from the war - were crowded with little sign of concern, while President Vladimir Putin met Chinese premier Li Qiang in the Kremlin.

Two Russian citizens who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the foiled drone attack simply showed how well defended Moscow now was, and that Ukraine was “playing with fire” by attacking Russia both in Kursk and in Moscow.

Russia meanwhile is advancing in eastern Ukraine, where it controls about 18 per cent of the territory, and battling to repel Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, the biggest foreign attack on Russian territory since World War Two.

Russian media showed unverified footage of drones whirring over the dawn sky of the Moscow region and then being shot down in a ball of flame by air defences.

Moscow’s airports, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky, limited flights for four hours but restarted normal operations from 0330 GMT, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.

Sobyanin said that according to preliminary information, there were no injuries or damage reported in the aftermath of the attacks. There were also no casualties or damage reported following the attack on Bryansk in Russia’s southwest, the governor of the region, Alexander Bogomaz, wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s RIA state news agency reported that two drones were destroyed over the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region to its north. Vasily Golubev, governor of the Rostov region in Russia’s southwest, said air defence forces destroyed a Ukraine-launched missile over the region, with no injuries reported.

The Russian defence ministry did not mention either Tula or Rostov in its statement listing destroyed Ukrainian air weapons. Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday it overnight struck an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system based in the Rostov region.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

The drone attack on Moscow was on a par with a May 2023 attack when at least eight drones were destroyed over the capital, a strike Putin said was a Ukrainian attempt to scare and provoke Russia.

In Kursk, Russian war bloggers said intense battles were ongoing along the front in the region where Ukraine has carved out at least 450 square km (175 square miles) of Russian territory.​

 

[Saif]

Zelensky vows more ‘retribution’ for Russia

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed more ‘retribution’ against Russia on Ukrainian Independence Day Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow announced the exchange of 230 prisoners just over two weeks into Ukraine’s surprise offensive on Kursk. ...

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Zelensky vows more ‘retribution’ for Russia
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv 24 August, 2024, 21:59

This handout photograph taken and released by Ukrainian Pesidential press service on August 24, 2024, shows Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking during the 33rd Independence Day ceremony at Saint Sophia Square, in Kyiv on August 24, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | AFP photo.

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed more ‘retribution’ against Russia on Ukrainian Independence Day Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow announced the exchange of 230 prisoners just over two weeks into Ukraine’s surprise offensive on Kursk.

Zelensky also signed a law banning the Russian-linked branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and called the legislation a ‘liberation from Moscow’s devils’.

Kyiv marked its independence from the Soviet Union at a tense moment in the long war as it mounts a push into Russia and Moscow eyes more east Ukrainian towns.

Zelensky published a video of him standing in a hilly, forested area said to be near from where Ukraine launched its shock incursion on August 6.

‘What the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its home,’ he said, adding that Russia will ‘know what retribution is.’

He called President Vladimir Putin a ‘sick man from Red Square who constantly threatens everyone with the red button,’ referring to nuclear war.

Zelensky later said that one of the ‘goals’ of Kyiv’s Kursk operation was to show Russians ‘what is more important to him (Putin): the occupation of the territories of Ukraine or the protection of his population.’

Kyiv has also said that the Kursk offensive aimed at stretching Russia’s reserves from eastern Ukraine.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with army chief Valery Gerasimov with the Kremlin saying they had discussed ‘countering enemy forces invading the Kursk region and measures being taken to destroy them.’

The Kremlin’s choice of language was a break from previous statements that downplayed the Ukrainian surprise move.

While it has visibly rattled Moscow, Ukraine’s Kursk operation has not slowed Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine.

As Ukraine celebrated independence, Kyiv said a Russian strike on a residential of the easter city of Kostyantynivka, which lies near the frontline in the Donetsk region, killed five people.

AFP witnessed a young boy and his dog walk up to a body, covered by a sheet, on the side of the road and watch as rescuers rushed to remove it.

People embraced standing next to another body, covered by a silver sheet, before emergency services removed it in a black body back.

Ukraine has also carried out some evacuations from the hub of Pokrovsk amid fears it will fall to advancing Russian forces.

Both Kyiv and Moscow said they had returned 115 captive servicemen each in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.

Zelensky published photographs of men wrapped in Ukrainian flags and Kyiv’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said dozens of those included Azovstal fighters from the 2022 epic battle for the steelworks in Mariupol.

Ukraine has said one of th aims of its Kursk operation was to gain more Russian captives to get back its men from Russia.

Widespread reports of young conscripts going missing in Kursk have filled the Russian internet in recent days.

Moscow released images of young-looking men on a bus, saying it freed 115 servicemen ‘taken prisoner in the Kursk region.’

Russia said the troops were currently in Belarus and will be brought to Russia soon.

At Kyiv’s Sofia Square in front of St Michael’s Cathedral, Zelensky said a new law banning the Russian-linked church ‘protects Ukrainian Orthodoxy from Moscow’s dependence.

Ukraine has been seeking to distance itself from the Russian church since 2014 and those efforts have accelerated since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russia’s invasion has been backed by the country’s Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill, a staunch ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has slammed the move as ‘illegal’ and its church earlier this week said Ukraine’s law was comparable to ‘persecutions in the Roman Empire in the times of Nero and Diocletian.’

As Zelensky vowed more retribution for Russia, Ukraine’s military intelligence said it had carried out a ‘successful’ attack on an ammunition depot in Russia’s southern Voronezh region, near the town of Ostrogozk.

Russia said Saturday its air defences had destroyed seven Ukrainian drones over its southern Voronezh region and Belgorod and Bryansk border regions, with the Voronezh governor reporting the evacuation of a village.

Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev earlier said a state of emergency was declared in the Ostrogozk district after drone strikes, with 200 people evacuated from one village.

Gusev did not say exactly what was struck but said one woman was hospitalised in a ‘serious condition’.​