NIKOPOL – Two people were killed in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern city of Nikopol, while Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 17 out of 20 Russian attack drones targeting the southern Odesa region. No casualties were reported from those attacks.
Eight people were injured and dozens of buildings damaged in a Ukrainian air attack on Russia’s Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s army was facing “a really difficult situation” against Russian forces on the eastern front, but that the US’s $61bn military aid package was coming and would turn the tide.
Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrhydroenergo said two hydropower plants were no longer operating after Russian attacks earlier this week caused “devastating damage”.
Unnamed intelligence sources in Kyiv told the Reuters and AFP news agencies that a Ukrainian drone struck a major oil refinery in Russia’s Bashkortostan region on Thursday from some 1,500km (932 miles) away in the longest-range attack since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Russia’s emergency services said a building at Gazprom’s Neftekhim Salavat oil processing, petrochemical and fertiliser complex in Bashkortostan was damaged, the RIA state news agency reported.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy fired the head of the state guards, the unit that provides protection to top officials, after the intelligence services said two of its members were involved in a Russian plot to assassinate him.
Zelenskyy appointed Brigadier General Oleksandr Trepak as the commander of Ukraine’s special forces replacing Colonel Serhiy Lupanchuk. It is the second time in six months that the president has changed the head of the unit that operates in Russia-occupied territories. No reason was given.
Ukraine’s popular former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who led Ukraine’s defence in the first two years of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, was named Kyiv’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. The previous ambassador was fired in July 2023 after criticising the president.
Ukraine’s parliament backed a bill to crack down on voted-on draft dodgers. The legislation includes raising fines for anyone caught trying to avoid the call-up and allowing authorities to detain draft dodgers for up to three days.
Speaking at Russia’s Victory Day military parade, President Vladimir Putin accused “arrogant” Western elites of forgetting the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, and of stoking conflicts across the world. Putin ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow currently occupies about 18 percent of the country.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Seoul would maintain strong ties with Ukraine and a “smooth” relationship with Russia but ruled out direct weapon shipments to Kyiv. (Al Jazeera)…[+]