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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, posted a video on Thursday showing Ukrainian soldiers saying they have recaptured the village of Staromaiorske. In the video, Ukrainian fighters say they have “liberated the village”, located east of Zaporizhzhia city.
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Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, described the situation on the frontline there as “tense”, and on Friday claimed that Russian forces control the Vremivka direction, and that “The enemy suffers significant losses but is trying to hold out in the northwestern part of the village of Staromaiorske.”
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Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force, has said on television in Ukraine that despite a relatively quiet night, residents should stay vigilant as there is still “a high probability of missile attacks”. He said “The night was quiet. There was little activity of enemy aircraft. There are not many nights like this. Many Ukrainians had the opportunity to sleep at least. We hope this day will be calm.”
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Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said Ukrainian ground attacks have intensified in recent days, primarily on the frontline running through Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. Speaking to Russian TV on the margins of the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg on Thursday, Putin said that Ukraine had not enjoyed success on any part of the front.
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Vladimir Putin told African leaders on Friday that Moscow respected their peace proposal on Ukraine and was carefully studying it. Putin also saidthat Russia was increasing food supplies to Africa, including some free grain shipments, which he announced a day earlier, and was interested in developing military cooperation with the continent.
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Russian air defences downed a Ukrainian military drone before it could attack its targets near Moscow on Friday, the RIA news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying. The ministry said the incident caused no casualties or damage to buildings.
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Russian state-owned media outlet Tass reported a Ukrainian drone attacked an oil facility in occupied Shakhtarsk, in Donetsk region. It quoted the Russian-imposed occupying mayor of the city, Alexander Shatov, as saying: “At the site of the fire, fragments from a drone were found. In all likelihood, they hit it with a drone.” He said a fire at the site was extinguished.
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Emergency services in occupied Kherson that three civilians were injured on the left bank of the Dnipro River by Ukrainian shelling from the north.
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Three residential buildings and a garage were damaged overnight by Russian shelling in Seredyna-Buda, in Sumy region.
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China’s economic ties with Russia have helped limit the effect of punishing western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a US intelligence report said on Thursday.
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Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to attend the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg. Late on Wednesday, a close ally of Prigozhin posted a picture purportedly showing the Wagner group leader meeting African officials. In the unverified photograph, Prigozhin is seen standing next to a senior official from Central African Republic (CAR), which has welcomed thousands of Wagner mercenaries over the last few years.
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The European Commission has no money to help Ukraine with extra transport costs after Black Sea deal collapse, sources have said. Sources told Reuters that the Commission had no immediate money in the budget and no clear way to help finance the extra transport costs Ukrainian grain exports will face with the end of the Black Sea deal.
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Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian-born British newspaper owner, has claimed he was a victim of “Russophobia” in the UK amid the war in Ukraine. In an article in the Evening Standard newspaper – of which he is the owner – Lebedev said the country was “long overdue” a reckoning with “corporate hypocrisy”.