Russian forces capture two more Donetsk settlements; Moscow unleashes deadly drone and missile strikes

Russian forces unleashed a combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, early on Saturday, killing three people, while two other attacks in the country’s south killed three more, said officials.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday Ukraine and Britain “had no room” for cooperation in the Sea of Azov, commenting on a new 100-year partnership agreement between Kyiv and London that the two countries’ leaders announced on Thursday.

Russia claims capture of two settlements in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces took control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said Russia’s Defence Ministry on Saturday, the latest in a series of gains it has reported in its steady advance westward.

The ministry statement said Russian forces were now in control of Petropavlivka, a village between the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, focal points in fighting in recent months in the area.

It also noted the capture of Vremivka, one of a cluster of small towns further south in the Donetsk region.

The ministry also said Russian forces hit Ukraine’s military facilities with high-precision weapons in response to a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s southern Belgorod region with US-made Atacms missiles.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side in the 34-month-old conflict.

Ukrainian military statements made no mention of either of the two villages changing hands, but referred to heavy fighting near the key city of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s popular Deep State blog, which documents changes in the positions held by both sides using open-source materials, placed both Petropavlivka and Vremivka in Russian hands.

The spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s Khortytsya, or eastern, group of forces, dismissed for the second day running any notion that Russian forces had entered Pokrovsk.

“There have been no developments in Pokrovsk, things are stable,” Viktor Trehubov told national television. “The enemy is not there.”

The city is a transport hub and the site of Ukraine’s only coking coal pit, where work was suspended this week.

Russia’s military, after failing to advance on the capital Kyiv in the weeks following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has since focused its efforts on capturing all of the Donbas — made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It now holds about 20% of Ukraine’s territory.

The Ukrainian military’s General Staff, in a late-night report, said Russian forces trying to pierce Ukrainian defences had launched 84 attacks in the Pokrovsk sector. Fourteen battles were still raging in the area.

The report listed a series of villages in the sector which it said had come under Russian attack — including three which Russia’s military said it secured in the past week and another where Russia said it took control last month.

Russian strikes kill three in Kyiv 

Russian forces unleashed a combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, early on Saturday, killing three people, while two other attacks in the country’s south that day killed three more, said officials.

In Kyiv, explosions boomed across the pre-dawn sky as air defences activated against the attack, which also wounded three others, according to city military administration chief Timur Tkachenko.

A shopping mall, business centre, metro station and water pipe were damaged in the assault, he said.

“Russian forces initially launched drones and then a ballistic-missile strike,” wrote parliamentary ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets on social media. “These acts merely underscore the enemy’s ruthlessness and barbarity.”

Rescue workers plodded through a flooded street as they sifted through debris. The charred remains of a van were visible in front of the station, whose facade was marked by twisted metal and blown-out windows.

As daylight broke, they could be seen examining missile fragments and loading a body bag into a truck.

Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian media that both missiles aimed at Kyiv were destroyed, but that one of them was shot down at a low altitude, resulting in heavy damage.

Another Russian missile attack killed one person and wounded 11 in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov.

The governor of the adjacent southern region of Kherson, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Russian shelling killed two people in a town north of the regional centre, also called Kherson.

The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed 24 of 39 drones and two of four missiles launched by Russia across various parts of Ukraine during the overnight attack.

On Friday, a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, killed five people and partially destroyed an educational facility, said officials. One woman wounded in the attack died in hospital on Saturday.

Russia says it will counter any UK-Ukraine cooperation in Sea of Azov

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday Ukraine and Britain “had no room” for cooperation in the Sea of Azov, commenting on a new 100-year partnership agreement between Kyiv and London that the two countries’ leaders announced on Thursday.

The Kremlin said on Friday that any placement of British military assets in Ukraine under the new agreement would be of concern to Moscow, in particular in the Sea of Azov, which Russia considers its own, and the ministry echoed those remarks.

“Any claims to this water area are a gross interference in the internal affairs of our country and will be firmly resisted,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova in a comment posted on the ministry’s website.

The Azov Sea is bordered by southwest Russia, parts of southern Ukraine that Russia has seized in the war, and the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer pledged on Thursday to work with Ukraine and allies on robust security guarantees if a ceasefire is negotiated with Russia, offering more support to Zelensky with a 100-year partnership deal.

The agreement, announced in Kyiv during Starmer’s first visit as prime minister, covered several areas, including boosting military cooperation to strengthen security in the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine says it struck oil depots in Russia’s Kaluga, Tula regions

Ukraine on Saturday claimed a pair of attacks on oil depots in western Russia, the latest salvo in Kyiv’s air campaign against strategic targets on Russian soil.

Kyiv’s General Staff said its forces had struck storage facilities overnight in the Kaluga and Tula regions. Damages were still being assessed, it said in statements on each attack, adding that the depots supported Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

Kaluga’s regional governor, Vladislav Shapsha, said on Telegram that a fire had broken out after an industrial site was hit in the city of Lyudinovo.

He later said seven drones had been downed, with one landing in a “non-residential area”.

Tula’s regional governor, Dmitry Milyaev, said on Telegram that a fuel and lubricant tank had caught fire at a facility in the region as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack. DM