Ukraine war briefing: Ukrainian army confirms retreat from part of key town of Chasiv Yar

Ukraine’s army has retreated from a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a months-long Russian assault, a military spokesperson said on Thursday. Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. For months, Russian forces have focused on capturing Chasiv Yar, a town which occupies an elevated location. Its fall would put nearby cities in jeopardy, compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

Viktor Orbán will travel to Moscow on Friday for talks with Vladimir Putin, sources said, days after Hungary’s prime minister made his first visit to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Two sources in Budapest told the Guardian about the trip, saying it was planned as part of a package with the Ukraine visit after Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency this week. A high-level EU source confirmed they had been told of the planned visit, which is likely to cause fury in Brussels; Orbán, widely seen as the EU’s most pro-Russian leader, has sought to portray himself as a “pro-peace” politician, but has frequently repeated Russian talking points about the war.

A Ukrainian drone assault targeted a gunpowder factory in western Russia, a Kyiv security source said Thursday, in the latest strike aiming to dent Russia’s military logistics. Kyiv has stepped up aerial attacks on military and energy facilities inside Russia in recent months with the hopes of crippling Moscow’s ability to attack Ukrainian cities or gain more ground in the industrial east. A source from Ukraine’s defence sector told AFP the attack was carried out using explosive drones – one of which successfully hit the military facility in the city of Kotovsk in Russia’s Tambov region, 350 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

Russian strikes killed two people and wounded 26 on Thursday in Ukrainian regions stretching from the south to the east and northeast, local authorities said. A missile strike in southern Odesa region killed a woman, injured seven people and damaged port infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram. In northeastern Kharkiv region, a second woman was killed and a man wounded in a strike by a Russian guided bomb on the village of Ruska Lozova, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.

A Russian military court on Thursday placed Colonel Artyom Gorodilov, commander of the country’s 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade, in pre-trial detention for two months on charges of large-scale fraud, the TASS state news agency reported. Gorodilov, who was promoted for his exploits in what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine, is the latest in a series of high-ranking Russian military officers and senior defence officials to be arrested on charges of corruption since the appointment in May of new defence minister Andrei Belousov. In 2022, the New York Times reported that Gorodilov led forces that Ukraine and the west say killed Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in March that year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he believed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was sincere about wanting to end the war in Ukraine, but that he did not know how Trump planned to do so if elected.
“The fact that Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine, we take this completely seriously,” Putin said at a news conference in Kazakhstan. Putin also said that his publicly stated preference for Joe Biden to remain president remained the same.

About 190,000 recruits have signed contracts to join the Russian military so far in 2024, state-run Ria news agency quoted former president Dmitry Medvedev as saying on Thursday. Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the current average recruitment rate was about 1,000 people a day.

The Kremlin on Thursday said Indian prime minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia on Monday to hold talks with Putin. Russia has had strong ties with India since the cold war, and New Delhi’s importance as a key trading partner for Moscow has grown since the start of Ukraine war as it has become a key buyer of Russian oil after sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.