Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was involved in a car accident in Kyiv but was not seriously injured, his spokesman said in a Facebook post early Thursday. Serhii Nykyforov, who did not say when the accident happened, said Zelenskiy’s car collided with a private vehicle. “The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found,” he said, adding that the accident would be investigated. Medics accompanying Zelensky gave the driver of the private car first aid and put him in an ambulance, he said. Eight Russian rockets that hit Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday targeted hydraulic structures, causing enough damage that the water level of the Inhulets RInhulets river was rising and posing a serious threat to the city. This aligns with Ukrainian concerns that Russia will continue to target Ukrainian infrastructure in retaliation for its success in recapturing occupied territories. Kryvyi Rih is Zelenskiy’s hometown. In his nightly televised address, video of which was released shortly after the accident, Zelensky said he had just returned from the area around Kharkiv, adding that “almost the entire area has been de-occupied” after a lightning counterattack to launch Russian troops . “It was an unprecedented move by our soldiers – the Ukrainians once again managed to do what many thought was impossible,” he said. After visiting the liberated city of Izium, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops had retaken about 8,000 square kilometers (3,100 square miles) of territory. Ukraine’s defense ministry has found what its officials believe is a “torture chamber” used by Russian troops to hold Ukrainian prisoners in the town of Balaklia. While some Balakliia residents told the Guardian they had little interaction with Russian forces, who mostly stayed on the outskirts of town and did not experience the scenes of torture and executions seen elsewhere in the country, Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the district Kharkiv. The national police investigation department said 40 people were arrested during the occupation. One resident told the BBC he was held by Russians in the city’s police station for more than 40 days and tortured with electric shocks. Germany has delivered four more Gepard anti-aircraft guns and 65 refrigerators to Ukraine, the German government announced on Wednesday. The four additional units bring the total number of Gepard units supplied by Germany to Ukraine to 24. Kremlin sources “are now working to clarify [Russia’s President Vladimir] For any responsible defeat, Putin instead blames the loss of almost all of the occupied Kharkiv region on poorly informed military advisers,” according to the Institute for the Study of War. In a statement reported by CNBC, the institute said that “Kremlin officials and state media propagandists are discussing at length the reasons for the Russian defeat in Kharkiv Oblast, a marked shift from the previous pattern of reporting exaggerated or fabricated Russian successes with limited detail”. . Prospects for peace in Ukraine are currently “slim”, the UN secretary-general said on Wednesday after a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin. “I have the feeling that we are still very far from peace. I would be lying if I said it could happen soon,” Guterres said, adding: “I have no illusions. at the moment the chances of a peace agreement are slim.” Even a ceasefire was “not in sight”, he said. Putin still believes he was right to invade Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday after a 90-minute phone call with the Russian president. “Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the impression has grown that it was a mistake to start this war,” Scholz told a news conference. Russian troops returned to Kreminna, a town in the Russian-held Luhansk region that was “completely empty” yesterday, said Serhiy Hadai, the region’s governor, and tore down Ukrainian flags that local rebels had raised in celebration. Yesterday, a similar situation happened in Svatove – Russian troops left but returned after a while, Hadai said. Russian troops also left Starobilsk, another city in the Luhansk region.
Important events Show only key events Please enable JavaScript to use this feature The carcasses of Russian Z-marked tanks are dotted across Izium in the wake of the retreat. Photo: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian The destruction of the Russian military in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region looks likely to be a turning point in Kiev’s battle to drive Russian troops out of the country, but it may also have much wider consequences for Moscow, as other ex-Soviet states appear to be witnessing. Countries. the limits of Moscow’s capabilities. The Guardian’s eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, analyzed what Moscow’s setbacks could mean for the wider region. You can read this report here: Updated at 05.55 BST Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Uzbek city of Samarkand in preparation for his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Reuters reports. Putin and Xi will meet early Thursday afternoon, according to the schedule shared by the Russian delegation to the media. The two leaders are in Uzbekistan to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security group. They will also have a tripartite meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh on Thursday. As the leaders prepare to meet, China and Russia have held joint naval exercises in the Pacific. The navies of the two countries conducted regular maneuvers and exercises involving artillery and helicopters, Reuters reported. Updated at 05.42 BST As Moscow’s forces withdraw from the Kharkiv region, our Russia correspondent Andrew Roth reports that some of its supporters are shocked as the Kremlin reneges on an oath that helped push power into captured towns and villages. Just weeks ago, Irina was working for the Russian occupation administration in Kupyansk, a large city in northern Ukraine that was seized days after Vladimir Putin launched a war against the country. But then, as Russian troops left the city and the Ukrainian army retook occupied territory in the north of the country, she and her family fled what they expected would be swift punishment for collaborating with the Russian invasion force. . You can read the full story here: The large city of Kryvyi Rih is struggling to contain the damage to its water system from Russian missile attacks. The largest city in central Ukraine, with an estimated pre-war population of 650,000, was hit by eight cruise missiles on Wednesday, officials said. A report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said footage of the aftermath of the attack shows a 2.5m rise in the level of the Inhulets River in Kryvyi Rih. “The water pumping station was destroyed. The river broke the dam and overflowed its banks. Residential buildings are just a few meters away from the river,” Ukrainian lawmaker Inna Sovsun said on Twitter. The shelling hit the Karachunov reservoir dam, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video clip released early Thursday. The water system had no military value and hundreds of thousands of civilians depended on it every day, he said. The ISW report said the attacks may have been intended to destroy Ukrainian bridgeheads further downstream as part of efforts to disrupt the Kherson counteroffensive, it said. Damage to hydraulic structure in Kryvyi Rih. Photo: Presidential Press Service of Ukraine/Reuters
Summary and welcome
Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. At 7.30 in the morning in Kyiv, these are the latest developments.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was involved in a car accident in Kyiv but was not seriously injured, his spokesman said in a Facebook post early Thursday. Serhii Nykyforov, who did not say when the accident happened, said Zelenskiy’s car collided with a private vehicle. “The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found,” he said, adding that the accident would be investigated. Medics accompanying Zelensky gave the driver of the private car first aid and put him in an ambulance, he said. Eight Russian rockets that hit Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday targeted hydraulic structures, causing enough damage that the water level of the Inhulets RInhulets river was rising and posing a serious threat to the city. This aligns with Ukrainian concerns that Russia will continue to target Ukrainian infrastructure in retaliation for its success in recapturing occupied territories. Kryvyi Rih is Zelenskiy’s hometown. In his nightly televised address, video of which was released shortly after the accident, Zelensky said he had just returned from the area around Kharkiv, adding that “almost the entire area has been de-occupied” after a lightning counterattack to launch Russian troops . “It was an unprecedented move by our soldiers – the Ukrainians once again managed to do what many thought was impossible,” he said. After visiting the liberated city of Izium, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops had retaken about 8,000 square kilometers (3,100 square miles) of territory. Ukraine’s defense ministry has found what its officials believe is a “torture chamber” used by Russian troops to hold Ukrainian prisoners in the town of Balaklia. While some Balakliia residents told the Guardian they had little interaction with Russian forces, who mostly stayed on the outskirts of town and did not experience the scenes of torture and executions seen elsewhere in the country, Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the district Kharkiv. The investigation department of the national police said…
