Putin’s forces launch 100 deadly glide bombs and dozens of drones across frontline

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has been appointed as the next Nato chief after his only rival dropped out of the leadership race.

Mr Rutte will become the secretary-general of the alliance on 1 October and will replace the current boss Jens Stoltenberg.

His selection was confirmed by Nato ambassadors during a meeting at the 32-nation alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday.

The outgoing Dutch premier’s appointment became a formality after his only rival for the post, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, quit the race last week.

The 57-year-old has been one of the driving forces behind Europe’s military support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, and says defeat on the battlefield for Moscow is vital to secure peace in Europe.

Vladimir Putin’s troops have launched around 100 deadly glide bombs and dozens of drones across the border with Ukraine over the past day.

Russia had launched 96 glide bombs, two missile strikes, 4000 shells and 44 kamikaze drones over the last 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian army.

A glide bomb is a standard air-dropped bomb modified to be launched from a distance rather than directly over the target – with some weighing up to 1.5 tonnes.

Ukrainian shelling destroyed a radiation control post in Velyka Znamyanka in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russia’s management of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine said on Wednesday.

“(Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant) specialists carried out a number of compensatory measures to control the radiation situation in the area,” the management said on the Telegram messaging app.

Radiation levels, the management added, do not exceed safe levels.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Russian troops seized the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early days of Moscow’s invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 invasion, and Moscow and Kyiv have since routinely accused each other of endangering safety around it.

In the early hours of Wednesday, a Russian missile attack was launched on the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, hitting civilian buildings, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

The attack damaged an administrative building in the industrial sector. Kiper said there were no casualties in the attack.

Earlier this week, a Russian missile strike damaged a storage facility in the city, injuring three people.

Odesa has been a frequent target of Russian forces in the 28-month-long invasion, with many attacks aimed at the city’s port facilities. Russia denies targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.

Today, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting troops in the Donetsk region of his country.

The areas has seen fierce fighting in recent months with Ukraine on the defensive against Russian movement westward.

In February, Russia took the eastern city of Avdiivka, and has been slowly advancing since with missile attacks on Pokrovsk this week.

The city of Pokrovsk is 18 miles north west of Avdiivka and is a Ukrainian military hub.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors in Yekaterinburg in Russia today.

It comes 15 months after his arrest in the Ural Mountains city on espionage charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny. The 32-year-old journalist appeared in the court in a glass defendants’ cage, his head shaved and wearing a black-and-blue plaid shirt. A yellow padlock was attached to the cage. The American-born son of immigrants from the USSR, Gershkovich is the first Western journalist arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.

The Russian authorities arrested Gershkovich when he was on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg and claimed he was gathering secret information for the U.S. intelligence.

Russia will resume direct passenger rail service with North Korea in July after a four-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the news agency Interfax reported today.

Citing the governor of the Russian far eastern region of Primorsky Krai bordering North Korea, Oleg Kozhemyako, Interfax reported that the trains will run from the city of Vladivostok to the North Korean port of Rason.

“Having boarded in Vladivostok, (people) will come straight to the DPRK, enjoy the beauty, nature, culture there, get acquainted with the customs and traditions,” the agency cited Kozhemyako as saying at the opening of a festival of goods in Vladivostok from North Korea.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022 and subsequent sanctions on Moscow by Kyiv’s allies, Russia tilted toward Asia and Africa, seeking economic, security and diplomatic ties.

A shaven-headed Evan Gershkovich appeared briefly before journalists in a Russian court this morning at the start of a trial on charges of espionage that the US reporter denies.

The 32-year-old was seen standing in a glass box, wearing an open-necked shirt and with his arms folded.

The Wall Street Journal reporter is accused by prosecutors of gathering secret information on the orders of the US Central Intelligence Agency about a company that manufactures tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 20 years.

He, his newspaper and the US government all reject the allegations and say that he was just doing his job as a reporter accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work there.

The proceedings will take place behind closed doors, meaning that the media is excluded and no friends, family members or US embassy staff are allowed in to support Gershkovich. Such arrangements are common at spying or treason trials in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is open to the idea of a prisoner exchange involving Gershkovich and that contacts with the United States have taken place, but they must remain secret.