Ukraine war: Putin pulls last Russian vessels from Sea of Azov

Ukrainian forces destroyed 25 Russian attack drones out of 38 launched overnight, Ukraine’s air force chief said this morning.

“Last night, the enemy used 38 Shahed-131/136 attack drones, attacking Ukrainian infrastructure in several areas, including the south of Odesa region and central Ukraine,” Mykola Oleshchiuk said.

The air force chief said that three other drones “were lost after crossing the state border with Romania”. He gave no more details.

Romanian territory is just a few hundred metres from the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail, in Odesa region, which was attacked by drones for the second night in a row.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said two people were wounded when drone debris hit a private house in Izmail district. Authorities in the capital Kyiv and in the Zhytomyr region said those regions had also been targeted.

Zhytomyr’s governor said that air defence systems hit most of the 10 aerial targets overnight, but drone debris damaged 10 private houses and one infrastructure facility.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said that drones attacked the capital from different directions, but all of them were destroyed by air defence forces on the approaches. There were no reports of damage or casualties in Kyiv.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi says Russia has significantly increased its manpower and materiel commitments to the war in Ukraine since February 2022 and suffered “significant manpower losses”.

Active fighting is ongoing along 977km of the 3,700-km-long frontline, General Syrskyi told The Guardian as he said Russia’s military command continues to pursue tactical gains regardless of the losses involved.

On the other side, Ukrainian forces are attempting to safeguard the lives of Ukrainian troops, he said.

The US-based think tank monitoring the war, the Institute for the Study of War, said the army chief’s statement is “not indicative of a sudden increase in the Russian military’s presence in Ukraine and is instead representative of the manpower and material disadvantage that Ukrainian forces have faced for over two years”.

It added: “Russia’s ability to continue gradually expanding the amount of manpower and materiel it has committed to Ukraine faces significant constraints in the medium to long term.”

Vladimir Putin’s forces have “extensively relied on refurbishing stocks of Soviet-era weapons and military equipment to sustain the tempo of its offensive operations in Ukraine in order to avoid fully mobilising the Russian economy and society to a war-time footing,” the ISW said.

“Ukrainian authorities have noted that Russia is currently not producing enough to cover its current equipment losses in Ukraine,” it said.

A Russian Mi-28 military helicopter crashed in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow this morning, killing its crew, the Interfax news agency said, citing Russia’s defence ministry.

The ministry said a technical malfunction was likely to blame. It did not say how many people were on board, but a Mi-28 typically has a crew of two people.

The chopper fell into a deserted area near the village of Klenki, around 100km (60 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Footage published by Russian state media showed what appeared to be a Toyota Land Cruiser with its left side completely torn off in the parking lot of a complex of high-rise buildings.

The officer in the GRU, Russia’s main intelligence directorate, is reportedly the deputy head of a military unit based in the Russian capital, and is in critical condition, according to preliminary accounts on the Telegram messenger app. It is also believed that his wife was in the car.

Russia has pulled all its vessels out of the Sea of Azov, a body of water connected to the Black Sea, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian navy said.

“There are no longer any Russian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov,” the spokesperson, Dmytro Pletenchuk, wrote on Facebook.

Ukrainian naval officials have said in recent months that successful attacks on targets in Russian-annexed Crimea and elsewhere in the Black Sea had forced the Russian navy to rebase its ships elsewhere.

The war-hit nation which did not essentially have a specific naval force has knocked out 27 of the total 80 warships Russia had in the Black Sea before the invasion by damaging or destroying them. These include landing ships, missile boats, a submarine and a patrol vessel.

Ukrainian forces have deployed primarily missiles and drones to take out Russian warships in the Black Sea, positioned to attack Ukraine’s port and inside the cities as well.

At least three people were killed as Russia launched a series of attacks on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, hitting the office of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO, officials said.

The attack injured six others and damaged the office of Fondation Suisse De Déminage, the local governor said. Rescue operations continued into the evening.

The region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said an overnight strike destroyed the facade of the office and the ceilings on several floors. Six cars used by the group’s medics were damaged, he said, noting the importance of demining initiatives in his region, one of the most densely strewn with landmines and other potentially harmful war detritus.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been five separate strikes on the city since Russia’s overnight attack.

Ukraine’s second-largest city and the surrounding region, which borders Russia, have been battered by drone, missile and guided-bomb attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in its 29-month-old invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s top diplomat said Kyiv is prepared for talks on the conflict with Russia provided Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity were fully respected, after a day of “very deep and concentrated” talks in China.

Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba restated that Ukraine insisted that no agreement could be reached without its participation in a video address. He also said he saw no readiness from Russia to negotiate in good faith.

“I emphasised two principles that must be steadfastly upheld. First, no agreements about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he said in his address.

“Second… full respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. If these two principles are adhered to, we can engage in any discussions and seek any solutions.”

Mr Kuleba is the highest ranking Ukrainian official to travel to China since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. He held talks with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi for more than three hours, a Ukrainian source in the delegation said.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry, in earlier comments, quoted him as saying that Ukraine was ready to engage “when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith” but he emphasised “that no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side”.