Russian forces are trying to oust Ukrainian troops from their positions in Russia’s Kursk region but Kyiv’s forces are holding strong, Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Russia tried to push back our positions, but we are holding the designated lines,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Overnight, Russia launched 68 drones and four missiles targeting Ukrainian territory, Ukraine‘s air force said on Sunday.
Earlier, Ukrainian forces hit a fuel depot supplying Russia’s army, with a fire detected at the facility which stores oil and oil products, Kyiv said.
Mr Zelensky carried out a whirlwind tour of European capitals this week in a bid to continue mustering support for Ukraine and to discuss his proposed “victory plan”.
In a visit to the Vatican, he asked Pope Francis for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia and voiced hope that the war would end next year in a trip to Berlin.
September proved to be the bloodiest month of attrition since the Russian invasion began in 2022, with the latest Western intelligence suggesting Vladimir Putin suffered as many as 36,000 casualties.
Ukrainian men living in fear of being drafted
A 27-year-old man said he left the concert as the last song was playing after he was told about the recruitment officers.
He said he saw soldiers and police talking to people but “didn’t see anything super aggressive.”
He said men felt in danger of being drafted whenever they ventured outside.
“That inner state of always being in danger, it’s back again,” he told The Associated Press, only giving his first name for fear of retribution.
He said his university draft waiver was taken away after Ukraine passed laws in April that both lowered draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25 and did away with some draft exemptions.
Russia launches 68 drones, four missiles at Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force says
Russia launched 68 drones and four missiles targeting Ukrainian territory overnight, Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday.
Two Iskander-M ballistic missiles struck Poltava and Odesa regions and two Kh-59 guided air missiles targeted the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the air forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s air defence units destroyed 31 of the drones, while 36 were unaccounted for, most likely intercepted by Ukraine’s electronic warfare, the air force said. The remaining drone was still in the air, it said.
Ukrainian military raids restaurants and bars in search for men to recruit
Ukrainian military recruitment officers raided restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Kyiv, checking military registration documents and detaining men who were not in compliance, The Associated Press reported quoting media and witnesses.
Officers descended on Kyiv’s Palace of Sports venue after a concert on Friday night by Ukrainian rock band Okean Elzy.
Video footage aired by local media outlets appears to show officers stationed outside the doors of the concert hall intercepting men as they exit. In the footage, officers appear to be forcibly detaining some men.
Checks were also conducted at Goodwine, an upscale shopping centre, and Avalon, a popular restaurant.
Local reports said raids were also conducted in clubs and restaurants across other Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and Dnipro in eastern and central Ukraine.
It is unusual for such raids to take place in the capital, the AP said, and reflects Ukraine’s dire need for fresh recruits.
Ukraine has intensified its mobilisation drive this year. A new law came into effect this spring stipulating that those eligible for military service must input their information into an online system or face penalties.
All Ukrainian men aged 25-60 are eligible for conscription, and men aged 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country.
Two killed in Russian strikes near Kurakhove
Prosecutors in Donetsk region on Saturday said two people were killed in Russian strikes on villages near Kurakhove.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late evening report, reported 47 clashes in the area around Kurakhove and 27 more in the Pokrovsk sector to the northwest.
Further to the northeast, in Toretsk, which both Ukrainian and Russian forces say has been partly occupied by Russian forces, the General Staff said Russian forces had launched 14 assaults, assisted by air strikes.
Russia says it destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones overnight
Russia’s air defence units shot down 13 Ukrainian drones overnight across three regions near the border with Ukraine, the defence ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Six drones were downed over both the Belgorod and Kursk regions, while one drone was intercepted over the Bryansk region, according to the ministry’s statement on Telegram.
Vigil held for Ukrainian journalist killed in Russian prison
Friends, family and colleagues of Viktoriia Roshchyna, a Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian prison, gathered for a vigil this weekend in a square in Kyiv.
“Read and remember Vika,” they asked, Ukrainska Pavda reported.
Roshchyna, who was covering the war as a freelance journalist for Ukrainska Pravda, disappeared in August 2023.
In May this year, Russia confirmed that she was detained. This week, her father was informed by the Russian defence ministry in a letter that she died in September, aged 27.
The document said her body would be returned in one of the swaps organised by Russia and Ukraine for soldiers killed on the battlefield.
Roshchyna was one of the very few people who was covering the war from a Russian-occupied territory. She provided crucial stories that weren’t otherwise available, and despite the risk to her life she continued to report without a pseudonym.
She was earlier detained for 10 days, but she did not stop reporting, her colleagues said.
“Her parents used to call and tell us to stop deploying her, but we never did deploy her!” one of her former bosses told BBC News.
“All her editors tried to stop her. But it was impossible.”
Putin hails ‘very close’ relationship with Iran in first meeting with new president
The sanctioned leaders held an inaugural meeting on the sidelines of a regional summit in Ashgabat, the capital of the Central Asian country Turkmenistan, to discuss – among other topics – the ongoing situation in the Middle East.
“We are actively working together in the international arena and our assessments of events taking place in the world are often very close,” Putin said during the meeting, according to Russian state media outlet Tass.
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Ukrainian forces holding positions in Russia’s Kursk region, Zelensky says
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russian forces had tried to oust Ukrainian troops from positions in Russia’s Kursk border region, but that Kyiv’s forces were holding their lines.
“Regarding the Kursk operation, Russia tried to push back our positions, but we are holding the designated lines,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that its forces had recaptured two villages in the border Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched a mass incursion in August.
Mr Zelensky has acknowledged that the Ukrainian advance into Kursk was intended to draw Russian troops away from frontline positions in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been making steady gains in recent months.
In his address, Mr Zelensky said that in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, partly held by Russian forces, “there are very difficult conditions, with harsh enemy actions. But the resilience of our units is crucial. Everything depends on our resilience.”
Can Zelensky’s plan for peace actually work?
When MPs and peers jostled for a standing-room-only place in parliament to see and hear him?
When the one-time TV actor turned democratically elected president turned war leader drew rapt attention with his gritty determination and allusions to Churchill?
Well, those heady days of Britain reliving its finest hour by association are over.
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Can Zelensky’s plan for peace actually work?
With the US election less than a month away, and his support dwindling across Europe, the Ukraine president is in a last-ditch race against time to shore up support, writes Mary Dejevsky
Fake photos of Disney World flooded during Hurricane Milton spread online by Russian news agency
Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida, announced they would close their theme parks amid rare measures ahead of the dangerous Hurricane Milton directly hitting the area, bringing with it strong winds, heavy rainfall and hazardous storm surge.
As Milton made landfall on Wednesday, all three Orlando-based parks, including Universal Orlando and SeaWorld alongside Disney, ground to a halt and shut down operations that would have usually welcomed tens of thousands of tourists.
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Source: independent.co.uk