President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian troops had tried to dislodge Ukrainian troops from positions in the Kursk border region, but Kiev forces were holding the line. “Russia has tried to push back our positions, but we are holding to the designated line,” Zelenskiy said in a video address in the evening. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Friday that Russian troops had recaptured two villages in the border Kursk region where Ukrainian forces launched a major invasion in August. President Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian army’s advance toward Kursk was aimed at drawing Russian troops away from their frontline positions in eastern Ukraine.
Two people were killed in a Russian airstrike on a village near Krahov, the Donetsk region prosecutor’s office said on Saturday. In an evening report, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported that 47 clashes occurred in the region around Krahov, and a further 27 in the northwest Pokrovsk region. This follows the Russian Ministry of Defense’s announcement on Friday that it had captured Ostrivske, a village on a reservoir near the town of Krahov, Russia’s main objective as it advances through the Donetsk region. Ukraine has not acknowledged the loss of the village, but military bloggers have reported Russian advances into the area.
Recruiting officers for the Ukrainian military raided restaurants, bars and concert halls in Kiev, checked military registration documents and detained men who did not comply. Local media reported on Saturday that police intercepted men coming out of a concert by Ukrainian rock band Ocean Elzy, and some were forcibly detained. Such a raid in the capital is unusual and reflects Ukraine’s dire need for new recruits. Attacks also reportedly took place at clubs and restaurants in other cities. All Ukrainian men between the ages of 25 and 60 are eligible for military conscription, and men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country.
The Kremlin said Saturday that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ description of Vladimir Putin as a “murderous dictator” exposed how politicians in Washington seek to impose their views on the world. Ta. Peskov’s comments come in response to Harris reporting in a new book by US journalist Bob Woodward that Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump sent coronavirus tests to Russia at the height of the pandemic while in office. This appears to be in response to his criticism. In a radio interview, she described Putin as a “murderous dictator.”
Leaders of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning atomic bomb survivor group warned Saturday that the risk of nuclear war is rising and renewed their call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. “The international situation is getting worse and worse, and wars are being waged with countries threatening to use nuclear weapons,” said Shigemitsu Tanaka, a survivor of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki and co-representative of Japan Hidankyo. Ta. President Vladimir Putin suggested last month that if the United States and its allies allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western long-range missiles, Moscow would consider responding with nuclear weapons.
Ukraine’s military said Saturday it had attacked a Russian-controlled oil terminal in the partially occupied Luhansk region that supplies fuel for Russia’s war effort. Russian state media reported that a terminal near the city of Lovenky had been attacked by a Ukrainian drone, and said there were no casualties and the fire had been extinguished, but did not comment on the extent of the damage.
Russian emergency services say they have extinguished a massive fire at the Feodosia oil terminal in Russian-annexed Crimea, which had been burning for six days following an attack by Ukraine, state news agency Rianovosti reported.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that 47 Ukrainian drones were intercepted and destroyed by air defense systems overnight into Saturday. Of these, 17 were over the Krasnodar region, 16 over the Azov Sea, 12 over the Kursk region, and 2 over the Belgorod region, all over Ukraine. Where it borders Ukraine. Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on Saturday that one person had been killed and 14 others injured in shelling and drone strikes by Ukrainian forces over the past 24 hours.
The Ukrainian Air Force announced that its air defense forces shot down 24 of the 28 drones launched against Ukraine overnight. Two women were injured in a Russian attack on the capital of Ukraine’s southern region, also known as Zaporizhzhia, Zaporizhzhya region governor Ivan Fedorov said on Saturday.
