Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he believed the “partial mobilisation” of army reservists ordered last month would be completed in two weeks, boosting Russia’s fighting force. He told reporters after attending a summit in Kazakhstan on Friday that a total of 222,000 reservists would be called up, down from the 300,000 figure initially circulated. A total of 33,000 of them were said to be already in military units, and 16,000 are involved in the military operation in Ukraine.
Putin also said that any direct clash of Nato troops with Russia would lead to a “global catastrophe”. “I hope that those who are saying this are smart enough not to take such steps,” he said. Asked whether he had any regrets over his actions in Ukraine he said “no”.
Russia announced it will evacuate residents from Kherson after an appeal from the Russian-installed head of the region, raising fears the occupied city at the heart of the south Ukrainian region will become a new frontline. A Ukrainian member of Kherson’s regional council has condemned Russia’s “evacuation” of the occupied city, saying it is in fact a “deportation”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a message to celebrate Defenders Day in Ukraine, saying “Gratitude to everyone who fought for Ukraine in the past. And to everyone who is fighting for it now. To all who won then. And to everyone who will definitely win now.”
Ukraine’s army boasted of territorial gains near the city of Kherson on Wednesday as Nato allies including the UK delivered new air defence systems in the wake of Russia’s recent missile attacks across the country.
The UK Ministry of Defence says that “Russia continues to prosecute offensive operations in central Donbas and is, very slowly, making progress”. The ministry explained that, “in the last three days, pro-Russian forces have made tactical advances towards the centre of the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast” and “likely advanced into the villages of Opytine and Ivangrad to the south of the town.”
Ukraine’s armed forces have liberated more than 600 settlements from the Russian occupation in the past month, including 75 in the highly strategic Kherson region, Ukraine’s Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories claimed late on Thursday.
The US and Germany are to deliver sophisticated anti-aircraft systems to Kyiv this month to counter attacks by Russian missiles and kamikaze drones, Ukraine’s defence minister said.
Sweden has rejected plans for a joint investigation with Denmark and Germany of the recent ruptures of Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. German weekly Spiegel, citing German security sources, reported that Sweden has decided not to share findings of its investigation with other states for security reasons.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv, has said that two 16-year-old boys were among those injured by Russian shelling in the region in the last 24 hours.
Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti is reporting that people have been killed and there are wounded after an ammunition dump in Oktyabrsky village in the Belgorod region of Russia exploded. Authorities have blamed the explosion on shelling over the border by Ukrainian armed forces. Train operations were also suspended early on Friday near Novyi Oskol, a town in Russia’s Belgorod region after remains of a missile fell near the railway.
Ukraine has accused the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of inaction in upholding the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war and urged it to undertake a mission to a camp in the Russian-occupied east of the country. The ICRC responded to the criticism by calling for “immediate and unimpeded access” to all prisoners of war, saying it was prepared to make the necessary visits, but that “we cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted.”
The US government has said it can impose sanctions on people, countries and companies that provide ammunition to Russia or support its military industrial complex. Wally Adeyemo, the deputy treasury secretary, said in a meeting of officials from 32 countries that the department will issue guidance to make it clear that Washington is willing and able to impose such a crackdown
Elon Musk appears to have confirmed on Twitter that funding for the Space X Starlink satellite internet system in Ukraine is being pulled. The company is asking the US government to step in and foot the bill. The move comes days after Musk faced huge criticism in Ukraine for a Twitter poll he conducted on a peace proposal that appeared to show Musk’s support for Vladimir Putin’s military aims in Ukraine.
The city of Mykolaiv, 60 miles north-west of Kherson city, was pummelled by Russian missiles on Thursday, with one strike on a five-storey apartment block killing a 31-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman. Five further people were said to still be under rubble. Mykolaiv regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, said an 11-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble after six hours and rescue teams were searching for seven more people.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow that its forces would be “annihilated” by the west’s military response if president Vladimir Putin used nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting on Thursday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin. Instead, Putin courted Erdoğan with a plan to pump more Russian gas via Turkey that would turn it into a new supply “hub”, bidding to preserve Russia’s energy leverage over Europe.
Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. “Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved,” the foreign ministry said.
Russia will run out of supplies and armaments before the west does, the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, claimed Thursday. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west that would ensure that the international community could continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.
Ukrainian officials claimed Iranians in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine were training Russians in how to use the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone, which can conduct air-to-surface attacks, electronic warfare and targeting. Their deployment may indicate the Russian military is running out of its own drones.
Moscow has submitted concerns to the United Nations about an agreement on Black Sea grain exports, and is prepared to reject renewing the deal next month unless its demands are addressed, Russia’s Geneva UN ambassador told Reuters.
Ukraine’s power grid has been “stabilised” after Russian strikes that targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said Thursday.
