Ukraine war: Kyiv warns against peace talks as Russian army ‘overextended’

Russia does not believe that the European Union’s promises to admit Ukraine are “real”, the Kremlin has claimed.

“Most likely we are talking about a carrot that is tied in front of the cart,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a reporter.

It comes a day after the European Commission recommended that Ukraine be invited to begin talks to join the bloc as soon as it meets final conditions, even as it continues battling to repel Russian forces.

Russia is deploying Ukrainian prisoners of war to fight on its behalf against their own country, according to state media reports, in a move which experts have warned could amount to a war crime.

Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti aired a video purporting to show captured Ukrainian soldiers being voluntarily inducted into the Russian army. They were seen swearing allegiance to Russia, holding rifles and dressed in military fatigues. The authenticity of the report or videos aired by RIA Novosti could not be immediately confirmed.

Human Rights Watch said this could be a violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). Captured soldiers are exempt from being exposed to combat or unhealthy and dangerous conditions regardless of coercion, according to the convention.

My colleague Arpan Rai has the full report:

Russian cyber spies were behind a hack which disrupted part of Ukraine’s power grid in late 2022, in a rare and advanced form of cyberwarfare, a Google-owned US cybersecurity firm has said.

Ukraine’s SBU, the country’s main intelligence agency, confirmed in a statement to Reuters that Russian hackers had struck a facility near its frontline with Russia.

“This attack represents the latest evolution in Russia’s cyber physical attack capability, which has been increasingly visible since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said the report by the firm Mandiant, which did not identify the specific facility against which the attack had been carried out.

Last October, a massive wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s power network caused blackouts in many parts of the country, prompting Kyiv to halt power exports and leaving four regions temporarily without electricity.

The hacking group, known in cybersecurity research circles by the moniker “Sandworm”, was able to cause a power cut in an unidentified area of Ukraine by tripping circuit breakers at an electrical substation at the same time as the missile strike, the report said. The group then deployed data-wiping malware in a bid to cover their tracks, the report added.

Sandworm has been previously identified as a cyberwarfare unit of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. “There have only been a handful of incidents similar to this, with the majority carried out by Sandworm,” Mandiant analyst Nathan Brubaker said.

Sandworm hackers rose to prominence in 2015 after a separate cyberattack against Ukraine’s power grid, which cut off power for around 255,000 people. The disruptive digital intrusion was widely considered to be one of the first known successful cyberattacks against a power network.

Ukraine’s successful targeting of Russian long-range missile systems last week could force the Kremlin to “overextend its military and strain its ability to retain baseline defences”, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has suggested.

The ministry said: “Following last week’s reported losses of several Russian SA-21 long range Surface to Air Missile (SAM) systems, new analysis suggests that to maintain coverage over Ukraine, Russia will likely need to reallocate SAMs which are routinely protecting distant parts of Russia.

“Russia’s premier long-range SAMs, such as SA-21, are capable of engaging targets at ranges of up to 400km. Positioned at strategically important locations, as well as along Russia’s borders, removing systems would almost certainly weaken Russia’s air defence posture on its peripheries.

“The reallocation of strategic air defence assets would further demonstrate how the Ukraine conflict continues to overextend Russia’s military and strains its ability to retain baseline defences across its vast area.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmitry Kuleba has warned that peace negotiations with Russia are a “trap” which would merely see Vladimir Putin “take a pause before an even larger aggression”.

He wrote on Twitter/X: “To those with short memories: Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine held about 200 rounds of talks with Russia.

“During this period, 20 cease-fire agreements were reached, all of which were quickly violated by Russia. None of the 200 rounds of talks or the 20 ceasefires have prevented Putin from launching a brutal all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.

“Those who argue that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia now are either uninformed or misled, or they side with Russia and want Putin to take a pause before an even larger aggression. We should not and will not fall into this trap.”

Ukraine will be able to overcome Hungary’s political opposition to its bid to begin talks on membership with the European Union, Kyiv’s minister for European integration said on Thursday.

The European Commission this week recommended that the 27-member bloc formally start accession talks once Ukraine satisfies several remaining conditions, including boosting safeguards for national minorities.

EU member Hungary has said it would not support Ukraine‘s European integration unless Kyiv changes its laws on minorities, in particular regarding education.

Budapest has clashed with Kyiv over what it says are curbs on the rights of roughly 150,000 ethnic Hungarians to use their native tongue.

Ukraine‘s Hungarian minority was adequately protected and Ukrainian and Hungarian officials were working together on legislative changes recommended by Brussels, Olga Stefanishyna, the minister overseeing Ukraine‘s European integration, said at a news briefing in Kyiv.

“Any country that makes a conscious political decision, first and foremost, to block the decision regarding Ukraine will find a reason (to do so),” she said.

“Today, Hungary has made such a statement. We understand that there is a such a statement, but we also understand there is a dialogue with Budapest.”

The recommendation by the European Commission is an important milestone on Kyiv’s road to Western integration and a geo-political gambit for the EU as Ukraine has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.

Russian shelling in southern Ukraine has killed a 72-year-old man this morning and injured a further three, local officials have said.

Kherson Oblast governor Oleksandr Prokudin said shelling had killed the elderly man while he was on his balcony. He added that another 74-year-old man nearby injured his leg while a third resident received a “light contusion”.

Sharing a video of the destruction wrought by the shells, he said: “This is what Kherson’s Ship district looks like after regular Russian shelling.”

Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed that the attack had damaged “four high-rise buildings, an educational institution and a church” (pictured below).

The soldiers piloting Ukraine’s fleet of small, cheap assault drones are voicing concerns that, despite pioneering their use, they are now being leapfrogged by their adversary as Moscow pumps money and resources into its drone sector.

The use of agile First Person View (FPV) drones in battle has been one of the most successful of the various low-cost strategies Ukraine has used to defend itself from a full-scale invasion by Russia, its much richer and more powerful neighbour.

However, Moscow has also gradually mirrored and increased its use of these drones, which were originally made for racing by hobbyists and enthusiasts but are modified to carry explosives, to devastating effect.

Every week, both countries publish onboard camera footage from FPVs, which cost several hundred dollars, flying towards and taking out enemy tanks and radar systems worth millions.

In a field in eastern Donetsk region where they had come to perform a test flight, drone pilots from the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade fighting near Bakhmut said Russia was gaining the upper hand through more organised supplies and greater spending.

“Their drones are always in the air, day and night. We can see they’ve implemented serial production of drones for reconnaissance, surveillance and for strikes,” said a 34-year-old drone platoon commander, who introduced himself by the callsign “Komrad”.

While it is hard to assess Russian numerical superiority in FPVs accurately – and the experiences of the unit near Bakhmut provides only a snapshot of what is happening – Komrad estimated it at around double what Ukraine had on his sector of the front.

“Drones are a game changer in this war. If we mess this up, things will be difficult,” he said.

Komrad says his crews can run as many as 40 strike missions a day – but the number is often much lower due to a lack of drones.

The senior sergeant of the brigade’s drone company, a 57-year-old former business executive with the callsign “Yizhak”, said sometimes a crew may have 10 identified targets but only two or three drones.

“So we can hit two or three, and we have to let seven go because we don’t have anything to hit them with.”

Ukraine‘s alternative Black Sea export corridor is working despite a recent Russian attack on a civilian vessel, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Thursday.

Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday a Russian missile damaged a Liberia-flagged civilian ship entering a Black Sea port in the Odesa region, killing one person and injuring four others. The vessel was supposed to transport iron ore to China.

“#Ukrainian_Corridor: vessel traffic continues both to and from the ports of Big Odesa (region),” Kubrakov said on the X social media platform.

He said that six vessels with 231,000 tons of agricultural products on board had left ports within the Odesa region and were heading towards the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey.

“Five vessels are waiting to enter ports for loading. Traffic along the #Ukrainian_Corridor continued despite Russia’s systematic attacks on port infrastructure,” Kubrakov added.

After pulling out of a United Nation-brokered deal that guaranteed safe shipments of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, Russia has been repeatedly attacking Ukrainian port infrastructure.

Below are some of the latest photos from Ukraine.