Ukraine counteroffensive latest: Putin’s forces pushed back by counteroffensive after ‘largest’ drone strike

Russian air defences shot down a drone that was approaching the city this morning, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

“Today, air defence forces near Lyubertsy thwarted another attempt to fly a drone to Moscow. There were no preliminary casualties or damage. Emergency services are working at the scene of the incident,” he said.

The drone was downed near Lyubertsy, southeast of the Russian capital, he said.

The Ukrainian ministry of defence has shot back at the growing criticism of Ukraine’s counteroffensive amid several reports that officials in the US are not pleased with the gains in the slow-moving warfare.

“It seems like everyone is now an expert of Ukrainian warfare. While we appreciate all the attention, we’d like to humbly remind you that if we listened to what non-Ukrainians said in February 2022, we would no longer exist,” the ministry of defence said in a minute-long video shared on social media.

Thanks all the same but we need ammunition, not advice, it added.

President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to boast about the Pskov attack twice a day after Moscow reported attempted Ukrainian drone strikes in six Russian regions.

One of the strikes caused a huge fire at a military air base in Pskov in northern Russia, damaging several giant military transport planes on the tarmac.

“The results of our weaponry – new Ukrainian weaponry – 700km away,” he said in his nightly video address. “And the task is to do more.”

Ukraine’s Western allies generally forbid Kyiv from using weapons they supply to attack Russian territory, but say Ukraine has a right to attacks military targets with its own weapons.

After months of fighting their way through heavy minefields, Ukraine’s forces have finally reached the main Russian defensive lines in recent days, south of the village of Robotyne, which they captured last week in the Western Zaporizhzhia region.

They are now advancing between the nearby villages of Novopokropivka and Verbove, looking for a way around the anti-tank ditches and rows of concrete pyramids known as dragon’s teeth that form Russia’s main fortifications visible from space.

A breakthrough would provide the first test of Russia’s deeper defences, which Ukraine hopes will be more vulnerable and less heavily mined than areas its troops have traversed so far.

A Ukrainian commander in the area told Reuters last week that his men had breached the most difficult line, reaching less heavily defended areas, and now expected to advance more quickly. Kyiv rarely gives details of its offensive operations.

In a statement yesterday, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar reported unspecified successes near Novopokropivka, without giving details.

She also said Ukrainian forces were advancing near Bakhmut, in the east, the only city Russia captured in its own offensive earlier this year. Heavy battles were engulfing villages south of the city, she said.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, reported a “positive dynamic” near Bakhmut.

A Ukrainian MP has urged newly appointed defence secretary Grant Shapps to “personally come to Ukraine” to establish good relations.

Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun considered Mr Wallace a “friend” of Ukraine and expressed her gratitude for his time as defence secretary after four years.

“Ben Wallace is a friend to Ukraine and we very much appreciate everything that he has done,” she said from Kyiv. She has urged Mr Shapps to visit Ukraine to gain a “better understanding” of the situation.

It comes after Mr Wallace formally resigned from his position yesterday, prompting a mini-reshuffle.

Ukraine has asked critics of the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to “shut up”, serving the sharpest rebuke yet of Kyiv’s frustration at leaks from Western officials who say its forces are advancing too slowly.

“Criticising the slow pace of (the) counteroffensive equals … spitting into the face of (the) Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometre of Ukrainian soil after another,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters yesterday.

“I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimetre by themselves,” he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain.

Several US and other Western officials have suggested that the grinding war’s counteroffensive stage was falling short of expectations but did not choose to be quoted on their claims. Some of the officials have pointed holes in Ukraine’s strategy and blamed it for concentrating its forces in the wrong places.

In its pushback against more than a year old Russian invasion, Ukrainian forces have recaptured more than a dozen villages and has managed to penetrate Russia’s first line of defence.

The counteroffensive has been backed by billions of dollars worth Western military equipment as nation’s rallied against Moscow’s unjust war on Ukraine.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday his country has developed a weapon that hit a target 700 kilometres (400 miles) away, in an apparent reference to the previous day’s strike on an airport in western Russia.

Zelensky said on his Telegram channel the weapon was produced by Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries but gave no other details.

On Wednesday, a four-hour wave of drones that Moscow blamed on Ukraine hit an airport near Russia’s border with Estonia and Latvia, damaging four Il-76 military transport planes, according to local reports.

The defense ministers of Poland and South Korea held talks in Warsaw Thursday on security and support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s aggression, as well as on further cooperation in the armaments sector.

Poland is purchasing tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and military equipment from South Korea as it upgrades its defense potential with concern rising because of the war in neighbouring Ukraine.

The new equipment is also replacing that which Poland has given to Ukraine to help it defend itself against the Russian invasion.

Samuel Newey, 22, from Solihull in the West Midlands, was “killed in action” on Wednesday in eastern Ukraine, his brother, Daniel Newey, said in a social media post.

He wrote on Facebook: “I cannot put into words how broken I feel.

“I also cannot emphasise how proud I am of my little brother.”

Ukraine’s forces have pushed back Russian troops in areas of the country’s south and east as Kyiv pushes on with its counteroffensive – with President Volodymyr Zelensky also claiming that his country has developed a new long-range weapon.

The pronouncement by Mr Zelensky that the unnamed weapon reached a target of more than 400 miles (700 kilometres) away comes a day after a wave of drone strikes across six regions in Russian. Those strikes included an assault that caused a huge fire at a military air base in Pskov in northern Russia, damaging several giant military transport planes on the tarmac. That air base is roughly 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Chris Stevenson has the full story: