Advancing Ukrainian troops gain foothold in strategic rail hub Robotyne

Ukrainian troops have gained a foothold in the southeastern village of Robotyne on the road to Tokmak, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said.

The village is an occupied rail hub whose recapture would be a milestone in Kyiv’s southward drive to reach the Sea of Azov. The next major settlement is the big regional city of Melitopol.

However, the deputy minister warned that the counteroffensive should not be compared with either Ukraine’s rapid recapture of land in the eastern region of Kharkiv last year or its success in driving Russian troops out of the city of Kherson in the southwest, because each battlefield situation is unique.

“When Kherson was liberated, remember that the armed forces were creating the conditions in order to more or less swiftly liberate it later,” she said.

Russia’s logistics will be impacted by the damage to permanent bridges connecting southern Ukraine and Crimea, the British Ministry of Defence said today.

“As of mid-August 2023, Russian forces were continuing to employ pontoon bridges at Chonhar and Henichesk crossing points on the border between southern Ukraine and occupied Crimea. Both permanent bridges sustained damage from Ukrainian precision strikes in early August 2023,” the ministry said.

It added that the pontoon bridges are “unlikely to be able to fully sustain the flow of heavy vehicles carrying ammunition and weaponry to the front”.

“The resulting bottlenecks mean Russian forces are partially reliant on a long diversion via Armiansk, northern Crimea. This is adding further friction to Russia’s logistics network in the south,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update.

Russian forces have targeted Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Danube River regions, a key area for grain exports, in overnight attacks.

The strikes sparked fires in grain storage facilities, the Ukrainian military and local authorities said today.

“The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and trans-shipment complex in Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work,” the military said on their Telegram channel.

The Netherlands will provide Ukraine a thousand chargers for remote demining, Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren said on a visit to Kyiv.

The announcement coincides with heavily mined Russian defence lines slowing down a Ukrainian counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russia since its forces invaded in February 2022.

“There is a decision to provide about a thousand portable chargers for remote demining that can make passageways in engineered barriers,” Ms Ollongren was quoted as saying on the Ukrainian defence ministry website at a meeting with Ukrainian minister Oleksiy Reznikov.

“Now, as I know, you are facing the problem of extremely dense mining of territories,” she said.

One of the drones in Russia fell into a building under construction at the Moscow City Complex, officials said.

Several windows were damaged in two nearby buildings, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, adding that the emergency services were inspecting the area.

The drone was jammed by electronic warfare systems, after which it lost control and collided with the building, the Russian defence ministry said.

The prestigious business towers have been struck by drones twice before

The Russian defence ministry has blamed the attack on Ukraine and said two other drones were shot down by air defence systems in the Mozhaisk and Khimki areas of the Moscow region.

Three people were killed and two were injured as a result of Russian shelling of several villages in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the prosecutor general’s office said on Tuesday evening. According to the prosecutors, all three people, two women and a man, were killed in the village of Torske at around 1850 local time (1550 GMT).

The prosecutors provided no further detail of the attack.

Moscow airports suspended flights early today, Russia’s TASS news agency reported citing unnamed officials.

Major airports around the Russian capital repeatedly closed for departing and arriving flights in recent days due to Ukrainian drone attacks.

The Russian defence ministry said the country’s air defence systems downed three drones that tried to attack Moscow.

One of them was jammed and hit a building in central Moscow, and two more were shot down by air defence systems to the west of the Russian capital, the military said.

This is the third consecutive night Russia has come under drone attack.

Any attacks inside Russia are not encouraged or enabled by the United States, a US State Department spokesperson said after Moscow witnessed consecutive drone attacks this week, as similar attacks on the Russian territory have increased in the past few months.

It is up to Ukraine to decide how it chooses to defend itself from the Russian invasion that began in February last year, the State Department spokesperson said, adding Russia could end the war any time by withdrawing from Ukraine.

Drone strikes on the Russian capital have become increasingly common in recent months.

These strikes, including deep inside Russia, have increased since two unmanned aircraft were destroyed over the Kremlin in early May.

The United States, which has supplied Ukraine with massive assistance in the form of weapons and other military equipment to combat the Russian invasion, has consistently said it does not support attacks inside Russia.

Mr Prigozhin is seen in the video toting an assault rifle and wearing military fatigues, with his comments suggesting the clip was shot in an unnamed African country.

The Wagner boss says during the clip that he is recruiting “strongmen” and said the group will “fulfil the tasks that were set” by the Russian government.

The video was shared on Telegram channels affiliated with the Wagner group, as Mr Prigozhin said the mercenary group was “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free”.

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