Russian attacks are a ‘new offensive’, says USBack to that Russian attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka that is now continuing into its fourth day.
Russia’s representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, has gone as far as saying the intensified battles in the east signified a new stage in its campaign and it means the Ukrainian counteroffensive is over.
“Russian troops have, for several days now, switched over to active combat action practically throughout the entire frontline,” Nebenzia told a session of the UN security council.
“The so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive can therefore be considered finished.”
But in Washington, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, agreed the Russian action amounted to a “new offensive” – showing that Russia was in no way ready to give up its campaign – but said was confident the Ukrainian military would beat back Russian forces.
A military analyst, Serhiy Zgurets, writing on the Espreso TV website, said Avdiivka had withstood Russian attacks in 2014, when Russian-financed separatists had seized large chunks of Ukrainian territory. The area had since been fortified.
“All Russian attacks have resulted in significant losses for them,” he wrote.
In Avdiivka, Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city’s military administration, told Ukrainian national television: “The fighting has been going on for four consecutive days.
“They have substantial reserves of personnel and equipment. Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer centre.”
Russia has focused its campaign along the 1,000km front on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June has made some progress in both the east, near Bakhmut, and in the south, where Kyiv hopes to sever a land bridge joining Russian positions in the south and east.
But the gains have not yet matched rapid gains made by advances last year in the north-east and south.
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While visiting the Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, met cadets and instructors at the city’s military and maritime academies, as well as soldiers in a local military hospital.
Zelenskiy wrote on X: “It was a great opportunity to speak with our acting and future warriors. The Ukrainian army has a unique experience and will be a worthy Nato army.”
Volodymyr Zelensky and Mark Rutte visit the Odesa military and maritime academies. Photograph: Presidential Press Service Handout/EPAVolodymyr Zelenskiy and Mark Rutte pose for photo with the a wounded Ukrainian soldier in a hospital in Odesa. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/APIn case you missed our story earlier, Russian authorities have detained three lawyers representing the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny after searching their homes, his allies have said.
The move was an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny”, his associate Ivan Zhdanov said on social media. Navalny has been in prison since January 2021, serving a 19-year sentence.
Zhdanov said the raids targeting Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser are part of a criminal case on charges of participating in an extremist group. All three were detained after the search, apparently as suspects in the case, Navalny’s team said on Telegram. They later appeared in court and were ordered into pre-trial detention pending investigation and trial.
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Russian attacks are a ‘new offensive’, says USBack to that Russian attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka that is now continuing into its fourth day.
Russia’s representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, has gone as far as saying the intensified battles in the east signified a new stage in its campaign and it means the Ukrainian counteroffensive is over.
“Russian troops have, for several days now, switched over to active combat action practically throughout the entire frontline,” Nebenzia told a session of the UN security council.
“The so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive can therefore be considered finished.”
But in Washington, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, agreed the Russian action amounted to a “new offensive” – showing that Russia was in no way ready to give up its campaign – but said was confident the Ukrainian military would beat back Russian forces.
A military analyst, Serhiy Zgurets, writing on the Espreso TV website, said Avdiivka had withstood Russian attacks in 2014, when Russian-financed separatists had seized large chunks of Ukrainian territory. The area had since been fortified.
“All Russian attacks have resulted in significant losses for them,” he wrote.
In Avdiivka, Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city’s military administration, told Ukrainian national television: “The fighting has been going on for four consecutive days.
“They have substantial reserves of personnel and equipment. Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer centre.”
Russia has focused its campaign along the 1,000km front on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June has made some progress in both the east, near Bakhmut, and in the south, where Kyiv hopes to sever a land bridge joining Russian positions in the south and east.
But the gains have not yet matched rapid gains made by advances last year in the north-east and south.
Opening summaryHello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Russian forces attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday, with both Moscow and Washington deeming the intensified fighting a new offensive in Russia’s 19-month-old invasion of its neighbour.
In attacks elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile strike killed one person in the city of Pokrovsk, also in the east, while a drone attack in the south killed a woman and seriously injured her husband.
In Avdiivka, known for its large coking plant in Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland, officials said the Russian assaults had left the already gutted city in flames.
“Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer centre,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city’s military administration, told Ukrainian national television.
Both Moscow and Washington have called the fighting in Avdiivka a new Russian offensive.
In other key developments:
Russia has detained three lawyers of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and raided their homes, aides said, a step that comes amid increasing pressure on the Kremlin’s critics. The move was an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny”, his ally Ivan Zhdanov said on social media.
The US has claimed North Korea delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia for the war in Ukraine. The White House national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US believed Kim Jong-un was seeking sophisticated Russian weapon technologies in return for munitions to boost North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Fighting on the eastern frontline, in Avdiivka, entered a fourth day as Russia seeks to regain the initiative in its biggest offensive in months. Ukraine’s top military command said that it had repelled more than 20 attacks over the past day around the town, while there were claims Ukrainian reservists were being sent in to shore up defences after initial Russian breakthroughs.
Vladimir Putin dismissed the idea that Russia damaged a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia and suggested such claims were made up to divert attention from what he said was a western attack on Nord Stream.
EU leaders meeting later in October will demand “decisive progress” on using Russian assets frozen by sanctions to help Ukraine, according to their draft statement.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, while visiting the Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday, vowed to improve Ukraine’s air defences and to increase the security of a “humanitarian corridor” for grain exports.
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visit the damaged Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters Former Olympic champions Yelena Isinbayeva and Shamil Tarpischev – Russia’s two International Olympic Committee members – have no contractual links to the country’s military and have not supported the invasion of Ukraine, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, said.
No final communique is expected to be released at the end of the International Monetary Fund’s meetings in Marrakech because of a disagreement on how to refer to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a European official said on Friday.