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Ukraine destroyed a Russian landing warship off the coast of occupied Crimea in an operation with naval drones that breached the vessel's port side on Wednesday and caused it to sink, Kyiv's military spy agency and armed forces said. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which said earlier that it had destroyed six drones in the Black Sea. The Kremlin declined to comment. "The Ukrainian Armed Forces, together with the Defence Ministry's intelligence unit, destroyed the Tsezar Kunikov large landing ship. It was in Ukraine's territorial waters near Alupka at the time of the hit," the military said on...

Ukrainian missiles struck one of the few bridges linking the Crimea Peninsula with the Ukrainian mainland early on Thursday, cutting one of the main supply routes for Russian occupation forces in southern Ukraine as Kyiv pushes to drive them out. Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Russian-installed administration in occupied parts of Ukraine's Kherson province, released video of himself on the Chonhar road bridge, where craters had been blasted through the asphalt. "Another meaningless act perpetrated by the Kyiv regime on orders from London. It solves nothing as far as the special military operation is concerned," he said, vowing to...

DNIPRO, Ukraine/KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Ukraine insisted the West must speed up its supply of weapons, with the city of Dnipro reeling from a Russian missile strike that killed at least 40 people in an apartment block and Ukrainian troops under increased pressure on the eastern front.... ....Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his Monday night video address that the attack on Dnipro and Russia's attempts to gain the initiative in the war underscored the need for the West "to speed up decision-making" in supplying weapons. Western countries have produced a steady supply of weapons to Ukraine since Russian...

Moscow has said no “Christmas ceasefire” was on the cards after nearly 10 months of war in Ukraine, with fighting looking set to drag on through the winter. ...Zelenskiy had called on Russia this week to start withdrawing its troops by Christmas as the first step towards a peace deal, but Peskov said on Tuesday there would be no peace with Kyiv until Zelenskiy accepted the “realities” on the ground – referring to Russian control over parts of four Ukrainian regions it annexed in September following coercive and illegal “referendums”. After a series of lightning Ukrainian counteroffensives, Kyiv has regained...

A Russian-installed occupation official in southern Ukraine said on Thursday Moscow was likely to pull its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River, signalling a huge retreat that, if confirmed, would be a major turning point in the war. Still, Ukrainian officials and Western analysts remained cautious about signs that Russia was abandoning the area, and there was silence from higher-ups in Moscow over what would amount to one of Russia's most humiliating retreats so far. Kyiv said it was still fighting in the area and was wary that Moscow could be setting a trap by feigning a...

SVIATOHIRSK/KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces have broken through Russia’s defences in the south of the country while expanding their rapid offensive in the east, seizing back more territory in areas annexed by Moscow and threatening supply lines for Russian troops. Making their biggest breakthrough in the south since the war began, Ukrainian forces recaptured several villages in an advance along the strategic Dnipro River on Monday, Ukrainian officials and a Russian-installed leader in the area said. The southern breakthrough mirrors recent Ukrainian advances in the east, even as Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by annexing land, ordering mobilisation,...

Ukrainian forces achieved their biggest breakthrough in the south of the country since the war began, bursting through the front and advancing rapidly along the Dnipro River on Monday, threatening to encircle thousands of Russian troops. Kyiv gave no official confirmation of the gains, but Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of kilometers (miles) along the river’s west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way. “The information is tense, let’s put it that way, because, yes there were indeed breakthroughs,” Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson province told...

Ukrainian forces were charging through an expanding area of previously Russian-held territory in the east on Friday after bursting through the frontline in a surprise breakthrough that could mark a major turning point in the war. After keeping silent for a day, Moscow effectively acknowledged that a section of its frontline had crumbled southeast of Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. "The very fact of a breach of our defences is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces," the head of the Moscow-installed administration for occupied areas in Kharkiv province, Vitaly Ganchev, said on Russian state TV.

KYIV, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Ukraine's Energoatom state nuclear company said on Friday Russian forces planned to switch off the functioning power blocks at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and to disconnect them from the Ukrainian power grid. In a statement, Energoatom said it believed Russia, which controls the power plant in southern Ukraine, was preparing to conduct a "large-scale provocation" there. Moscow itself accused Kyiv of preparing a "provocation" at the site on Thursday. (clip) Turning the plant off would pile new pressure on Ukrainian supplies, particularly in the south. Ukraine is already bracing for its most difficult winter...

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia said on Saturday its forces would step up military operations in Ukraine in "all operational areas" as Moscow's rockets and missiles pounded cities in strikes that Kyiv says have killed dozens in recent days.Rockets hit the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region overnight, killing three people including a 70-year-old woman and wounding three others, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said."Three people lost their lives, why? What for? Because Putin went mad?" said Raisa Shapoval, 83, a distraught resident sitting in the ruins of her home.To the south, more than 50 Russian Grad rockets pounded the city of...