Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces advance in key eastern town as Kyiv’s troops plead for ammunition

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday attended the summit of a security grouping created by Moscow and Beijing to counter Western alliances.

Putin and Xi joined the leaders of other countries that are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at its annual meeting in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana.

The grouping was established in 2001 by China, Russia and four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to promote regional security and economic cooperation.

It was later joined by India, Pakistan and Iran. Russia’s western neighbor and ally, Belarus, joined the SCO on Thursday.Observer states and dialogue partners include Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Ukrainian forces have pulled back from a part of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, the military’s spokesman said on national television on Thursday.

“It became impractical to hold the canal neighbourhood after the enemy entered it, because it threatened the lives and health of our servicemen and the positions of our defenders were destroyed,” Nazar Voloshyn said.

“The command decided to pull back to more protected and prepared positions, but even there the enemy does not stop its active combat actions,” he added.

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that Ankara could help end the Ukraine-Russia war, an offer Putin’s spokesperson rejected and said Erdogan could not play the role of an intermediary in the 28-month-old conflict.

Erdogan, speaking to Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan, said he believed a fair peace suiting both sides was possible, the Turkish presidency said.

But Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, ruled out any role as a go-between for the Turkish leader.

“No, it’s not possible,” said Peskov, when asked by a Russian television interviewer whether Erdogan could assume such a role, according to the Russian Tass news agency. The news agency’s account did not explain why the Kremlin was opposed to Erdogan’s participation.

The Turkish presidency said the two leaders also discussed the war in Gaza and ways to end the conflict in Syria.

On his way to the Kyiv train station to greet his wife and daughter returning from Poland to Ukraine, Oleksander Tryfonov made a stop.

He bought two red roses from one of a half-dozen flower shops lining a dimly lit underpass — something beautiful for the two most precious people in his life.

“I haven’t seen them for two years,” Tryfonov, a burly 45-year-old driver said of his family. “Flowers are important for women.”

Flowers have always been linked with Ukraine’s culture, but since Russia’s 2022 invasion, their significance has only grown, with blooms becoming a symbol of both resistance and hope.

Despite hardships brought by war — or perhaps because of them — Ukrainians take every chance they can to fill Kyiv and other cities with flowers from the country’s vast rural heartland, anxious to reconnect with and rediscover their roots.

The frontline situation in Ukraine’s Chasiv Yar is “critically difficult”, Ukrainian press officer Ivan Petrechak said last evening amid Russian reports of mounting aerial attacks.

“We see no letup in the amount of shelling. The enemy is using artillery, multiple rocket systems,” Mr Petrechak, press officer for Ukraine’s 24th brigade defending the town, said. “The situation remains tense. But the 24th brigade is holding its positions.”

Russian forces, he said, were sticking to known tactics – moving infantry into forested areas and then dispersing to attack Ukrainian positions in small groups. Advancing soldiers were covered by shelling and attack drones.

The popular Ukrainian war blog DeepState reported earlier in the day that Russian forces had “completely erased” Novyi district. A Ukrainian military official said last week that Russian troops had been pushed out of an area by the canal.

Russian forces have been slowly pushing their way across parts of eastern Ukraine since the capture of the key city of Avdiivka in February.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken control of a district in the key Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar, while Ukraine said the area was engulfed by intense fighting.

Chasiv Yar stands on high ground 20km (12 miles) to the west of Bakhmut, a town Russian forces seized a year ago. It had been levelled by months of fierce battles.

Both sides see Chasiv Yar as a strategic site which Russia could use as a potential staging point to move westward through Donetsk region toward the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

A Ukrainian military intelligence official said on Wednesday that a fire on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea in April was caused by a joint operation conducted by his GUR agency and a pro-Kyiv Russian military group.

On 7 April, the Serpukhov missile ship stationed in Russia’s Kaliningrad region was set on fire, the GUR intelligence agency said at the time. It did not claim responsibility earlier.

GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov told Reuters the operation was conducted in tandem with the Freedom of Russia Legion. Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has made no public comment on the incident.

Ukraine regularly carries out multiple air and naval strikes on Russian warships in the Black Sea. If the reported damage to the Serpukhov is confirmed, the arson would be Ukraine’s first known operation against Russia in the Baltic Sea.

A Russian missile and drone attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro yesterday killed five civilians and injured 47 others, including a 14-year-old girl, authorities said.

Blasts blew out some windows of a shopping mall, raining shards onto the street, photos published by local officials showed. Mayor Borys Filatov said the daytime attack also shattered windows in two schools and three kindergartens. Debris struck the intensive care unit of a children’s hospital, and a fire broke out in another hospital.

A video posted on social media by president Volodymyr Zelensky showed a missile with a fiery trail streaking over buildings in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, and debris flying into the air from its impact.

Ukraine shot down 21 out of 22 Shahed drones used in a Russian attack overnight, its air force reported this morning.

Ukrainian air defence shot down the drones over six regions in northern and central Ukraine, the air force said.

Volodymyr Zelensky has asked Donald Trump to disclose his plan on ending the war in Ukraine and said that the mounting risks for Kyiv include losing statehood.

“If Trump knows how to end this war he should tell us today. Because if there are risks to Ukraine’s independence, if there are risks that we lose statehood, we want to be prepared for this,” he told Bloomberg.

Mr Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day if he’s elected president again, even though Russia’s United Nations ambassador says he can’t.

At a CNN town hall in May 2023, the former US president said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin. And he keeps repeating the claim on the campaign trail.

The Ukrainian war-time president reacted to the claims by Mr Trump and said he wanted to know the extent of US support when Americans vote on 5 November.

“They can’t plan my life and the life of our people, our children,” Mr Zelensky said. “My message is if they have the plan, it can be not public because of the elections but I think we have to know before to prepare.”

Mr Trump campaign’s communications director Steven Cheung said Tuesday that “a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.”NEW

A Russian missile hit and destroyed a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet on an airfield in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said this morning, reported TASS news agency.

Russian forces have been targeting Ukrainian air base, as they anticipate the arrival of F-16 warplanes to Ukraine this week.

At least two of Ukraine’s Sukhoi Su-27 fighters parked on tarmac at Mirgorod air base in northern Ukraine were destroyed by Russian Iskander ballistic missiles on Monday.

Russian drones have continued to hover over Ukrainian air bases. While officials have not revealed where the F-16s will be based, Moscow said after the strike on Starokostiantyniv last Thursday that it had targeted airfields it believed would house them.