Ukraine-Russia battle dwell updates: Children amongst 19 killed in assault by Putin’s forces on Zelensky’s house metropolis | EUROtoday

Ukraine has hit back after Russia claimed that its attack on Kryvyi Rih was a targeted military gathering.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Telegram that the strike had been “high-precision” in targeting a “meeting of unit commanders and Western instructors” in a city restaurant.

“As a result of the strike, enemy losses total up to 85 servicemen and officers of foreign countries, as well as up to 20 vehicles,” the ministry said on Telegram.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military said Moscow was “once more spreading false data”.

“Through this newest violation of the norms of worldwide human rights, the insidious enemy exhibits that it’s by no means in search of peace however somewhat intends to proceed its invasion and battle to destroy Ukraine and all Ukrainians,” it said.

The strike on Zelensky’s hometown has been one of Moscow’s deadliest so far this year in the conflict as 19 people, including nine children have died.

An industrial facility in Russia’s Volga river region of Mordovia was hit by a drone strike early on Saturday, the region’s governor said in a statement on Telegram.

Governor Artyom Zdunov said that emergency services were at the scene of the strike on the facility, which he did not name, and that there had been no casualties.

Baza, a Telegram channel close to Russian law enforcement, said the target had been an optical fibre factory in the city of Saransk, 820km (510 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Germany has been paying for Ukraine’s access to a satellite-internet network operated by France’s Eutelsat, as Europe continues to seek out alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Eutelsat chief executive Eva Berneke said to Reuters that the company has provided its high-speed satellite internet service to Ukraine for about a year via a German distributor.

She said it was funded by the German government but did not say how much it cost.

There are fewer than a thousand terminals connecting users in Ukraine to Eutelssat’s network, which is a small fraction compared to the approximate 50,000 Starlink terminals Ukraine says it has.

The figures are expected to rise as the company seems to get between 5,000 and 10,000 there “within weeks”.

Starlink has been used extensively by Ukraine’s military.

Musk previously said that Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” and that “their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off”.

Ukraine’s armed forces continue to control a sizable chunk of the Kursk region in Russia, despite the Kremlin’s efforts to push them out, said a top US general.

US Army general Christopher Cavoli, commander of the United States European Command, said that Ukrainian forces had also entered the nearby Belgorod region, expanding their presence on Russian territory.

He said during a congressional hearing on Thursday: “There is a sizable force holding a sizable — diminished, but sizable — chunk of ground inside Russia’s Kursk Oblast right now. And they’re holding on very good defensive terrain south of there in Belgorod.”

“The Ukrainians, a couple of weeks ago, pushed a smaller counteroffensive back into Russia [in Belgorod]. So, we still have a back and forth going up in that area.”

Ukraine’s air force has said that they shot down 51 out of 91 drones launched by Russia overnight in the north, south, east and centre of the country.

They added that 31 enemy drone simulators were lost in location without negative consequences, meaning they used electronic warfare to intercept or block them

The country’s capital, as well as its Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions suffered as a result of the attack.

They advised citizens in Sumy to stay in shelters as more drones were heading towards the city and its surroundings.

Russia’s top negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has been visiting not only the US but several other countries in Moscow’s push to unlock frozen Russian assets, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“He (Dmitriev) was not only in the US – we are monitoring the movements of our adversaries,” Mr Zelensky said during the briefing.

The Ukrainian president said Moscow is pressuring foreign governments to help release the funds by offering deals involving high-tech goods such as aircraft construction.

Russia is actively trying to have sanctions lifted, but as of now both Europe and the US remain firm in their stance of continuing to impose them, Mr Zelensky said.

Mr Dmitriev, Mr Putin’s investment envoy, said on Thursday that he saw a “optimistic dynamic” in relations between Moscow and Washington after holding two days of meetings in Washington, but said more meetings were needed to sort out differences.

European military planners could be ready within a month with details of a foreign troop contingent in Ukraine seen as critical to ending the war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv after meeting British and French military chiefs, Mr Zelensky said many other countries would also contribute to the effort, which envisages foreign troops patrolling Ukrainian land, sea and airspace.

“I feel the groups want a few month, not, and we might be absolutely prepared with an understanding of this infrastructure,” he said.

Mr Zelensky added that military working groups would meet weekly until then to finalise the details. He did not specify which other nations would contribute.

Kyiv is seeking security guarantees from its allies in the event of a peace agreement with Moscow to prevent a repeat of its February 2022 full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian army leaders including Kyiv’s top general and the chief of its general staff also met the visiting European military officials yesterday.

Ukraine’s military said early today that Russia was “once more spreading false data” by saying it had targeted a gathering of servicemen in a missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

“The missile struck a residential space with a playground,” the military’s General Staff said in a statement on Telegram.

“Through this newest violation of the norms of worldwide human rights, the insidious enemy exhibits that it’s by no means in search of peace however somewhat intends to proceed its invasion and battle to destroy Ukraine and all Ukrainians.”

Local officials say the strike killed at least 18 people, including nine children.