
Russian forces claim first foothold in new Ukraine region
The Russian defence ministry said its forces captured the village of Dachne in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial mining territory that has also come under mounting Russian air attacks. Russian forces appear to have made crossing the border a key strategic objective over recent months, and deeper advances into the region could pose logistics and economic problems for Kyiv. Kyiv has so far denied any Russian foothold in Dnipropetrovsk.
Moscow first said last month its forces had crossed the border, more than three years since launching its attack and pushing through the neighbouring Donetsk region. Earlier on Monday, Ukraine's army said its forces "repelled" attacks in Dnipropetrovsk, including "in the vicinity" of Dachne. Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.
Russia used its main city of Dnipro as a testing ground for its "experimental" Oreshnik missile in late 2024, claiming to have struck an aeronautics production facility. A reporter in the eastern city of Kharkiv saw civilians with their belongings being evacuated from a residential building damaged during Russia's overnight attacks, and others sheltering with pets in a basement.
At least four people were killed and dozens wounded across Ukraine, mostly in the Kharkiv region bordering Russia and in a late-morning attack on the industrial city of Zaphorizhzhia. "Air defence remains the top priority for protecting lives," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media after the attacks, as fears mount over the continuing deliveries of US military aid.
Zelensky said Ukraine was "strongly counting on our partners to fully deliver on what we have agreed". The air force said Moscow had launched 101 drones across the country and four missiles. Seventy-five of the drones were downed, it added.
Attacks on Monday targeted two recruitment centres in separate cities wounding four people, the Ukrainian army said, in what appears to be a new trend following similar strikes over the weekend and last week. "These strikes are part of a comprehensive enemy operation aimed at disrupting mobilisation in Ukraine," Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications, a government-funded body, wrote on social media. It added that Russia had attacked recruitment centres last week in the cities of Kremenchuk, Kryvyi Rig, and Poltava. In Russia, the defence ministry said that it had shot down 91 Ukrainian drones overnight, including eight in the Moscow region, with the majority of the rest in regions bordering Ukraine. — AFP
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Observer
10 hours ago
- Observer
Kremlin 'committed' to peace amid strikes in Kyiv
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it wanted to pursue peace in Ukraine hours after mounting attacks that killed at least 25 people, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman and more than a dozen prison inmates. The strikes on several regions came hours after US President Donald Trump issued Moscow with a new deadline to end its grinding invasion of Ukraine — now in its fourth year — or face tough new sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of purposefully targeting a prison in the Zaporizhzhia region — that Russia claims as its own — killing 16 people and wounding more than 40 others. "It was a deliberate strike, intentional, not accidental. The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians in that facility," Zelensky said on social media in response. The Kremlin denied that claim. "The Russian army does not strike civilian targets," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov added that Moscow had "taken note" of Trump's new deadline and told journalists that it remained "committed to the peace process to resolve the conflict around Ukraine and secure our interests." Ukraine's justice ministry said Moscow's forces hit the prison with four glide bombs, while police said 16 inmates were killed and 43 were wounded. Bricks and debris were strewn on the ground around buildings with blown-out windows, according to images released by the ministry. The facility's perimeter was intact and there was no threat that inmates would escape, it added. Rescue workers were seen searching for survivors in pictures released by the region's emergency services. A senior Ukrainian source said that 274 people were serving sentences in the Bilenkivska facility, where 30 people worked. The source added there were no Russian war prisoners being held at the centre. Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said the Zaporizhzhia attack was further evidence of Russian "war crimes". "People held in places of detention do not lose their right to life and protection," he wrote on social media. In addition to the glide bomb attack, the Ukrainian air force said that Russia had launched 37 drones and two missiles overnight, adding that its air defence systems had downed 32 of the drones. Zelensky said that among the separate attacks, Russian forces had targeted a hospital in the town of the Kamyanske in the Dnipropetrovsk region. "Three people were killed in the attack, including a pregnant woman. Her name was Diana. She was only 23-years-old," Zelensky said. Separate strikes in the eastern Kharkiv region that borders Russia killed six people, regional authorities said. In the southern Russian region of Rostov, a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person, the region's acting governor said. Kyiv has been trying to repel Russia's summer offensive, which has made fresh advances into areas largely spared since the start of the attack in 2022. The Russian defence ministry claimed fresh advances across the sprawling front line on Tuesday, saying its forces had taken control of two more villages — one in the Donetsk region, and another in the Zaporizhzhia region. The prison strike on Tuesday came on the three-year anniversary of a attack on another detention facility in occupied Ukrainian territory that Kyiv blamed on Moscow and that was reported to have killed dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers. Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for the strike over the night of July 29 three years ago on the detention centre in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, which the Kremlin says is part of Russia. Ukraine says that dozens of its soldiers who laid down their arms after a long Russian siege of the port city of Mariupol were killed in that attack on the Olenivka detention facility. — AFP


Observer
a day ago
- Observer
Russia's Aeroflot cancels flights over massive cyberattack
MOSCOW: Russian national flag carrier Aeroflot was forced to cancel dozens of flights on Monday after a crippling cyberattack claimed by a shadowy pro-Ukrainian hacking group, which one lawmaker called a wake-up call for Moscow. The Kremlin said the situation was worrying and prosecutors confirmed the disruption was the result of a hack and opened a criminal investigation. Senior lawmaker Anton Gorelkin said that Russia was under digital attack. "We must not forget that the war against our country is being waged on all fronts, including the digital one. And I do not rule out that the 'hacktivists' who claimed responsibility for the incident are in the service of unfriendly states," Gorelkin said in a statement. Aeroflot did not say how long the problems would take to resolve, but departure boards at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport turned red as flights were cancelled at a time when many Russians take their holidays. A statement purporting to be from a hacking group called Silent Crow said it had carried out the operation together with a Belarusian group called Cyberpartisans BY, and linked it to the war in Ukraine. "Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!" said the statement, whose authenticity Reuters could not immediately verify. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Silent Crow has previously claimed responsibility for attacks this year on a Russian real estate database, a state telecoms company, a large insurance firm, the Moscow government's IT department and the Russian office of South Korean carmaker KIA. Some of those resulted in big data leaks. "The information that we are reading in the public domain is quite alarming. The hacker threat is a threat that remains for all large companies providing services to the population," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Aeroflot, the transport ministry and the aviation regulator did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the hack. The airline said it had cancelled more than 40 flights — mostly within Russia but also including routes to the Belarusian capital Minsk and the Armenian capital Yerevan — after reporting a failure in its information systems. At least 10 other flights were delayed. "Specialists are currently working to minimise the impact on the flight schedule and to restore normal service operations," it said. The statement in the name of Silent Crow said the cyberattack was the result of a year-long operation which had deeply penetrated Aeroflot's network, destroyed 7,000 servers and gained control over the personal computers of employees, including senior managers. It published screenshots of file directories purportedly from inside Aeroflot's network and threatened to shortly start releasing "the personal data of all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot". Since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February 2022, travellers in Russia have become accustomed to flight disruptions. However, those delays have usually been caused by temporary airport closures during drone attacks. Irate passengers vented their anger on social network VK, complaining about a lack of clear information from the airline. Malena Ashi wrote: "I've been sitting at Volgograd airport since 3:30!!!!! The flight has been rescheduled for the third time!!!!!! This time it was rescheduled for approximately 14:50, and it was supposed to depart at 5:00!!!" Another woman, Yulia Pakhota, posted: "The call centre is unavailable, the website is unavailable, the app is unavailable. How can I return a ticket or exchange it for the next flight, as Aeroflot suggests?" Aeroflot said affected passengers could get a refund or rebook as soon as its systems were up and running and that it was trying to get some affected passengers seats on other airlines. Despite Western sanctions on Russia that have drastically limited travel and routes, Aeroflot remains among the top 20 airlines worldwide by passenger numbers, which last year hit 55.3 million people, according to its website. — Reuters


Observer
2 days ago
- Observer
European Union resigned to a 15 percent US tariff
Turnberry - The United States and the European Union clinched a trade agreement on Sunday that will see EU exports taxed at 15 percent, in a bid to resolve a transatlantic tariff stand-off that threatened to explode into a full-blown trade war. US President Donald Trump emerged from a high-stakes meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his golf resort in Scotland, describing the deal as the "biggest-ever". The deal, which the leaders reached after an hour of talks, came as the clock ticked down on an August 1 deadline to avoid a 30 percent across-the-board US levy on European goods. "We've reached a deal. It's a good deal for everybody. This is probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity," said Trump. Trump said a baseline tariff of 15 percent would apply across the board, including for Europe's crucial automobile sector, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors. As part of the deal, Trump said the 27-nation EU bloc had agreed to purchase "$750 billion worth of energy" from the United States, as well as make $600 billion in additional investments. Von der Leyen said the "significant" purchases of US liquefied natural gas, oil, and nuclear fuels would come over three years, as part of the bloc's bid to diversify away from Russian sources. Negotiating on behalf of the EU's 27 countries, von der Leyen had been pushing hard to salvage a trading relationship worth an annual $1.9 trillion in goods and services. "It's a good deal," the EU chief told reporters. "It will bring stability. It will bring predictability. That's very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic," she said. She added that bilateral tariff exemptions had been agreed on several "strategic products", notably aircraft, certain chemicals, some agricultural products, and critical raw materials. Von der Leyen said the EU still hopes to secure further so-called "zero-for-zero" agreements, notably for alcohol, which she hopes will be "sorted out" in the coming days. Trump also said EU countries -- which recently pledged to ramp up their defence spending within NATO -- would be purchasing "hundreds of billions of dollars worth of military equipment." - 'Best we could get' - The EU has been hit by multiple waves of tariffs since Trump reclaimed the White House. It is currently subject to a 25-percent levy on cars, 50 percent on steel and aluminium, and an across-the-board tariff of 10 percent, which Washington threatened to hike to 30 percent in a no-deal scenario. The bloc had been pushing hard for tariff carve-outs for critical industries from aircraft to spirits, and its auto industry, crucial for France and Germany, is already reeling from the levies imposed so far. "Fifteen percent is not to be underestimated, but it is the best we could get," acknowledged von der Leyen. Any deal will need to be approved by EU member states -- whose ambassadors, on a visit to Greenland, were updated by the commission Sunday morning. They were set to meet again after the deal struck in Scotland. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz rapidly hailed the deal, saying it avoided "needless escalation in transatlantic trade relations". But German exporters were less enthusiastic. The powerful BDI federation of industrial groups said the accord would have "considerable negative repercussions," while the country's VCI chemical trade association said the accord left rates "too high". Ireland, one of the EU's top exporters to the United States, said Sunday it welcomed the deal for bringing "a measure of much-needed certainty", but that it "regrets" the baseline tariff, in a statement by its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. France's minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, wrote on X on Monday that the agreement would provide "temporary stability... but it is unbalanced". The EU had pushed for a compromise on steel that could allow a certain quota into the United States before tariffs would apply. Trump appeared to rule that out, saying steel was "staying the way it is", but the EU chief insisted later that "tariffs will be cut and a quota system will be put in place" for steel. - 'The big one' - While 15 percent is much higher than pre-existing US tariffs on European goods, which average around 4.8 percent, it mirrors the status quo, with companies currently facing an additional flat rate of 10 percent. Had the talks failed, EU states had greenlit counter tariffs on $109 billion (93 billion euros) of US goods, including aircraft and cars, to take effect in stages from August 7. Trump has embarked on a campaign to reshape US trade with the world, and has vowed to hit dozens of countries with punitive tariffs if they do not reach a pact with Washington by August 1. Asked what the next deal would be, Trump replied: "This was the big one. This is the biggest of them all."