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Russia has said that its forces have advanced in eastern Ukraine, taking villages in two regions, and that it has struck the country’s energy and military infrastructure in response to attacks on Russian refineries.
Missiles and drones struck nearly a dozen facilities in a major airstrike early today, causing serious damage at three Soviet-era thermal power plants, Ukrainian officials said.
Russia’s defence ministry said that high-precision long-range naval and air-based weapons, hypersonic Kinzhal missile systems and drones were used to strike energy facilities and a military-industrial complex.
“As a result of the strike, Ukraine’s capabilities for the output of military products, as well as the transfer of Western weapons and military equipment to the line of contact, have been significantly reduced,” the ministry said.
The attack was in response to the “attempts of the Kyiv regime to damage Russian energy facilities”.
Along the 1,000km front, Russian forces advanced in several places, the defence ministry said.
They took control of the village of Kyslivka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and the village of Novokalynove in the Donetsk area, it added.
The ministry also said that Russia had struck Ukrainian ammunition depots and drone workshops.
Russia warns of ‘enormous danger’ if NATO sends troops to Ukraine
Russia said that sending NATO troops into Ukraine would potentially be extremely dangerous, and Moscow was closely watching a petition that called for such an intervention.
The petition, posted on the Ukrainian president’s website, said that Ukraine should ask the United States, the UK and other countries to send troops to help it repel the invasion.
“The Kyiv regime is quite unpredictable,” Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about it.
“We have repeatedly said that direct intervention on the ground in this conflict by the military of NATO countries potentially carries enormous danger, so we consider this an extremely challenging provocation, nothing less, and, of course, we are watching this very carefully.”
It is unclear if the petition would gather the required number of votes – 25,000 – to require President Volodymyr Zelensky to respond by either approving or rejecting it.
So far, it has more than 1,500 signatures.
NATO has backed Ukraine in the war by providing it with increasingly powerful weapons including tanks and long-range missiles, but has not intervened directly with troops – something that US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both warned could lead to World War III.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the question of sending Western troops to Ukraine would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian lines and Kyiv requested it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia would target French troops if they were sent to Ukraine.
She also said that the conflict would be over in just two weeks if the West halted military supplies to Ukraine, echoing remarks by the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Mr Borrell said earlier this month that Ukraine’s existence depended on the West and that the war would end in a couple of weeks if the supply of Western weaponry ended, but that he did not want it to finish like that.
Asked about how to de-escalate the confrontation, Ms Zakharova said the West had raised the rhetoric about Russia.
“What is needed for de-escalation … if you stop supplying Kiev with weapons, everything will be over in two weeks … here is the de-escalation formula.”
Ukrainian parliament approves mobilisation of convicts
Ukraine’s parliament has passed a bill allowing for the mobilisation of some categories of convicts.
“Those convicted of premeditated murder, rape, sexual violence, and crimes against the national security will not be mobilised,” Oleksiy Honcharenko, one of the parliamentarians, said on social media.
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