Putin meets military commanders as Kyiv ‘shoots down 15 drones’ – live

President Vladimir Putin visited the commander of Russia’s operation in Ukraine and other top military brass, the Kremlin said on Saturday, a meeting that came after Ukraine claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front.

“Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the headquarters of the special military operation group in Rostov-on-Don,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Russia, which launched its invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, calls its actions a special military operation.

The Kremlin added that Putin, Russia’s supreme commander-in-chief, listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Army in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military commanders and officers.

The meeting came after Ukraine, whose counteroffensive to recapture land taken by Russia in the first months of the war has been slower than expected, said it liberated a small village along the frontline, its first since July.

The Kremlin did not provide any additional details of the meeting and it was not clear when the meeting took place. Videos published by the RIA state news agency showed Gerasimov greeting Putin in what appeared to be night-time and leading him into a building after a brief handshake.

Ukraine has said it shot down 15 of 17 attack drones launched by Russia overnight.

Kyiv said the aircraft were Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Ukraine’s northern, central and western regions.

It was not immediately clear what happened to the two drones that were not downed.

The reports could not immediately be independently verified.

It was not immediately known what objects and areas Russia targeted in its strikes.

Ukraine’s forces have continued to make gains in the south despite most of the front lines in the war elsewhere remaining static, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said.

The MoD said Kyiv’s troops made progress along the course of the Mokri Yaly river and had secured the village of Urozhaine in the face of “stiff Russian resistance”.

“In the north, Russian forces have continued probing attacks in the Kupiansk area but achieve no significant advances,” the MoD added.

Canada is imposing sanctions on 15 Russian individuals and three entities in what Ottawa said was a response to rising levels of human rights violations and violence faced by political opponents and critics in Russia, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

The sanctioned individuals and entities are senior officials of the Russian government, judiciary and investigative committee, as well as federally funded courts, the ministry said in a statement.

Russia has banned entry to 54 British nationals, including the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan, in a tit-for-tat move to UK sanctions against its citizens and enterprises, the foreign ministry said yesterday.

The ICC issued arrest warrants in March for Russian president Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, charges Moscow denies.

Moscow also added Britain’s minister of state for defence Annabel Goldie as well as a number of correspondents from the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph to the travel ban list.

“In response to London’s aggressive implementation of hostile anti-Russian policy involving the active use of a unilateral sanctions mechanism with regard to our citizens and domestic economic operators, a decision was made to expand Russia’s stop-list by including representatives from the UK’s political circles, power structures, professional legal community and press corps (a total of 54 individuals),” the ministry’s statement said.

Russian defence ministry claimed its air defence forces shot down a Ukraine-launched missile over the Crimean Peninsula in an overnight attack.

There were no casualties and no damage, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said in a cryptic message that Ukraine is preparing “powerful things” for their warriors and the state.

“We are preparing powerful things for Ukraine, strengthening our state, our warriors,” he said in his nightly video address.

“Today and this week in general, it is the main task. Weapons for our warriors. New opportunities for our defense. New support packages from our partners.”

He said they are doing everything to prepare for Ukraine’s Independence Day on 24 August to take “another step towards the circle of the strongest states in the world”.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that possession of nuclear weapons is to protect Russia from security threats and the US and Nato allies are only escalating a situation of direct armed conflict of nuclear powers.

“The possession of nuclear arms is today the only possible response to some of significant external threats to security of our country,” Mr Lavrov said in an interview for the state-owned magazine The International Affairs, published early today on the foreign ministry website.

He said Nato allies and the US are risking “a situation of direct armed confrontation of nuclear powers”.

“We believe such a development should be prevented. That’s why we have to remind about the existence of high military and political risks and send sobering signals to our opponents,” he said.

Last month, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would have to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine‘s counteroffensive against Russian troops was a success.

Former Kremlin economic adviser Andrei Illarionov was added to a registry of foreign agents, Russia’s justice ministry said yesterday, a designation the government applies to opponents.

People on the list may be closely monitored and are required to provide detailed information about their sources of income, expenses and a range of activities to the government or risk prosecution.

Mr Illarionov, who resigned from the Kremlin in 2005 and moved to the United States, is critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has called Russian policies of recent years “a catastrophe”.

The Russian justice ministry said that Mr Illarionov “spread false information” about Russian authorities and their decisions.

Mr Illarionov did not immediately comment on the designation.

The number of Russian and Ukrainian troops killed or injured in the war has hit half a million mark, New York Times reported, citing US officials, a toll representing the cost of war going on for 18 months.

Russian military casualties are nearing 300,000, including 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops, officials said.

Ukrainian casualties are close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, officials said.

But the American officials warned that determining casualty numbers continued to pose challenges due to suspicions that Moscow habitually downplays its military fatalities and casualties, while Kyiv refrains from sharing official statistics.

Nevertheless, they noted that the level of bloodshed has escalated in eastern Ukraine this year and has maintained a consistent pace as an ongoing counteroffensive, now almost three months old, unfolds.

Analysts estimate that Ukraine maintains a military force of approximately 500,000 personnel, encompassing active-duty, reserve, and paramilitary troops. In contrast, Russia boasts a force nearly three times larger, totaling 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve, and paramilitary personnel, a significant portion of which belongs to the Wagner Group.