Russian defences fail as Ukrainian counteroffensive ‘breaks through in south’ – live

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an oblique reference to legal proceedings against a Ukrainian business magnate, thanked law enforcement bodies on Saturday for their resolve in bringing long-running cases to justice.

“I thank Ukrainian law enforcement officials for their resolve in bringing to a just outcome each and every one of the cases that have been hindered for decades,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

Clad in white shirts and carrying bouquets, children across Russia flocked back to school Friday, where the Kremlin‘s narratives about the war in Ukraine and its confrontation with the West were taking an even more prominent spot than before.

Students are expected each week to listen to Russia’s national anthem and watch the country’s tricolor flag being raised. There’s a weekly subject loosely translated as “Conversations about Important Things,” which was introduced last year with the goal of boosting patriotism.

A new high school history textbook has a chapter on the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the “special military operation” — the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war, and some basic military training is included in a course on self-defense and first aid.

Dasha Litvinova has the full story:

Serving as a key supply route for Kremlin forces during its war in Ukraine, the bridge has been attacked repeatedly, Russian authorities claim. In October, an explosion involving a truck bomb purportedly killed three people, with a subsequent attack in July killing a couple and seriously injuring their daughter. A part of the road was further left hanging in a precarious position.

A Ukrainian court on Saturday ordered business magnate Ihor Kolomoisky, accused of fraud and money laundering, taken into custody for two months with the option to post bail of more than 509 million hryvnias, equivalent to more than $13 million.

Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs waved flags of Serbia and Russia and banners of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday as they staged a protest in support of their separatist leader who seeks union with neighboring Serbia.

The protests were held at the unmarked internal border in Bosnia that separates the country into two entities — the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation — as called for under the U.S.-mediated peace deal that ended the country’s 1992-95 war.

The Serb protesters chanted slogans against Bosnia being a single state. They briefly blocked traffic between the two entities, but there were no major incidents reported.

The Nobel Foundation on Saturday retracted its invitation for representatives of Russia, Belarus and Iran to attend this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies after the controversial decision “provoked strong reactions”.

Several Swedish lawmakers said Friday they would boycott this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, after the private foundation that administers the prestigious awards changed its position from a year earlier and invited representatives of the three countries to attend.

Some of the lawmakers cited Russia’s war on Ukraine and the crackdown on human rights in Iran as reasons for their boycott.

The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told media outlets Friday that he wouldn’t allow Russian representatives to attend the ceremony to attend Nobel award ceremonies this year if given the choice.

Two cargo vessels have left Ukraine despite Russian threats and are in the Black Sea, maritime officials said Saturday.

The Anna-Theresa, a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier carrying 56,000 tons of pig iron, left the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny on Friday and is now close to Bulgarian territorial waters, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

A second vessel — the Ocean Courtesy, travelling under a Marshall Islands flag — left the same port on Friday with 172,000 tons of iron ore concentrate. That ship arrived at the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta shortly before noon on Saturday, according to the global ship tracking website MarineTraffic. The website does not state whether the vessel is set to move on from the Romanian port.

The missile aimed at the mayor’s office took an estimated 64 seconds to fly 55 miles and detonate in shrapnel and flames after being fired by Russian forces.

Thankfully for Oleksandr Goncharenko, the mayor of Kramatorsk – near the frontline in east Ukraine – it missed the target by 200 metres, hitting a garden square.

The municipal headquarters was swiftly moved to another building for safety. But that building was bombed as well, resulting in a move to yet another location, dodging the missiles coming from the city of Horlivka which has been captured by Vladimir Putin’s forces.

There is plenty of pride in the cities around the frontline in managing to keep Putin’s forces at bay, writes Kim Sengupta from Druzhkivka. But it has come at the cost of crushing loss:

Ukraine‘s main security agency accused tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky of fraud and money laundering on Saturday, naming one of the country’s most prominent businessmen a suspect in a criminal investigation.

The move against Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine‘s richest men and a one-time supporter of President Volodymyr Zelensky whose election he backed in 2019, comes as Kyiv is trying to signal progress during a wartime crackdown on corruption.

“It was established that during 2013-2020, Ihor Kolomoisky legalised more than half a billion hryvnias ($14 million) by withdrawing them abroad and using the infrastructure of banks under (his) control,” the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement.

Kolomoisky, who has previously denied allegations of wrongdoing, could not be reached for comment.

The SBU published pictures on the Telegram messaging app of a group of detectives at the door of his home, with Kolomoisky being served documents and signing them.

The businessman, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2021, is seen as one of the class of oligarchs who amassed huge industrial wealth after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and have wielded outsize political and economic influence.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Zelensky and his team tried to clip their wings with legislation requiring oligarchs to register and stay out of politics.

The war has eroded their power as lucrative industrial assets have been destroyed in the east and south, and their television channels have been broadcasting under a centralised wartime signal.

Before he won the presidency, Zelensky rose to prominence as a comedian and played the role of president on a show aired on a Kolomoisky-owned TV channel. He denies Kolomoisky has had any influence over the government.

European Union Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said on Saturday he was confident an agreement over re-implementing EU budget rules would be reached by year-end, ruling out an extension of their suspension into 2024.

The EU rules, called the Stability and Growth Pact, have been on hold since 2020 to help governments deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine on energy and food prices.

The rules, which limit budget deficits and debt, are due to be re-implemented in 2024 and the EU is racing to establish a new rule book acceptable to all member states, with Italy favouring a more lenient approach than some northern European governments.

“I’m confident, I’d say I have to be confident, that a deal (over the new budget rules) can be reached by year-end,” Gentiloni told reporters on the sidelines of the European House Ambrosetti economic forum in Cernobbio.

“Suspension won’t be extended to 2024,” he added.

Gentiloni’s comments appeared to contrast with remarks on Monday by Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, who said a deal was probably out of reach by the end-2023 deadline, something the European Commission was now coming to terms with.

Italy is preparing a difficult 2024 budget in which it will seek to meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s tax-cutting promises while at the same time reducing the deficit while faced with an economic slowdown.

Gentiloni said failing to reach a deal on reviving the rules would mean a return to previous budget rules that did not help promote economic growth and cut sovereign debt in the bloc.

He said European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde “often reminds us that reaching this agreement is also fundamental in the overall assessment that the ECB makes of the market situation”.

State support and investment programmes to counter COVID’s economic impact sent many EU states’ debt levels soaring beyond the Stability Pact’s current 60% of GDP limit.