Ukraine war: Putin unleashes new strikes on key town in biggest offensive in months

Russia has pounded port and grain facilities in southern Ukraine and launched new attacks on the eastern town of Avdiivka in one of its biggest offensive operations in months.

Underlining the intensity and importance of the assault on Avdiivka, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground. Ukraine’s military said it had repelled more than 10 Russian attacks near the town.

Russia is hitting back more than four months into a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and south that has encountered stiff Russian resistance.

Avdiivka, which is home to a big coking plant in the southwest of the Donetsk region, lies just northwest of the Russian-held city of Donetsk. A symbol of resistance to Russia’s invasion in February last year, it has helped ensure Moscow could not gain full control of a region it says it has annexed.

Russia has also intensified air strikes on Danube River ports in the southern Odesa region that have become Kyiv’s main route for food exports since Moscow quit a deal allowing shipments via the Black Sea in July.

The death toll from a missile strike on the village of Hroza in northeastern Ukraine has risen to 59 after police finished identifying the victims, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Thursday.

Ukraine said a Russian missile hit a cafe in the village in the Kharkiv region last week as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its full-scale invasion, a position it repeated in response to a question at a Kremlin briefing about the strike on Hroza.

“The Russians killed 59 people with a direct hit with an Iskander (missile) on the village of Hroza,” Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

“All victims are local residents. They were pensioners, medics, farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs. All were civilians. Entire families of several generations died.”

The toll is one of the biggest among civilians in any single Russian strike in nearly 20 months of the war.

The Czech Foreign Ministry will summon Russia’s ambassador over Russian attacks on the Ukrainian hamlet of Hroza this month, CTK news agency reported on Thursday.

An air strike on Hroza in northeastern Ukraine earlier this month killed dozens. The Kremlin said after the attacks that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets in Ukraine.

The Czech Republic and Denmark will jointly supply heavy military equipment to Ukraine in the coming months, the Czech Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

It said the Czech-made supplies, financed from the Danish budget, would include tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, hand guns and ammunition.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday Ukrainian troops were holding their ground in the eastern town of Avdiivka, where fighting with Russian forces has intensified this week.

Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have redirected large numbers of troops and equipment to Avdiivka after months of besieging it, and are making their largest attack on the town since launching the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian accounts also indicate the fighting has intensified around Avdiivka as Moscow pushes back on the eastern front, more than four months after Kyiv began a counteroffensive in the east and south.

“Avdiivka. We are holding our ground. It is Ukrainian courage and unity that will determine how this war will end,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app alongside photos from the area.

Vitaliy Barabash, head of the town’s administration, has described the Russian push as “the largest-scale offensive action in our sector since the full-fledged war began.”

Avdiivka is home to a large coking plant to the southwest of the Donetsk region. Much of the town has been reduced to rubble.

Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, will vote next week on withdrawing Moscow’s ratification of the global treaty that bans nuclear tests, lawmakers said on Thursday.

The Duma said it would hold a first reading on the bill on Oct. 17. Leonid Slutsky, head of the parliament’s international affairs committee, said he expected it to complete its passage two days later.

All 450 members of the Duma would sponsor the motion, Slutsky said.

President Vladimir Putin said last week that the Duma should look at withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the treaty in order to “mirror” the position of the United States, which has signed but never ratified the pact.

Putin said he was not ready to say whether Russia should actually resume tests involving nuclear explosions for the first time since 1990.

A Russian drone strike hit a grain storage facility in the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa overnight, and some grain was damaged, a military spokesperson said on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, there was a hit on port infrastructure. A grain storage facility was damaged, there is damage directly to the grain itself,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the southern military command, told an online briefing.

She did not say how much grain had been damaged.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have launched the “largest-scale offensive action” in eastern Ukraine’s Avdiivka town since the start of Russia’s invasion.

The major push on the battlefield comes after Avdiivka witnessed two days of intense fighting as Russian tanks and equipment were seen moving towards Ukrainian lines. Major attacks, including hundreds of rocket and artillery strikes on the town, have been underway since Tuesday.

“This is the largest-scale offensive action in our sector since the full-fledged war began,” said Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka administration.

Ukraine thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northeastern border in the Sumy region, the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Thursday.

“The saboteurs tried to cross the state border of Ukraine and intended to move further towards one of the civilian critical infrastructure facilities,” Lieutenant General Serhiy Naev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The eight-member group was repelled by Ukrainian fire, and there were no losses among Ukrainian troops, he said.

The group was detected by members of a territorial defence brigade, Naev said.

“Having suffered combat losses, the saboteur group retreated towards the state border,” he said.

In a video posted with his message, Naev said there had been more than 10 attempts to cross the Ukrainian border in the last two months. All had been prevented and the enemy retreated after suffering losses, he said.

Russia did not immediately comment on Naev’s Telegram post.

Kim Jong-un wrote to Vladimir Putin promising to boost ties as North Korea and Russia marked the 75th anniversary of bilateral relations.

The North Korean leader congratulated the Russian president on his victory over what he called “hegemony and pressure from imperialists”. He also wished his Russian ally luck in resisting pressure from their common nemesis West over Ukraine.

“I hope that the Russian people, who have set out to build a strong nation, will always achieve only victory and glory in their struggle to protect the country’s sovereignty, dignity, security and peace by crushing the imperialists’ persistent hegemonic policy and anti-Russia scheme to isolate and stifle it,” the North Korean leader said, as reported by Pyongyang’s state media KCNA.