Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv fighting ‘grueling battles’ with Putin’s troops in Pokrovsk – UK Times

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for the dismissal of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers, saying that he supported anti-graft agencies in their investigation into energy sector corruption.

“First of all, there should be maximum transparency in the energy sector, in all processes absolutely,” Zelensky said in a video address.

“It is very difficult for everyone in Ukraine now. It is absolutely abnormal that there are still some schemes in the energy sector.”

Justice minister German Galushchenko earlier said on Facebook he supported his suspension as “a civilised and appropriate scenario” and vowed to defend himself, without sharing more details of the probe.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has uncovered an alleged Russian FSB agent from Crimea who was reportedly planning a series of terrorist attacks in Kyiv, the agency announced.

Investigators said the plot targeted major shopping and entertainment centres, as well as one of the capital’s metro stations.

The suspect, a Crimean resident, allegedly began working with the FSB after Russia’s 2014 occupation of the peninsula and sought to recruit “like-minded” individuals, including Ukrainian citizens from occupied territories exempt from mobilisation due to age.

Top diplomats from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised democracies met with Ukraine’s foreign minister Wednesday as Kyiv tries to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks that have brought rolling blackouts across the country ahead of winter, AP reports.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiha said at the start of a meeting on Ukraine and defence cooperation, which US secretary of state Marco Rubio and his counterparts attended, that Kyiv needs to overcome what will be a “very difficult, very tough winter.”

“We need the support of our partners,” Sybiha said. “We have to move forward to pressure Russia, to raise the price for the aggression, for Russia, for Putin, to end this war.”

Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said Tuesday its operations are unaffected by a major graft investigation into the country’s power sector that is centering on alleged kickbacks worth some $100 million.

Energoatom, a state-owned enterprise which generates more than a half of Ukraine’s energy supply, said in a statement that the probe by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau has not disrupted production or operational safety.

Its assurances came a day after the agency revealed some details of a 15-month investigation into suspected corruption in the energy sector, including at Energoatom.

Most of the streets of Kherson are empty now. Three years after the liberation ended a nine-month Russian occupation, the city that once erupted in joy has sunk into a wary stillness — a place where daily life unfolds behind walls or underground.

On Nov. 11, 2022, people poured into the main square of the southern Ukrainian port city, waving blue-and-yellow flags and embracing the soldiers who had freed them after the months under Russian control. They believed the worst was over.

Instead, the war changed shape. From across the Dnipro River, Russian troops strike with regular intensity — and drones now prowl the skies above a city of broken windows and empty courtyards.

Deep within a warehouse in northern Denmark, over 1,500 kilometres from Ukraine’s capital, workers are meticulously assembling advanced anti-drone technology.

These sophisticated devices are destined for two critical fronts. Some will be dispatched to Kyiv to counter Russian battlefield technology. While others are earmarked for deployment across Europe, addressing the unsettling surge of mysterious drone incursions into Nato airspace that has put the entire continent on high alert.

Two Danish companies, whose operations were once predominantly defence-related, are now experiencing a significant surge in new clients.

These clients are urgently seeking to deploy their advanced technology to protect critical sites such as airports, military installations, and vital national infrastructure, all of which have been subjected to concerning drone flyovers in recent weeks.

The Russian army overran three settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Kyiv’s top military commander said Wednesday, as Moscow’s forces expand their efforts to capture more Ukrainian territory.

Dense fog enabled Russian troops to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhzhia, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on the messaging app Telegram, adding that Ukrainian units are locked in “grueling battles” to repel the Russian thrust.

He noted, however, that the fiercest battles are still in the besieged Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, where close to half of all front-line clashes took place over the previous 24 hours.

Kenya said on Wednesday over 200 of its citizens are fighting for Russia in Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and that recruiting agencies are still actively working to lure more Kenyans into the conflict, Reuters reports.

Ukraine last week said that more than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine with some recruited through deception.

Russia was enticing Africans to sign contracts that Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha described as “equivalent to … a death sentence”, and urged African governments to caution their citizens.

“Recruitment exercises in Russia have reportedly expanded to include African nationals, including Kenyans,” Kenya’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

Britain will increase the pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine by seeking to tighten restrictions on Russian gas exports over the next year.

Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) is set to face a ban on access to UK maritime services, including insurance and shipping.

The ban will stop British services being used to export Russian LNG to third countries, with imports to the UK itself having been banned since 2023, and will be implemented over the course of 2026 alongside other European countries.