Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no regrets for the war against Ukraine, insisting it was going to plan and playing down any nuclear standoff with the West, while both sides prepared for what could be a key battle in Kherson in Ukraine’s south.
Russia warns West: We can target your commercial satellites
Diplomacy
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US President Joe Biden expressed scepticism about Putin’s comment that he had no intention of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. “If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it,” Biden said in an interview with NewsNation.
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The United States is preparing a new $275 million package of military assistance for Ukraine to bolster its counter-offensive against Russian forces, a source familiar with the plan said.
Conflict
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said 23 of his soldiers were killed and 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week. The comments were unusual given that pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses. * Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were forcing electricity cuts in the capital Kyiv and other places, officials said.
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“Shelling will not break us - to hear the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than the enemy’s rockets in our sky,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address.
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In Kherson, Ukrainian forces killed 44 Russian servicemen in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military said in a Facebook post. Ukrainian forces also destroyed an ammunition depot and a hangar with equipment, it said.
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The Russian defence ministry, which said its forces had repelled attempted Ukrainian advances in the east, said it had destroyed a Ukrainian military factory producing solid rocket fuel, explosives and gunpowder near the town of Pavlograd in the Dnipropetrovsk Region. It said it had also shot down a Ukrainian air force Mi-8 helicopter.
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Reuters could not verify battlefield accounts.
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A senior Russian government official raised the possibility that Moscow could shoot down commercial Western satellites being used to help Ukraine’s war effort.
economy
- Russia will retaliate if its state and citizens’ assets are confiscated by the European Union, the foreign ministry said.
Quotes
“The historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end,” Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club, a gathering of Russian specialists.
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