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One week into a new counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces are making gains in the south, with the ambitious goal of taking back most of the Russian-occupied region of Kherson by the end of the year, senior US officials and Ukrainian officials tell CNN. The last week has seen the most ambitious ground assaults by the Ukrainians since the beginning of the invasion, following sustained attacks on command posts, ammunition stores, and fuel reserves far behind the front lines, according to geolocation of video and satellite imagery. The US has observed Ukrainian forces achieve some success in attacking Russian supply lines, with...

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Ukrainian troops have taken four villages back from Russian occupation in the south near the city of Kherson, a Ukrainian military source tells CNN. Their main “target” is Kherson, the source added. “The operation began at night with massive shelling of Russian positions and the rear,” the source, who CNN is not naming for security reasons, said. “The main direction of the attack was on Pravdyne. We hit their infantry from the DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) and LNR (Luhansk People's Republic), and they fled. The Russian landing force fled after them," the source told CNN. “We have now liberated four...

Ankara supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and rejects the illegal annexation of Crimea, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. "The return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an inseparable part, is essentially a requirement of international law," Erdogan said in a video message to the Second Crimea Platform Summit. The Crimea Platform is an international coordination mechanism of Ukraine to draw more global attention to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Erdogan said Ankara will continue to support the Crimean Platform that was established to resolve the Crimean issue through peaceful means. "Türkiye does not recognize...

Russia is preparing to hold "sham" referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories within a matter of days or weeks, the US warned on Wednesday. Moscow has instructed officials to begin preparations in areas that have fallen under its control during its war on Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. The first referenda could be announced as soon as this week's end, he added, noting the US and international community will not view any such elections as legitimate. "We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda...

Russia has threatened to annex occupied areas in the south of Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has now launched a counter-offensive with the help of Western long-range weapons. Much of the local population has already fled.

An ailing Vladimir Putin is flailing over his war strategy, torn between using nuclear weapons and accepting defeat and handing back Ukrainian regions invaded by his forces, a Telegram channel claims. Amid fresh concerns over his health, his security officials have bluntly told the warmonger president that he has run out of 'good' options. This comes as the death toll in the Russian armed forces plus separatist fighters and pro-Putin private armies has reached almost 65,000, said General SVR Telegram channel, an opposition source offering 'insider' information which the Kremlin is 'seeking to shut down'. There is 'despondency' among Putin’s...

Plumes of black smoke were seen on Tuesday at a Russian military airbase near the settlement of Gvardeyskoye in the centre of Russian-controlled Crimea, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported. Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry separately blamed a series of explosions around Dzhankoi in northern Crimea on “sabotage”, state-owned news agency RIA reported. Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in a recent series of blasts in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Explosions shook an ammunition depot in Russian-annexed Crimea on Tuesday, the latest such incident in a region used by Moscow as a staging post for its war in Ukraine.

Russia has abandoned 20,000 troops near Kherson in the face of a Ukrainian counter-attack, the regional governor has claimed. Vitaly Kim said Russia is relocating command posts on the west bank of the Dnipro River to the east, leaving 'stupid orcs' - his term for Kremlin soldiers - behind. Ukraine has already blown up all three bridges under Russian control connecting the two banks, meaning its soldiers on the west side have no easy way of resupplying, reinforcing, or retreating as Kyiv's men continue their advance. Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv which sits on the west bank, said Monday that...

Russia could struggle to resupply its troops in a key part of occupied Ukraine after Kyiv forces hit two bridges used to transport supplies, according to the British Ministry of Defence. Both the Antonivsky road bridge and Kherson rail bridge over the Dnipro River have been heavily damaged, and are "likely unusable for heavy military vehicles" according to U.K. intelligence. The two bridges connect Russian forces in the occupied -city of Kherson, on the north-west bank of the Dnipro, with the main Russian controlled area to the south-east. -snip- The latest U.K. update, released on August 13, details the logistical...

MYKOLAIV REGION, Ukraine - On the front line in southeast Ukraine, there is little sign that a major counteroffensive is brewing. For weeks, Western intelligence and military analysts have predicted that a Ukrainian campaign to retake the strategic port city of Kherson and surrounding territory is imminent. But in trenches less than a mile from Russia's positions in the area, Ukrainian soldiers hunker down from an escalating onslaught of artillery, with little ability to advance. (clip) But time is slipping if Ukraine is to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky's stated goal of winning the war by the end of the year,...

8 large explosions reported from Ziabrauka airfield near Homel in Belarus. Lots of Russian military gear is stationed there & the Russians often launch attack against Ukraine from Ziabrauka. Ukraine might have counterattacked Belarusian territory for the first time.

Ukraine's special forces were responsible for a series of deadly explosions which destroyed parts of a crucial Russian airbase in Crimea yesterday, killing one and injuring 14 according to a Ukrainian government official. Up to ten Russian aircraft were destroyed in the attack, the Ukrainian air force said, which an anonymous official told the Washington Post had been carried out by special forces – despite claims yesterday that long-range missiles could have been used. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile vowed to 'liberate' the peninsula previously part of Ukraine but annexed by Russia in 2014 despite international condemnation. Zelensky did not...

The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv's counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow's supply lines. Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the military's southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east. Defence and intelligence officials from Britain, which has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies in the West since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion, portrayed Russian forces as struggling...

Russian troops defending the city of Kherson are 'highly vulnerable' to attack after Ukraine destroyed or damaged bridges linking it with the rest of its occupied territory, British military intelligence says. Putin's men are now relying on pontoon bridges and ferries to move troops, vehicles and supplies across the Dnipro River after Ukraine blew up Antonovsky Bridge, which is Russia's main road route into and out of the city. Two other bridges - the Antonovsky Rail Bridge and Nova Khakokva hydroelectric dam bridge - have also been damaged in recent days, and are not fully operational. The next-closest bridge spanning...

Ukrainian forces have struck a strategically important bridge in the southern part of the country, using what a Russia-appointed official said were rocket systems supplied by the United States. The Antonivskyi Bridge crossing the Dnieper River was closed Wednesday following the Ukrainian strike. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed administration for the Kherson region, said the bridge was still standing after the late Tuesday strike, but that the road deck was full of holes. Stremousov said Ukrainian forces used the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to carry out the strike. The bridge is a key link allowing Russia...

Ukrainian military officials have claimed a “turning point” in the battle to retake the southern region of Kherson, saying they will use western weapons to liberate by September the first major city captured by Russian forces. Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the administrative head of the Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television on Sunday: “We can say that a turning point has occurred on the battlefield. We are switching from defensive to counteroffensive actions.” “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail,” he added. Helped...

Ivan Fedorov, the Mayor of Melitopol, in an Quote from Fedorov: "It is worth noting one thing that I have heard from more than one person. The occupiers say that if they leave Melitopol, and the fact that they are already implying this is good, they say: ‘If we leave the city, everything is mined, everything will be destroyed.’ And this is definitely not about ensuring the security of our infrastructure." According to Fedorov, the Russians have now captured the entire infrastructure of the city. "Today they can be in one school, tomorrow they will be in another, and they...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday with senior officials, amid concerns about Ukraine's High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the United States that Western officials claim hamper Moscow's war efforts. The rocket systems first arrived in Ukraine in June from the U.S and have been seen as crucial to helping Kyiv's forces repel the Russian military. The Russian state-backed TASS news agency reported on Monday that Putin will hold the cabinet meeting via videoconference on Monday, with the main topics being the development of air transport and aircraft manufacturing. Deputy Prime Minister and Trade...