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A Ukrainian missile strike hit a Russian warship moored in Crimea early on Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of the most significant attacks against Moscow’s prized Black Sea Fleet in months amid Kyiv’s intensified campaign to target the Russian-occupied peninsula. The Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement that it had destroyed the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, in the southeastern Crimean port of Feodosia overnight. Russia’s Defense Ministry told the Tass state news agency that the ship had been damaged in an attack using “aircraft-guided missiles,” but did not say whether the vessel had been permanently disabled....

Ukrainian forces killed 49 elite Russian paratroopers in a single day in an operation to prevent them from being deployed to a key section of the war’s southern front line. The members of the 7th Guards Mountain Airborne Division were embroiled in a brutal fight after Ukrainian fighters pinned them down near the village of Staromaiorske in the eastern Donetsk region, Russian military bloggers reported. Troops from the 247th VDV regiment were sent in to retrieve the soldiers’ bodies after Russian commanders refused to oversee their recovery, one report said, citing an audio recording of a Russian soldier. Ukrainian counter-offensive...

Ukrainian forces have made “notable progress” in their counteroffensive over the last 72 hours, notching wins against the second line of Russian defenders, a White House spokesman, John F. Kirby, said at a news conference on Friday. The United States, Mr. Kirby said, will not discuss Ukraine’s war plans, or how its forces would exploit their gains. But, he added, the U.S. expects Ukraine to continue to push further south, requiring “tough fighting ahead.” Ukraine’s military celebrated a tactical victory earlier this week when its forces retook the southern village of Robotyne. Days later, Ukrainian assault units moved east toward...

A sharp rise in drone attacks targeting Russian territory is likely to intensify, analysts say, with Kyiv appearing increasingly determined to bring the destruction, instability and unpredictability of war — albeit a fraction of what it is experiencing itself — home to Russia. Russia has seen a sharp rise in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, carrying out assaults on western, central and southern Russian regions as well as the capital Moscow and Russian-occupied Crimea in recent weeks. While Ukraine is continuing a counteroffensive on its own soil to regain Russian-occupied territory in the south and east of the country, and...

In the 13 weeks since launching a long-anticipated counteroffensive along several axes in southern and eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army has lost just five of its 71 Leopard 2 tanks. Many more of the German-made tanks—at least 10—have suffered damage. But the Ukrainians are repairing the damaged tanks at depots in Poland and Germany and returning them to the front. The fundamental toughness of the 69-ton Leopard 2 means tanks might take damage, visit a repair depot, return to the fighting then again take damage and head out for repairs. So on and so forth. The Leopard 2 lends itself...

Ukrainian drones attacked more targets in Russia late on Wednesday, a night after drones struck at least six regions deep within Russia in one of the broadest volleys yet of Kyiv's campaign to turn the tables on Moscow. One of the drone strikes, targeting an airfield far from Ukraine's borders, destroyed military transport planes on the ground. (snip) The previous night, Russian officials described attacks on Bryansk and five other regions, including Moscow region, and Pskov in the north, where four military transport planes were damaged in a huge blaze at an airfield. The Russian foreign ministry said the attacks...

The Moscow-aligned information space is reporting Kremlin troop setbacks amid Russian sources suggesting Ukraine has begun its counter-offensive. Kyiv has not commented on Russian claims that its long-awaited push to retake captured territory has commenced, but milbloggers have reported on Telegram how Ukrainian troops have used tanks and other armored vehicles in the Zaporizhzhia oblast. On Thursday, milblogger War Gonzo said that a battle had been ongoing during the night in Orekhov-Tokmak, writing that the Ukrainian side had not made significant progress. However, the post described how on the Donetsk front where Russian troops had conducted assault operations in Maryinka...