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Russia has attacked at least eight Ukrainian energy facilities since March 18 when Moscow says it halted such attacks, a senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Wednesday. Ihor Zhovkva, speaking on national television, also said that, contrary to Russian statements, no preconditions were discussed with U.S. officials as they agreed a Black Sea truce with Russia during talks in Saudi Arabia this week. The Kremlin said earlier that a number of conditions must be met before the Black Sea maritime security deal negotiated with the United States can be activated.

-snip- Serhiy Dubovik, deputy head of Ukraine's Central Election Commission, said it would take at least four to six months to prepare so that campaigning could start ahead of an election, given the displacement of voters and widespread destruction. Millions of Ukrainians still live abroad, millions more are internally displaced by the war, a fifth of Ukraine is occupied and front-line areas have been devastated. -snip- Zelenskyy's public trust rating is above 50%, according to opinion polls, although it has dropped since Russia's Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, when it rose to over 90% as Ukrainians rallied around the flag. The...

-snip- A Ukrainian military spokesperson told Reuters that Russia was also moving trained assault groups to forward positions in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and they were preparing to attack. -snip- "(The assaults) could begin in the near future, we're not even talking about weeks, we're expecting it to happen any day," said Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for the southern military sector. Although it was not clear if they would involve a single offensive push or separate assaults, intelligence assessed that Moscow's troops planned to use armoured vehicles and a considerable number of drones, he said. "They are preparing both armoured groups...

Russian President Vladimir Putin met North Korea's foreign minister in the Kremlin on Monday at a time of mounting concern in the West that North Korean soldiers are about to enter the Ukraine war on Moscow's side. Video of the meeting showed the pair shaking hands for a full minute as Putin greeted Choe Son Hui. Putin noted that they were meeting on Russia's National Unity Day, a public holiday, and Choe conveyed "sincere, warm, comradely greetings" from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday its biggest cross-border assault of the war to date had taken control of 74 settlements in Russia's region of Kursk and was still advancing, making gains of one to three kilometres in the last 24 hours. Ukraine blindsided Moscow by pouring thousands of troops into the western Russian region of Kursk last week in a surprise operation that has given Ukraine its biggest battlefield gains since 2022 after months on the backfoot.

Ukraine said on Monday its biggest cross-border assault of the war had captured 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of Russia's Kursk region and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to be forced into making peace. With Russia still struggling to repel the surprise assault a week after it began, Ukraine's top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by video link and said the advance into Russian territory was ongoing. "We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region. Currently, we control about 1,000 square kilometres of the territory of the Russian Federation," he said in...

Russia accused Ukraine on Tuesday of mounting an attack on its southern border and said it had moved in reserves to help repel hundreds of fighters backed by tanks. Hours after a Russian regional governor said the attackers had been pushed back, the defence ministry issued a statement saying that fighting was still going on. "Troops covering the state border, together with units of the border troops of the FSB (security service) of Russia, are repelling attacks and inflicting fire on the enemy in the area of ​​the state border and on (Ukrainian) reserves in the Sumy region," the statement...