Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov attends a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission in Saint Petersburg
Reuters: MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said on Friday that Russian forces had accelerated their advance in the north-east of Ukraine and had ground down the Ukrainian army's best units there.
Belousov was shown in a Defence Ministry video visiting a Russian command post in Ukraine manned by the Russian army grouping "North" where he handed out medals for bravery.
"This work we have done here now has crushed the best (Ukrainian) units. Now the advance has accelerated. We have thwarted their entire 2025 campaign," said Belousov.
Russian forces, who hold a little less than 20% of Ukraine's territory, have made advances on the logistics town of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region and have been advancing in the last two months at various frontline points at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data.
In World
-
Oil prices edged up on Monday, with traders still on edge despite the U.S. pulling back from initial sanctions threats against Colombia, reducing immediate concern over oil supply disruptions.
-
Russia on Sunday claimed its troops had captured a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine as part of a grinding campaign to weaken Kyiv’s grip on the country’s industrial heartland, while uncertainty over the continued flow of U.S. funding has reportedly halted the work of some Ukrainian NGOs, including those helping war veterans.
-
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday replaced for the third time in under a year the commander of a key Ukrainian military formation responsible for defending the eastern hub of Pokrovsk that's under increased risk of falling to Russian forces.
-
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Sunday after talks in Baghdad that a joint battle using "all our resources" must be carried out to eliminate both Islamic State and Kurdish militants in the region.
Leave a review