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Russian strike kills two and injures 10 more in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, governor says
A Russian guided bomb attack on Saturday killed two people and injured 10 more including children in a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the governor said. Governor Oleh Synehubov said the Russian strike hit the village of Cherkaska Lozova, damaging a residential building. A Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv, the regional centre, killed seven people on Friday, local authorities said. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

Issued on: 31/08/2024 – 07:46
Modified: 31/08/2024 – 22:36

1 min
A resident cleans debris around a heavily damaged residential building following a recent Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, on August 31, 2024.
A resident cleans debris around a heavily damaged residential building following a recent Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, on August 31, 2024. © Ivan Samoilov, AFP
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Summary:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky increased pressure on the United States to let Kyiv strike deeper into Russian territory after his representatives met senior US officials in Washington on Saturday.
A Russian guided bomb attack on Saturday killed two people and injured 10 more including children in a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the governor said.
Ukraine was fully within its rights to launch its surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk border region as an act of self-defence, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told German newspaper Die Welt.
Last to first
8 hours ago
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy presses US to greenlight deeper strikes into Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky increased pressure on the United States to let Kyiv strike deeper into Russian territory after his representatives met senior US officials in Washington on Saturday.

Washington has provided Ukraine with more than $50 billion worth of military aid since 2022, but has limited the use of its weapons to Ukrainian soil and defensive crossborder operations.

“Clearing the Ukrainian sky of Russian guided aerial bombs is a strong step to force Russia to seek an end to the war and a just peace,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Appealing to the United States, Britain, France and Germany, he said, “We need the capabilities to truly and fully protect Ukraine and Ukrainians.”

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14 hours ago
Russian bomb attack kills two in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, governor says
A Russian bomb attack on Saturday killed two civilians and wounded eight more in a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the governor said.

Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram that Russian forces hit the village of Cherkaska Lozova with guided bombs, damaging a residential building. Rescuers and medics were working to clear up the debris and help the injured, he said.

Towns and villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region on the border with Russia have been frequently shelled and bombed by Moscow’s forces during the 30 months of the war.

A similar Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv, the regional centre, killed seven people on Friday, local authorities said.

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15 hours ago
Media investigation identifies 66,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine
Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona said Saturday according to its estimates more than 66,000 Russian military personnel have died during the war in Ukraine.

Mediazona has been drawing up a list of known soldier deaths in conjunction with the BBC Russian Service using open-source data.

Previously in April, they announced they had found more than 50,000 names of Russians killed.

Mediazona said Saturday that “as of August 30, we know the names of 66,471 Russian soldiers killed in the war”.

The list has gone up by more than 4,600 in the last four weeks, it said, while stressing this was not a definitive figure since many soldiers’ deaths are not made public.

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15 hours ago
Russian strike kills five as Moscow continues its latest push in Ukraine’s east
Five people were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday as Moscow’s troops continue their push on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional governor Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged between 24 and 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.

“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that it had captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.

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19 hours ago
Russia says its forces control Kirove settlement in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
Russian forces have gained control of the Kirove settlement in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the defence ministry said on Saturday.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions which Russia says it has annexed even though it does not fully control all of them, a territorial claim which Kyiv and the West have rejected as illegal and one which Ukraine has vowed to reverse by force.

Russia has been making incremental gains in the region at a time when Ukrainian troops seek to advance in Russia’s Kursk region after a surprise cross-border attack that began on August 6.

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19 hours ago
Ukrainian air defence downs 24 Russian drones, Kyiv says
Ukrainian air defences shot down 24 out of 52 drones launched by Russia during overnight attacks on eight regions across Ukraine, the air force said on Saturday.

It said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that 25 Shahed drones had fallen on their own and three others had flown towards Russia and Belarus. There were no reports of anybody being hurt in the attacks or of any major damage being caused.

Ukraine uses electronic warfare as well as mobile hunting groups and aircraft defences to repel frequent Russian drone and missile strikes.

Air alerts sounded several times during the overnight drone attacks, with many people rushing to shelters in the middle of the night.

In the capital Kyiv, where alerts lasted for about four hours, it was the fourth drone attack this week, officials said. All drones targeting the city were downed and no major damage was reported, Kyiv city officials said.

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a day ago
Russia says five killed, 46 injured in Ukrainian strike on Belgorod
Five people were killed and 46 injured in a Ukrainian attack on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod late on Friday, the local governor said.

Vyacheslav Gladkov also said 37 people, including seven children, were taken to hospital.

Video from a car dashboard, posted on social media and purporting to demonstrate the attack, showed another car being blown up while moving on the road. Seconds later an explosion is seen on the other side of the road.

Ukraine has staged frequent attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions in recent months.

Ukraine and Russia say they do not deliberately target civilians in the war that began when Russia sent thousands of troops into its smaller neighbour in February 2022. Moscow has called the invasion a “special military operation”.

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a day ago
NATO chief backs Ukraine offensive in Russia’s Kursk
Ukraine was fully within its rights to launch its surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk border region as an act of self-defence, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told German newspaper Die Welt.

The offensive launched on August 6 caught the Kremlin off guard, with Kyiv claiming to have captured dozens of settlements and more than 1,200 square kilometres (nearly 500 square miles) of territory.

“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Die Welt published Saturday. “The Russian soldiers, tanks and bases there (Kursk) are legitimate targets under international law.”

The offensive also surprised Kyiv’s allies, with Stoltenberg saying Ukraine “did not preview its planning” with NATO and that the Western military alliance “played no role”.

Stoltenberg also welcomed Germany’s commitment to remain Ukraine’s largest European military donor and second-largest worldwide, as Berlin prepares cuts to its aid to Kyiv in next year’s budget.

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a day ago
Welcome to FRANCE 24’s liveblog on the Ukraine war.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday dismissed the country’s air force chief, a day after Kyiv said a US-made F-16 fighter jet had crashed in combat, killing the pilot.
A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv hit a residential building and a playground, killing six people and injuring at least 55 more, local authorities said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)

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