Ukraine’s army has retreated from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region that has been devastated by a prolonged Russian assault, a military spokesperson said on Thursday. Chasiv Yar lies just west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a brutal 10-month battle. For months, Russian forces have targeted Chasiv Yar due to its elevated position. Its fall would endanger nearby cities, threaten crucial Ukrainian supply routes, and advance Russia’s objective of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
Viktor Orbán will travel to Moscow on Friday for talks with Vladimir Putin, sources said, days after Hungary’s prime minister made his first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Two sources in Budapest told the Guardian about the trip, saying it was planned as part of a package with the Ukraine visit after Hungary assumed the rotating EU presidency this week. A high-level EU source confirmed the planned visit, which is likely to cause outrage in Brussels; Orbán, seen as the EU’s most pro-Russian leader, has sought to portray himself as a “pro-peace” politician but has frequently echoed Russian narratives about the war.
Also Read: Ukraine’s Army Retreats as Russia Advances on Key Strategic Town
A Ukrainian drone strike targeted a gunpowder factory in western Russia, a Kyiv security source said Thursday, in the latest effort to disrupt Russia’s military logistics. Kyiv has increased aerial attacks on military and energy facilities within Russia in recent months, aiming to impair Moscow’s ability to attack Ukrainian cities or advance in the industrial east. A source from Ukraine’s defense sector told AFP the attack involved explosive drones, one of which successfully hit the military facility in Kotovsk, in Russia’s Tambov region, 350 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Russian strikes killed two people and wounded 26 on Thursday in Ukrainian regions spanning from the south to the east and northeast, local authorities said. A missile strike in the southern Odesa region killed a woman, injured seven people, and damaged port infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, a second woman was killed and a man wounded in a strike by a Russian guided bomb on the village of Ruska Lozova, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
A Russian military court on Thursday placed Colonel Artyom Gorodilov, commander of the country’s 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade, in pre-trial detention for two months on charges of large-scale fraud, the TASS state news agency reported. Gorodilov, promoted for his role in Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, is the latest in a series of high-ranking Russian military officers and senior defense officials to be arrested on corruption charges since the appointment of new defense minister Andrei Belousov in May. In 2022, the New York Times reported that Gorodilov led forces accused by Ukraine and the West of killing Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in March that year.
