Russia passes law preventing the return of foreign companies

According to the Ukrainian President, together with Acting Defence Minister Yevhen Khmara and the Deputy Head of the Defence Department Pavlo Palisa, he held a series of meetings with the commanders of the army corps regarding the priority needs of the front line, the protection of border areas and the implementation of Ukraine’s defence strategy.

The Russian army has struck Zaporizhzhia with guided bombs, killing at least two people and injuring nine. According to the regional governor Ivan Fedorov, Russian troops have struck residential areas of the regional capital with guided bombs. “The enemy has once again struck the regional capital. At present, one person is confirmed dead. A residential building has been damaged. Rescue operations are under way,” Fedorov reported this morning. The death toll has since risen.

The Russian army also struck the compressor station at Sumy, “a key hub in the gas transport system in Ukraine”, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence, which published images on its Telegram channel. ‘“Kvn” quadcopters equipped with fibre optics struck the technical equipment at the Sumy compressor station, which forms part of the Sumy Management Department of Main Gas Pipelines, a key hub in Ukraine’s gas transmission system,’ the statement reads.

Overall, Russian troops attacked seven locations across the country overnight using 58 drones of various types, and the air defence forces neutralised 46 of them.

Ukrainian defence forces have struck a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet and a Pantsir-S1 air defence missile system at Khalino airport, in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. This was reported by Ukrainska Pravda, citing the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The estimated cost of a MiG-29 is around 25 million dollars.

Another worrying fact is that the war in Ukraine, in a sense, is increasingly tending to ‘spill over’. A Liberian-flagged oil tanker, carrying over 3,790 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), was struck last night and caught fire in the Black Sea, approximately 30 kilometres off the Romanian coast, outside the country’s territorial waters.

All 17 crew members were rescued by the Romanian authorities, whilst three seafarers were injured. According to the Romanian president Nicusor Dan, the incident is ‘most likely part of the Russian Federation’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine’.

British media reports also indicate that a Russian military vessel has carried out in the last few hours ‘an exercise’ 40 nautical miles off the southern British coast (almost 75 kilometres), firing several rounds of artillery into the open sea.

The incident took place in international waters south of Plymouth, a port city on the English Channel in Devon (south-west England), a spokesperson clarified, emphasising that the Russian vessel, identified as the frigate Neustrashimy, was under constant surveillance by the Royal Navy until it moved away. The French navy also took part in remote monitoring operations.

All this whilst the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that it had summoned the Russian chargé d’affaires over the attack two days ago on the cargo ship MV Golden Leo off the Ukrainian port of Odessa, in which, according to the authorities in Kyiv, ten people died. The government in Delhi stated this evening that four of the victims were Indian nationals.

Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz – Polish Minister of Defence – has reported that there has recently been an increase in Russian activity in the vicinity of Polish airspace.

“Three aircraft attempted to monitor the Polish air defence system for three consecutive days. “This indicates a gradual escalation on Russia’s part,” said the Polish minister during a press conference in Warsaw, following a cabinet meeting on security matters.

“Ukraine has already won the war” against Russia, if one considers the starting point. This was stated today by the Defence Minister, Guido Crossetto, speaking to ANSA on the sidelines of a meeting in London with his counterparts from the UK, Japan and Canada regarding the GCAP project to develop a future sixth-generation multi-role fighter. “Four years ago, everyone thought Russia would reach Kyiv within a week,” he continued, recalling that the US had sent a plane to evacuate President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead, four years on, Moscow is now “stuck on the front line”, “losing 30,000 men a month between the dead and the wounded”, whilst Kyiv has revolutionised the theatre of war with tools such as “drones” and has “taught the world a lesson”, Crosetto continued, before adding: “Ukraine still exists; it is strong and is making the war more difficult for Vladimir Putin every day. From his point of view, he has already won because he never wanted to invade Russia – he is merely defending himself.” The war, the Italian minister concluded, “will end – as I have been saying for four years – when Russia stops bombing Ukraine for at least 24 or 48 hours, something it has never stopped doing for even a single day” since 2022. These words were echoed by the host Wes Streeting, who has been Defence Minister for just one day in Andy Burnham’s new British government, and who believes this conflict has become “a humiliation for Putin”.