Russian forces fired seven rockets at the city of Zaporizhia near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. NATO is increasingly concerned about Russian attacks with Iranian kamikaze drones. You can find all the latest news about the war in Ukraine here in the ticker.
Thursday, October 06, 07:53: Russian forces fired seven rockets at the city of Zaporizhia near the nuclear power plant early in the morning. This was reported by the governor of Zaporizhia Oblast, Oleksandr Starukh. A number of high-rise buildings were shot at. According to Starukh, rescue services have already started to extricate people from the rubble. At the time of publication, no information about victims was available.
3:02 p.m .: NATO is increasingly concerned about Russian attacks with Iranian kamikaze drones (see below). One observes with concern how successfully Russia uses them, reports the “Business Insider”. “The drones are causing problems for Ukraine,” a high-ranking NATO representative told the newspaper. The problem: the small drones are difficult for Ukraine’s defense to locate and turn off. At the moment, they can only be intercepted during the day.
NATO hopes that the new arms shipments from the US will give Ukraine a better chance of defending itself against Iranian-made kamikaze drones.
10:51 a.m .: According to information from Kyiv, the Russian army has attacked targets near the Ukrainian capital with kamikaze drones for the first time. “There were six hits and explosions,” the governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, told the Telegram news service on Wednesday. One person was injured in the small town of Bila Tserkva. Infrastructure was hit. During the night there had been air alerts in the capital and the surrounding area for more than three hours.
According to the air force, a total of 12 Iranian drones have flown towards targets from the south. Iran had officially denied a delivery. “Six of them were shot down, three with anti-aircraft missiles in the south and also three were shot down by the air force,” Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on Ukrainian television. The information cannot be independently verified. According to media reports, a barracks in Bila Tserkwa should have been the target.
9.42 a.m .: According to British secret services, Ukraine’s ongoing counter-offensive is causing Russia problems in supplying its own troops. For example, Ukrainian units in the north-eastern region of Kharkov advanced up to 20 kilometers behind the Oskil River into the Russian defense zone, according to the daily short report by the British Ministry of Defense on Wednesday. The troops were thus approaching a supply hub in the town of Swatowe.
The Ukraine could now presumably attack an important road in the region with its weapon systems and thus further limit the possibilities of the Russians to supply their troops in the east with supplies, it was said. Intelligence services say Ukraine’s advance on the borders of the Luhansk region should worry the Russian leadership after it annexed the region last week. The step contrary to international law is not recognized by the international community.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022, 7:30 a.m.: According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, dozens of towns have been liberated from Russian occupation in the past few days as the Ukrainian army advanced. There is good news, said Zelenskyj in a video message distributed in Kyiv on Tuesday evening. “The Ukrainian army is advancing fairly quickly and powerfully in the current defense operation in the south of our country.” Villages in the Kherson, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions have been brought back under Ukrainian control.
In particular in the Cherson region in the south, localities were liberated. The Ukrainian armed forces spoke of a total of eight settlements in the evening. “Our soldiers don’t stop. And it’s only a matter of time before we expel the invaders from our country,” said Zelenskyy.
2:56 p.m .: During counterattacks in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army says it has liberated other towns from Russian troops. The head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, wrote to the Telegram news service on Tuesday about five places that had been recaptured. Videos from the long-fought village of Davydiv Brid and the villages of Velyka Oleksandrivka and Starossillya on the Inhulets River circulated on social networks. In addition, Ukrainian units are said to have moved into Dudchany on the Dnipro River. Official confirmations were initially not available.
Tuesday, October 4, 7:48 a.m.: The Ukrainian army successfully continues its counteroffensive. After the victory in Lyman, the troops are now advancing on the city of Lysychansk to the east. This is what a military spokesman for the Moscow-controlled Luhansk separatists wrote in the Telegram news service. The Ukrainian units are under constant fire from the Russian army.
Russian sources also reported how Ukrainian armored forces advanced south along the Dnipro River. “The information situation is tense, let’s put it that way, because there have indeed been breakthroughs,” said Vladimir Saldo, Russia’s installed governor in the occupied parts of Kherson, on Russian state television. It was the biggest breakthrough on the southern front since the beginning of the war.
You can read more about the current territorial gains of the Ukrainians here: This news from the battlefield is a hard blow for Putin
9:21 p.m .: According to official information, the first recruits called up in Russia as part of the partial mobilization have been transferred to the occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. “Mobilized soldiers are undergoing combat training in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Monday on its Telegram channel. It also posted a video showing soldiers doing target practice. The Russian military had previously announced the arrival of reservists in the Luhansk region.
Both in Luhansk and in the northern part of the Donetsk region, Russian troops have recently fallen on the defensive. So they had to evacuate the strategically important city of Lyman. Ukrainian formations are now targeting the connecting roads between the cities of Svatove, Kreminna and Rubischne in order to encircle the Russian units stationed there or force them to retreat. Moscow military bloggers report a shortage of personnel on the Russian side.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, however, the reservists will not be deployed to fill gaps, but will secure the supply routes after their training in the rear of the front. The Russian leadership said that all reservists should first go through training before being deployed to refresh their military knowledge. According to expert estimates, most of the recruits would only be deployed in a month or two.
7.46 p.m .: Video recordings of a long freight train with special military equipment increase concerns about a nuclear attack by Russia. As the “Daily Mail” and the “Times” report, the train is heading towards Ukraine. According to The Times, President Putin has ordered the operation. The train is reportedly linked to a branch of the Russian Defense Ministry that has nuclear weapons. According to them, the equipment and vehicles on the train belong to the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry.
This special department is responsible for the storage, maintenance and provision of weapons for the Strategic Missile Forces; it is a military branch that controls nuclear missiles and is a key element of Putin’s nuclear program.
Military analyst Konrad Musyka told both newspapers that the deployment of such units could be a sign of an impending escalation in the conflict or a sign of a large-scale nuclear exercise on the border.
5:12 p.m .: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the head of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is under Russian control, has been released. He had received confirmation that Ihor Murashov had “returned home safely,” said IAEA boss Rafael Grossi on Twitter on Monday. Murashov was arrested by a Russian patrol on Friday, according to Ukrainian sources.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the next page