The Russian military said on Saturday it had “completely eliminated” some 150 Ukrainian soldiers trying to cross the Dnieper River, the front line in southern Ukraine where Kiev forces are trying to break through Moscow’s defenses.
“The Russian army defeated an enemy detachment of about 150 people who were trying to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper River,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“A Russian missile hit the center of the city, in our Chernigiv,” the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram.
“A square, the polytechnic university, a theater. A normal Saturday, which Russia has turned into a day of pain and loss. There are dead, there are wounded,” he added.
On Saturday, Russia shelled the center of the city of Chernigiiv in northern Ukraine, killing “several people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, shortly after a summit between Vladimir Putin and his generals.
Shortly before, the local authorities referred to the firing of “a ballistic missile” and urged the population to “remain safe” in this city, which had been spared from large-scale attacks after being briefly invaded by Russian forces at the beginning of the invasion. in February 2022.
The attack occurred while Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting Sweden, a country that has supplied Kiev with thousands of anti-tank weapons and which intends to join NATO, despite Moscow’s opposition, and shortly after a meeting, announced by the Kremlin on Saturday by in the morning, between Vladimir Putin and the generals responsible for the military operation in Ukraine, in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, not far from the border with Ukraine.
The Russian authorities have not specified the date of the meeting, but the images released by state media suggest that it took place at night in this southern city.
The move follows a series of alleged battlefield successes by Kiev this week, and comes after the United States on Friday did not approve the deployment of F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands to Ukraine.
“Vladimir Putin had a meeting at the special military operations headquarters in Rostov-on-Don,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
“The head of state heard reports from the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, sector commanders and other officials,” the document added.
A video released by the RIA Novosti news agency shows the Russian president dressed in a suit getting out of a jeep in the dark before being greeted by General Gerasimov in military uniform.
Operational center of the Russian intervention in the Ukraine, Rostov-on-Don was the scene, in June, of the spectacular mutiny of Wagner’s mercenaries, who briefly seized the army headquarters in the city, before putting an end to their rebellion.
General Gerasimov, whom Wagner’s mercenaries wanted to overthrow, has rarely been seen in public since the rebellion’s failure.
Vladimir Putin infrequently visits areas close to the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
This Saturday morning, the Ukrainian armed forces also announced that they had destroyed “fifteen Russian drones” overnight.
Both sides of the conflict, which began in February 2022, have recently reported regular air and sea drone raids, as Ukraine is in the midst of a counter-offensive to retake Russian-held territory.
According to Kiev, 17 Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones “launched from the Kursk region” were used in an airstrike on Friday night, without specifying what happened to the remaining two drones.
Ukrainian air defense has been activated “in the northern and central regions, as well as in the west” of the country, kyiv added.
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure on the Black Sea and Danube since it withdrew from the UN-Turkey-led grain deal, which took effect in the summer of 2022.
Meanwhile, the Russian military said on Saturday that it had thwarted a Ukrainian attack in Crimea. “During the night of August 19, the Kiev regime attempted to carry out a terrorist attack using an anti-aircraft missile of the S-200 air defense system, which was used to attack the territory of Crimea,” the Russian military said in a statement. release. statement.
The Black Sea peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, has been a regular target since the start of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.
kyiv reiterated its desire to regain all the territories conquered by Moscow, including Crimea.
Source: TSF
