Zelensky, Volodymyr

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      Russian Forces Are Stepping Up Attacks on Pokrovsk, Ukraine Says

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      Bombardments are increasing in and around Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials said, with water supplies now cut and a road overpass destroyed.Stepped-up Russian bombardments in and around Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine cut off water supplies and destroyed a road overpass that blocked a key route out of the strategic city, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday, as conditions deteriorated for civilians.Russian troops are pressing ahead with an offensive and are now on the city’s doorstep, about five miles away, officials said, renewing calls for all residents to evacuate. Those who remain must rely on water from wells dug near apartment blocks, according to residents. Already, much of the city is without natural gas or electricity.“The situation is dire and won’t improve anytime soon,” Vadym Filashkin, the head of the military administration for the Donetsk region, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app of the loss of water in Pokrovsk. “Leaving is the only smart option,” he added.The city is the focus of a monthslong Russian offensive that has not let up despite a risky move by Ukraine in August to divert forces by invading the Kursk region of Russia.Ukrainian troops are now also facing a counterattack toward their positions in Kursk, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Thursday. That statement came after posts on social media by Russian military bloggers and commentary by analysts that Ukraine had lost control of several villages in recent fighting.“Russia began counteroffensive activities,” Mr. Zelensky said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine media outlet.Ukrainian soldiers unloading artillery shells brought by their battalion commander to their position in the Pokrovsk region on Tuesday.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesInside Ukraine, Pokrovsk looks set for a similar grim fate experienced by other cities in the eastern Donbas region, like Sievierodonetsk and Bakhmut, as they came within range of Russian artillery or rockets that hit key infrastructure.In those cities, the lights blinked out, water taps ran dry and most people of means fled, leaving a small number of citizens, many of them older people who took shelter in basements as frequent shelling reduced buildings around them to ruins.Over the summer, the Russian Air Force began hitting Pokrovsk with glide bombs, which are far more destructive than ground-based artillery since they can carry far higher loads of explosives.In an interview last month, the city’s military administrator, Serhiy Dobryak, said he expected bombing to target infrastructure first and then residential areas as the Russian army closed in on the city.The Ukrainian military has prepared for urban combat in Pokrovsk, setting up concrete pillboxes on some roadsides. Russia’s offensive over the past about 10 days had concentrated on rural areas south of the city, but Pokrovsk remains at risk.Ukraine has halted daily evacuation trains from the city’s train station, in a further sign of unraveling security in the city.A bombardment overnight led to the collapse of an overpass.Civilians are still able to evacuate by car or bus using side roads, but the loss of water and destruction of bridges heralded a new phase of worsening conditions in Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials said.Maria Varenikova More

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      Ukraine Says Russian Missile Hit Grain Ship in Black Sea

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      If confirmed, the attack would be the first on a commercial vessel since Ukraine secured a shipping route to grain markets abroad last year.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Thursday that a Russian missile struck a cargo ship in the Black Sea that was carrying wheat to Egypt, and a Ukrainian military spokesman said that the attack took place in Romanian waters.If confirmed, it would be the first such direct attack on a civilian vessel in open water since Ukraine established a new maritime export route last year.Mr. Zelensky said on social media that there were no casualties in the attack, which he said had happened overnight. He did not describe the extent of any damage.There was no immediate independent confirmation of the claim; and Russia’s defense ministry did not mention it on its Telegram channel.Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, the spokesman for Ukraine’s southern command said in a telephone interview that the ship had been hit by a missile from a Russian military jet while it was in “the exclusive economic zone waters of Romania. It was not in the grain corridor of Ukraine.” He said the ship was sailing under the flag of a third country, but did not say which.An attack in the exclusive economic zone waters of Romania, a NATO member, would not be equivalent to an attack on sovereign territory under international law. Rather, the zone is an area where a government can control economic activity, such as oil drilling.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Debate Puts Trump’s Affinity for Putin Back in the Spotlight

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      The former president’s refusal to back Ukraine’s war effort showed the likely limits of U.S. support for Kyiv if he returns to the White House.Donald J. Trump’s refusal to say that he hopes Ukraine will win its war against Russia has cast a spotlight on what promises to be an abrupt U.S. policy shift toward the conflict — and Washington’s relations with Moscow — if Mr. Trump returns to the White House.Twice Mr. Trump was asked directly at the debate on Tuesday night whether he hoped for Ukraine’s victory, and both times he insisted that his main goal was for the war to end quickly. “I think it’s in the U.S.’s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done, negotiate a deal, because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed,” he said.The former president went on to suggest that he would leverage his friendly relationship with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, underscoring clear signs that he intends to reverse President Biden’s confrontational relationship with Russia.Mr. Trump’s answers “should tell people all they need to know — which is that if Trump gets elected and gets involved, Ukraine’s going to be the loser and Russia’s going to be the winner,” said John R. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. Mr. Bolton has become a vocal critic of the former president, who fired him after repeated policy disagreements.Mr. Trump offered little detail on how he would negotiate a rapid end to the Ukraine war, saying only that he would speak to both Mr. Putin and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to strike a deal even before he was inaugurated in January.That is a seemingly impossible goal. Mr. Zelensky has ruled out any settlement with Russia that does not restore his country’s original borders, while Mr. Putin seems determined to conquer even more of Ukraine than the roughly one-fifth of its territory that his army now occupies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Ukraine Mourns a Pilot’s Death, Jet’s Crash Is Still a Mystery

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      In a reversal, two senior U.S. military officials say the cause of the F-16’s crash was probably not friendly fire.As hundreds of Russian missiles and drones streaked across Ukraine on Monday, the Ukrainian fighter pilot known as Moonfish was exactly where he had said he always wanted to be: in the cockpit of an F-16 giving chase.“The F-16 is a Swiss Army knife,” the pilot, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, told reporters while training on the warplane last fall. “It’s a very good weapon that can carry out any mission.”Colonel Mes helped lead Ukraine’s intense lobbying effort to secure the F-16 fighter jets, a half-dozen of which joined the fight against Russia earlier this month. And he was among the dozen or so pilots trained to fly the sophisticated warplane in combat.After shooting down three Russian cruise missiles and one attack drone in Monday’s assault, he was racing to intercept yet another target when ground control lost communication with his aircraft, Ukrainian Air Force officials said.“The plane crashed, the pilot died,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement.The death of a widely celebrated pilot and the loss of one of the long-coveted fighter jets so soon after their deployment cast a pall over the battlefield just as the giddy first days of the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region were fading away and concerns mounted over an advancing Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine.As the nation mourned the death of the pilot, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine dismissed the head of the country’s Air Force and promised a thorough investigation of the incident, including the possibility raised by a Western official on Friday that it was the result of friendly fire from a Patriot missile battery.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Investigating Potential Causes of the Crash of an F-16

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      There are indications that friendly fire may have been involved, a Western official said. Ukraine is investigating the crash this week of one of the few F-16 fighter jets that had been delivered to the country by its allies in NATO, and was already collaborating with the United States to try to determine what happened, the head of Ukraine’s air force said on Friday.At the same time, a Western official who has been briefed on the preliminary investigation said that there are “indications” that friendly fire from a Patriot missile battery might be involved in the crash.The United States has supplied Ukraine with Patriots, which include a powerful radar system and mobile launchers that fire missiles at incoming projectiles, and the Ukrainian military has used them frequently as part of its defense against Russian aerial attacks.One possibility being explored is whether a Patriot battery might have accidentally fired at the plane, the official said. A second possibility is system malfunction.F-16 aircrafts flying during Ukraine’s Air Forces Day this month.Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersUkraine said on Thursday that the plane was destroyed on Monday during a combat mission to repel a barrage of Russian missiles and drones. The loss of the plane is a significant blow to Ukraine’s effort to integrate the aircraft into its war effort, and to convince NATO allies that it can efficiently handle sophisticated western weapons.The pilot who died in the crash, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, was one of the few who had been trained to fly the complex aircraft.The F-16’s, as well as other aspects of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, promised to be on the table at a scheduled meeting in Washington on Friday between the American defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and Ukraine’s minister of defense, Rustem Umerov.Ukraine took delivery of a small number of F-16s just a few weeks ago. Allies in Europe have promised the country 45 of the fighter aircraft, but so far only about six are believed to have arrived.The aircraft, delivered after many months of pressure by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other senior officials, are the most high-profile piece of military hardware supplied by the country’s allies since Russia launched its full scale invasion of the country 30 months ago.As such, they have become a symbol of Ukraine’s defense and their pilots were considered by many people to be national heroes.“We will find out the causes of the air disaster,” said the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk, in a post on the Telegram social media app on Friday. “We have to thoroughly understand what happened, the circumstances, and whose responsibility it is.” More

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      Shelling Kills 6 in Eastern Ukraine

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      The rest of the country, though, was largely spared from another consecutive night of large-scale Russian bombardment.Bombing eased across Ukraine after two nights of deadly barrages, but strikes near the front line killed six people and Russian troops pressed ahead in the east, closing in on the key city of Pokrovsk.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has called Moscow’s far-reaching bombing campaign this week one of the largest since the war began 30 months ago. Several people in the capital, Kyiv, said on Wednesday that they were pleased to have been given a respite after air-raid sirens and explosions shattered the pre-dawn calm on Monday and Tuesday.The eastern region of Donetsk, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting this year, came under fire. A Russian attack killed four members of a family in the tiny community of Izmailivka, the state prosecutor’s office said on Facebook. The settlement is a few miles west of Russian lines and in the path of Moscow’s assault on Pokrovsk, a small city that is a vital transport hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region.“The people died buried under the rubble,” the statement said. The regional military administration said that two other people were killed in another attack on a Ukrainian-held settlement close to the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured more than a year ago after some of the most brutal combat since the full-scale invasion began.The Donetsk region is one of two that make up the Donbas, and Russian forces have been pummeling it with daily barrages of missiles, drones and artillery fire. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made controlling the whole of the Donbas a major aim.The Ukrainian authorities have for months pressed civilians to evacuate as Russian forces advanced. But many people have stayed for reasons of poverty, ill health or attachment to their homes and farms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Zelensky Independence Day Speech Praises Ukraine’s Russia Offensive

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      Although the cross-border offensive carries risks, it has been a rare recent battlefield success for Ukrainian troops and caught Moscow flat-footed.President Volodymyr Zelensky, always adept at messaging, used his latest Independence Day speech on Saturday to drive home the idea that Ukraine is taking the fight to Russia, even as his troops struggle along the front line at home.He said the video of the speech was filmed near the site where his troops began a cross-border offensive into Russian territory nearly three weeks ago that caught Moscow by surprise. It was prerecorded from what he described as a location along the Psel River, an area frequently targeted by Russian artillery.“Whoever wished misery upon our land shall find it in their own home,” Mr. Zelensky said of the incursion, which has pushed into the Kursk region of southwestern Russia.He called his military’s operation — which has come after two and a half years of Russia’s all-out, and brutal, invasion of Ukraine — a “boomerang for evil.”The celebration on Saturday marks 33 years since Ukraine declared its independence from a crumbling Soviet Union.Earlier in the war, Ukraine marked Independence Day by parading burned Russian armored vehicles along Kyiv’s central thoroughfare, Khreshchatyk Avenue, using the holiday to boost morale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Attacks Bridges in Russia’s Kursk Region, Aiming to Encircle Troops

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      The attacks look to destroy or damage crossings over a river in the Kursk region that are Russian forces’ only routes for resupply or retreat, military analysts say.Russian troops defending a pocket of territory wedged between a river and the border with Ukraine were at risk of becoming encircled, military analysts said Monday, after Ukraine bombed bridges that are the only routes for resupply or retreat.In their counterattack into Russia, which has been underway now for nearly two weeks, Ukrainian troops quickly broke through thinly manned border defenses, fanned out on highways and captured towns and villages, initially pushing deeper into Russian territory.The bombing of bridges, in contrast, takes aim at land between the Seym River, the border and an area inside Russia already controlled by Ukraine, with the potential to entrap the Russian forces positioned there. Three bridges span this stretch of river, all now destroyed or damaged, according to statements released by the Ukrainian Air Force and to social media posts by Russian officials and military commentators. More