Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s forces keep pressure on Avdiivka as Zelensky’s troops repel assaults

Vladimir Putin has been forced to increase the number of soldiers on the ground as Russia has amassed “150,000-190,000 permanent casualties” in the war with Ukraine, the UK ministry of defence has estimated.

The Ukrainian ministry of defence also claimed the recent Russian assaults in Avdiivka have contributed to “a 90 per cent increase in Russian casualties”.

Russian forces aiming to contain a four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive maintained unrelenting pressure on Sunday on the shattered town of Avdiivka in the east and intensified shelling in the southern area of Kherson.

Russia has focused on the industrial east since pulling back from a failed advance on Kyiv at the start of the February 2022 invasion and its forces have tried to maintain positions in Kherson since abandoning the region’s main town late last year.

The General Staff of Ukraine‘s Armed Forces, in its evening report, said Ukrainian forces repelled nearly 20 Russian attacks around Avdiivka, its buildings now largely reduced to shells. Russian air strikes hit nearby villages, it said.

Avdiivka has become a watchword for resistance, viewed as the gateway to recapturing the Russian-held city of Donetsk and the rest of Donbas — made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It was briefly seized in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists captured swathes of eastern Ukraine, but was later retaken by Ukrainian forces who, in the ensuing nine years, have built solid fortifications.

Ukraine‘s defence systems destroyed all air weapons Russia launched overnight, Ukraine‘s Air Force said early on Monday.

The Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app that a total of 14 attack drones, including 13 Iranian-made Shahed drones and one unspecified drone, as well as one cruise missile were all destroyed.

From the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia to this conflict in Gaza, the Russian leader’s attempts to cosplay a serious global power player continue to look threadbare and unconvincing when actually put to the test, writes Dr Mark Galeotti

Three Ukrainian missiles heading for targets in Crimea were downed on Sunday over a Russian-held area of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the Russia-installed governor said.

Vladimir Saldo, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the missiles were downed over the town of Henichesk.

Russian troops occupied Kherson region in the first days of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian forces have regained control of the region’s main town and areas on the west bank of the Dnipro River. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Officials in southern Ukraine said on Sunday that the Russian military had used a record number of aerial bombs over the country’s Kherson region in the past 24 hours.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South, said 36 missiles had been recorded over the area, with some villages being hit by several strikes.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with U.S. President Joe Biden about Washington’s future support for Kyiv, and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a military base near the Ukrainian border, as the warring countries laid plans for the winter and next year’s combat operations.

Almost 20 months of war have sapped both sides’ military resources. The fighting is likely to settle into positional and attritional warfare during the approaching wintry weather, analysts say, with little change along the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday he spoke to Biden about “a significant support package” for Ukraine. Western help has been crucial for Ukraine’s war effort.

The British government has been accused of failing to address the rising threat of political poisonings in the UK after an A-Level student presented a report to the House of Lords highlighting its inaction.

Labour peer Baroness Kennedy KC, who chaired the panel in the Palace of Westminster on Thursday, highlighted Sophia Browder’s “revelatory” research but added it was “embarrassing” for the government that a 17 year-old was having to point out its shortcomings.

Sophia is the daughter of financier Bill Browder, formerly the largest portfolio investor in Russia before being declared a national security threat by Vladimir Putin in 2005.

The British Army’s Royal Engineers have trained Ukrainian civilian engineers how to defend their energy sector from Russian attacks this winter.

Damage and destruction of critical national infrastructure (CNI) by Russian missile and drone attacks has represented one of the greatest threats to the lives and safety of Ukrainian civilians since the invasion.

The two-week training package was developed after a request from Ukraine.