Russia says no deal on prisoner swap with US yet
The Kremlin said Thursday that there is still no agreement on the possible exchange of prisoners proposed to Moscow by the United States.
“At the moment, there are no agreements in this area,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, at his daily press conference.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the day before that Washington had offered Russia a “substantial proposal” to secure the release of two Americans detained on Russian territory, Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
Commenting on this information today, the Kremlin representative said that these are issues whose discussion does not admit “leakage to the press.”
“Usually the agreements already reached are disclosed,” he asserted.
Russia is concentrated in the east of Ukraine and tries to consolidate the south
Russia continues to concentrate its military efforts in the Donbas (east), in addition to maintaining control of the captured districts in southern Ukraine, according to the latest part of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
This report, reported by the Ukrinform news agency, further states that Russia is concentrating its main efforts on establishing full control over the Lugansk and Donetsk (eastern) regions, maintaining control of the captured districts of the Kherson region ( south) and parts of Kharkov (northeast), Zaporizhia (south) – where additional units are heading – and Mikolaiv regions.
According to the Ukrainian high command, the Russians are trying to create favorable conditions to resume the offensive and block Ukraine’s maritime communications in the Black Sea.
The US Institute for the Study of War says in its latest analysis that Russian forces appear capable of sustaining only two significant offensive operations in Ukraine at the moment, one attempting to seize Siversk and one moving towards Bakhmut, both in the region of Donetsk.
Several Russian rockets destroy part of a military base near kyiv
Several rockets partially destroyed a military base near kyiv, the Ukrainian General Staff, Oleksii Gromov, announced on Thursday.
“Around 0500 (0200 GMT) the enemy launched an attack by firing six Kalibr cruise missiles at a military unit in Lioutij, kyiv region,” Gromov told the media.
One base building was destroyed and two others damaged, while one of the six missiles was shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
The rockets were launched from Crimea, a peninsula annexed in 2014 by Moscow.
“The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson is gaining momentum,” British intelligence said.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in the province of Kherson, located in the south of the country and occupied by Russia since the beginning of the invasion, is “gaining momentum”, according to the report released today by British intelligence.
“Ukraine used its new long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges that cross the Dnieper River and on which Russia depends to supply the areas under its control,” said the part released by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense to through their social networks.
One of those bridges is the Antonovski, in the suburbs of the city of Kherson, which is key because it is the only one that connects the town with the south bank of the river and the rest of the province.
“The city of Kherson, the most important politically populated center occupied by Russia, is now practically isolated from the other occupied territories,” said British intelligence, which realized that this makes the forces sent by Moscow “vulnerable.”
“The loss of the town would seriously undermine Russia’s attempts to present the occupation as a success,” he added.