July 31, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says Moscow has intensified attacks on Ukraine in response to drone strikes on his country’s territory, including those in Moscow on Sunday.

Speaking during a conference call with Russian Armed Forces leadership, Shoigu said that "additional measures" had been taken to protect domestic targets.

The Russian defense minister also alleged that attempted drone attacks by Kyiv were carried out to deflect from what he said was Ukraine’s lack of success on the battlefield.

Some context: No casualties were reported in the attempted Moscow drone strikes over the weekend. However, Russian bombardments in Ukraine have struck civilian homes, schools, hospitals, churches and power plants, killing thousands of bystanders in the process.

Ukraine's counteroffensive has gone slower than expected, with Russian troops putting up tough resistance as Ukrainian soldiers attempt to break through the front lines.

Since the counteroffensive started, 204.7 square kilometers (79 square miles) have been retaken, of which 12.6 square kilometers (5 square miles) were retaken over the past week, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Monday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine's attempts to attack Moscow with drones are "acts of desperation."

Peskov's comments came after Kyiv attempted several attacks on Russian territory using unmanned aerial vehicles over the weekend. Russia said Sunday it had downed or intercepted three drones over Moscow and another 25 over the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.

Hours after the attempted strike on Moscow, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was succeeding on the battlefield and that war is “gradually returning” to Russian soil.

On his regularly scheduled call with journalists Monday, Peskov likened the drone attacks to "terrorist strikes." He added that security measures have been in put in place in the Russian capital to minimize the risk from these types of attacks.

Four people have now been reported dead following missile strikes on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, the country's emergency services said Monday.

The number of injured has risen to 43.

A rescue team comprising of 230 people and 57 vehicles are involved in the search and rescue for people from the two buildings damaged in the attack.

Three people, including a child born in 2013, have been rescued from the rubble, while 30 people were helped out of what remains of the structures.

The Ukrainian military is doubling down on efforts to break through thick Russian defenses in its counteroffensive in the south, which has struggled to gain momentum since being launched at the beginning of June.

Ukrainian officials have said little about what fresh units are being committed to the offensive, but the military has clearly added recently-minted units equipped with western armor in at least one important segment of the southern front.

The challenges faced by the Ukrainians are perhaps less to do with numbers and more to do with capabilities, training and coordination, factors that are critical when an attacking force is faced with such an array of defenses.

The commitment of new units last week does appear to have enabled the Ukrainians to make modest advances south of the town of Orikhiv, edging closer to the important Russian hub of Tokmak some 20 kilometers to the south of the current frontline.

There are other modest successes further east, but the few frontline accounts to have emerged speak of unceasing Russian aviation and artillery strikes.

Read the full analysis here:

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Rescue workers in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih are searching for people trapped under the rubble of two buildings struck by Russian missiles.

At least four people were killed and another 20 were injured in the attack, Ukraine's interior minister said, cautioning the numbers could rise.

The airstrikes came after a busy weekend that saw Kyiv attempt a drone attack on Moscow and its counteroffensive made modest territorial gains.

Here are the latest developments:

Russia launched a pair of missiles at the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killing at least two people and injuring another 20, Kyiv said Monday.

Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said a four-story school building was struck and parts of the fourth through ninth floors of a nearby residential tower were destroyed.

Klymenko also said it was likely people could be trapped under the rubble and that first responders were working at the scene. Klymenko warned residents to stay in shelters until the air raid alarm was turned off.

Zelensky said the strike in Kryvyi Rih was part of a Russian bombardment in which "the enemy has been stubbornly attacking cities, city centers, shelling civilian objects and housing.”

“But this terror will not frighten us or break us. We are working and saving our people,” he added.

This post has been updated.

Ukrainian authorities on Monday morning reported modest territorial gains around the frontlines of the city of Bakhmut, as well as repelling Russian attacks elsewhere. 

The Ukrainian Defense Forces freed two square kilometers (0.7 square miles) of territory in the Bakhmut sector over the past week, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said during a live broadcast Monday. That brings the total liberated area in eastern Ukraine to 37 kilometers 914 square miles).

She added Ukrainian troops are conducting successful offensives in areas south of the city of Bakhmut.

Maliar also said Russia “continues to focus its main efforts on the Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions, and heavy fighting continues,” reporting “more than 170 battles” in those areas.

Along the eastern frontlines: Russia failed an attempt to push Ukrainian troops out of the Serebryansky forest in the Lyman sector, while Ukrainian defense forces were “holding back enemy troops effectively” in the Kupyansk sector, Maliar added.

Russian forces focused their main efforts on attacks in the Avdiivka and Mariinka directions within the Donetsk region but were also unsuccessful, she said.

She said Ukrainian Defense Forces liberated Staromaiorske, in the Donetsk region, “under heavy fire from aviation and artillery."

In the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian forces have been “successful and are consolidating their positions” in the areas of Mala Tokmachka and Robotyne.

Since the beginning of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, 204.7 square kilometers (79 square miles) have been liberated, of which 12.6 square kilometers (5 square miles) were retaken over the past week.

Russia may be forced to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine’s counteroffensive succeeds, senior Russian official Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday – the latest in a series of nuclear threats made during Moscow’s invasion by the key ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Series of nuclear threats: Medvedev, who served as president of Russia from 2008 to 2012, has struck a bellicose tone throughout Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly raising the specter of nuclear conflict.

Last April, he warned of Russian nuclear expansion should Sweden and Finland join NATO. Helsinki joined the defense alliance later that month, while Stockholm’s path to NATO membership was cleared earlier this month after Turkey dropped its objections.

In September, Medvedev said strategic nuclear weapons could be used to defend territories incorporated into Russia from Ukraine.

And in January, as NATO member states debated new weapons shipments to Ukraine, Medvedev said defeat for Russia in the war could lead to nuclear conflict.

“The loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram in January. “Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends.

“This should be obvious to anyone. Even to a Western politician who has retained at least some trace of intelligence.”

Medvedev’s remarks Sunday again raise the possibility that Russia could potentially lose the war following nearly 18 months of attrition – a rare admission from a senior Russian official.

They also came just hours after Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Kyiv of attacking Moscow with drones. Three drones were intercepted Sunday, but a business and shopping development in the west of the Russian capital was hit, the ministry said.

Read the full story here.

A Ukrainian drone has hit a building of Bryansk’s district Department of Internal Affairs, Bryansk Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post on Monday.

The attack reported on Monday came after Russia said it brought down three Ukrainian drones trying to attack Moscow on Sunday, which was the second reported attack on the country's capital in a week.

Russia also said it intercepted more than two dozen drones in Crimea, the peninsula it seized in 2014.