Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy claims ‘important success’ as troops push back on Russian advances

Ukrainian forces have pushed back some of the gains Russia made over the summer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, calling the operation an “important success” after months of battlefield setbacks. The Ukrainian president said his troops had reclaimed 160 sq km (62 sq miles) of land near the eastern coalmining town of Dobropillia, where Russia pierced Ukraine’s defences in August. Russia did not immediately comment on the claims. Zelenskyy said after meeting troops in the eastern Donetsk region on Thursday that his army was “achieving results” in an ongoing counteroffensive there. In addition to reclaiming the 160 sq km, Ukrainian forces had “cleared” Russian troops from an additional 170 sq km of land but had not yet formally taken the territory, he said in a video address. Zelenskyy did not say when Ukraine made the gains but said Russia had “suffered thousands of losses”. DeepState, an online battlefield tracker linked to the Ukrainian army, showed Russian troops made rapid advances near Dobropillia last month but that some of their gains had evaporated in recent weeks. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

Donald Trump has accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart, report Kiran Stacey and Pippa Crerar. Trump said he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so. Putin “has let me down”, Trump said. “He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more people than he’s killing. The Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers.” His comments on Thursday came during an hour-long press conference alongside the UK prime minister which marked the culmination of a two-day state visit. His comments about Putin will delight British officials who had hoped to use the unprecedented second state visit to isolate the Russian president on the world stage.

A Russian air strike on the Donetsk region town of Kostiantynivka on Thursday killed five people, Ukrainian police said. The town is about 8km from the front line and is surrounded by Russian troops on three sides, according to DeepState. Kyiv has been hitting back with long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector, with the latest attack on Thursday morning triggering a fire at a refinery in the central Bashkortostan region, about 1,400km from the front. Vladimir Putin said more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were now deployed on the Ukrainian front line.

Russia has responded to a US-based report about the forced re-education of deported Ukrainian children. Yale’s School of Public Health said after an investigation that it had identified more than 210 sites where Ukrainian children have been taken for military training, drone manufacturing and other forced re-education by Russia as part of a large-scale deportation programme. The facilities – across Russia and occupied Ukraine – include camps as well as schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious sites and universities, it said. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Thursday that the report was full of fabrications and based on questionable data. Ukraine says Russia has illegally deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus in violation of the Geneva Conventions.