Key events
Success in Kharkiv helps entire frontline, says Zelenskiy
The counter-offensive in Kharkiv will help the efforts of the Ukrainian military along the entire front of the conflict, President Zelenskiy has said.
Speaking in his nightly address on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said: “This week we have good news from the Kharkiv region. Probably, you all have already seen reports about the activity of Ukrainian defenders.
“And I think every citizen feels proud of our warriors. It is a well-deserved pride, a right feeling.”
He said that “now is not the time to name the settlements to which the Ukrainian flag returns”, but went on to list and thank brigades operating in Kharkiv and elsewhere.
“Each success of our military in one direction or another changes the general situation along the entire frontline in favour of Ukraine,” he said.
“The more difficult it is for the occupiers, the more losses they have, the better the positions of our defenders in Donbas will be, the more reliable the defense of Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and the cities of the Dnipropetrovsk region will be, the faster we will be able to liberate the Azov region and the entire south.”
Three bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a building shelled by Russian forces in the eastern city of Sloviansk.
Posting on Facebook, Vadym Liakh, the head of the city’s military-civil administration, said the bodies of two men and a woman had been recovered from a building on Torska Street.
Reports on Wednesday said a building on the same street had been hit by Russian shelling. A nearby school was also reportedly struck.
Pictures from the city showed a building with the roof caved in. Rescue personnel could also be seen working to clear debris and extinguish a fire.
“We hold on. We are together,” Liakh said.
US approves $675m in military aid to Ukraine
President Biden has approved additional military aid to Ukraine worth up to $675m, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin has said.
The announcement came at a meeting of defence ministers and military chiefs from more than 40 countries at the Ramstein airbase in Germany.
In remarks opening the talks, Austin said the US and its allies were “seeing the demonstrable success of our common efforts on the battlefield”.
He added that the latest package of aid would include howitzers, artillery munitions, Humvees, armored ambulances, anti-tank systems, and more.
Ukraine appears to be “imposing pressure on Russian forces” in the southern region of Kherson, according to the UK’s ministry of defence.
The ministry’s latest update said Ukrainian forces has “probably destroyed a military pontoon bridge” at Darivka, a village near the Black Sea coast.
It added that Russian forces set up the crossing after a nearby road bridge had been severely damaged, and that it is “one of the main routes between the northern and southern sectors of Russia’s military presence along the Dnipro river”.
“Ukraine’s systematic precision targeting of vulnerable crossing points likely continues to impose pressure on Russian forces as they attempt to contain Ukrainian attacks,” the ministry said.
“It slows their ability to deploy operational reserves and resupply materiel from the east.”
Sustained pressure on Russian forces in the south is thought to have been key to enabling Ukraine to launch a counter-offensive in Kharkiv in the northeast.
Figures within the Russian military are said to be concerned that the Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv will hinder communication between Russian forces in the region.
According to the latest assessment from US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War, Russian milbloggers – military personnel who write blogs – have voiced concern that the operation seeks to cut ground lines of communication to forces in the cities of Kupyansk and Izyum, and that that could “allow Ukrainian troops to isolate the Russian groupings in these areas and retake large swaths of territory”.
“These milbloggers used largely panicked and despondent tones, acknowledged significant Ukrainian gains,” the institute said.
“The level of shock and frank discussion of Ukrainian successes by Russian milbloggers speaks to the scale of surprise achieved by Ukrainian forces, which is likely successfully demoralizing Russian forces.”
The deportation of people from Ukraine has “chilling echoes from European history”, the UK’s permanent representative to the UN has said.
Dame Barbara Woodward was speaking at a briefing on Ukraine at the UN Security Council.
“We are deeply concerned by reporting by the UN, the OSCE and civil society organisations that Russia is systematically detaining, processing and deporting Ukrainian men, women and children, with chilling echoes from European history,” she said.
“As we have heard, civilians reportedly face interrogation, body searches, stripping, invasive data collection, ill-treatment and torture while passing through ‘filtration’.
“Those who are deemed most threatening are reportedly held indefinitely in detention centres, while others, including unaccompanied children, are forcibly deported to Russia. Some simply disappear.”
She added that the “appalling term ‘de-nazification’” was a “cover for obliterating Ukraine from the map”.
Reports of systematic detention, filtration, ‘processing’ and deportation of Ukrainians by Russia have chilling echoes in European history.
It tells us three things about Russia’s war:
— UK at the UN 🇬🇧 (@UKUN_NewYork) September 7, 2022
Around 51,250 Russian soldiers killed since invasion, says Ukraine
Some 51,250 Russian soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the invasion, according to figures published by the Ukrainian military.
A graphic posted to Twitter by the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces showed “total combat losses of the enemy” from 24 February to today.
As well as the soldiers killed, it said Russia has lost a total of 2,112 tanks, 4,557 armoured personnel vehicles, and 239 aircraft.
The number of total Russian deaths is an increase of 640 on Wednesday’s update.
A separate post on Facebook said Russia had suffered the greatest losses in the region of the southeastern city of Donetsk.
Asked about the cost of the invasion during a speech at the Russian Eastern Economic Forum on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin denied reports of Russian losses.
“We haven’t lost anything and we won’t lose anything,” he said. “The main gain is the strengthening of our sovereignty.”
Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02 по 08.09 орієнтовно склали / The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02 to 08.09 were approximately pic.twitter.com/lAHtKMlDPZ
— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) September 8, 2022
An upbeat message from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence this morning as that counter-offensive in Kharkiv continues.
“Dracarys” is a command used by characters in Game of Thrones when they want a dragon to breath fire.
Russian forces carried out two missiles strikes in Kharkiv overnight, according to the city’s mayor.
Posting on Telegram, Ihor Terekhov said rockets hit the neighbourhoods of Saltovskoye and Kholodnogorsk at around midnight local time.
He said preliminary reports suggested the strike in Saltovskoye had hit infrastructure that was “critically important for the normal life support of the city”.
He said the strike in Kholodnogorsk had hit a local business.
“Information about the destruction and victims is being clarified,” he said.
Ukraine recaptures up to 400 sq km in Kharkiv
Ukraine has retaken 400 sq km of territory in the east of the Kharkiv region, according to US-based think tank The Institute for the Study of War.
In its latest assessment of the situation on the ground, the group said that, on 7 September, Ukrainian forces “likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20km into Russian-held territory”.
It said Ukraine was “likely exploiting Russian force reallocation” to the south to “conduct an opportunistic yet highly effective counteroffensive” northwest of the city of Izyum.
It added that Russia had been forced to refocus its forces in the south because of Ukraine’s ongoing operations in the Kherson region.
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