Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian rebels behind Belgorod attack say ‘you will see us again’; Kyiv repels drone strikes

Unverified footage of drones being shot down over Kyiv last night has been posted by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

He tweeted:

Another sleepless night for many of us. Another attack on Kyiv. We hold on, go to work in the morning, thankful to our air defense and all our friends who keep Ukraine in their hearts and bring our Victory closer.

Russia unleashed a barrage of drones against Kyiv in its 12th nighttime air assault on the Ukrainian capital this month, but the city’s air defences shot all of them down, Ukrainian authorities claimed on Thursday.

Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until 7pm (UK time). Please do feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.

• Russia has replaced its Wagner private military units with regular soldiers in the outskirts of Bakhmut but the group’s fighters remain inside the devastated city, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Thursday. Her comments appeared at least partially to confirm an announcement by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin that his group had started withdrawing its forces from Bakhmut in east Ukraine and handing over its positions to regular Russian troops. Prigozhin had repeatedly threatened to withdraw troops from the area before it was taken, citing his dispute with the Russian military and defence establishment over supplies of ammunitions. A couple of days ago Prigozhin sarcastically suggested that his mercenary troops could be replaced by “a battalion of generals”. Yesterday he warned of a new revolution in Russia if leaders did not improve their handling of the war.

• Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak sought to downplay the idea that there was a counter-offensive coming from Ukraine that would be marked by a single significant shift of gear. He wrote “Once again about the counter-offensive. This is not a ‘single event’ that will begin at a specific hour of a specific day with a solemn cutting of the red ribbon. These are dozens of different actions to destroy the Russian occupation forces in different directions, which have already been taking place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.”

• Ukraine’s defence ministry claimed to have shot down 36 out of 36 Shahad drones launched into Ukraine by Russia overnight.

• Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that some areas of Chernivtsi were left without power after lines were damaged by falling drone debris.

• The Russian-imposed head of Crimea’s administration said on Thursday that air defences had downed six drones overnight in different areas of the region. There were no casualties. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.

• Russia’s defence minister has said Belarus remains a “faithful ally and reliable partner” to Russia in the face of western states doing “everything possible … to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine” as the two countries signed an agreement on the positioning of nuclear weapons in Belarus. During a visit to Minsk Sergei Shoigu said “deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus does not transfer it to the republic control over it, and the decision on its use remains with Moscow”.

• Overnight the New York Times has reported that US intelligence officials believe that Ukraine was responsible for the drone attack which slightly damaged the Kremlin, and which Russia labelled an assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian president not being in the building at the time. Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Russia had always held Kyiv responsible, and that it didn’t really matter exactly which Ukrainian units were behind it. Podolyak on Thursday responded by saying Ukraine had nothing to do with the “strange and pointless” attack.

• The US ambassador to Ukraine has criticised Russia over its implementation of the newly extended Black Sea grain initiative. Bridget Brink tweeted “After repeated threats to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russia now refuses to allow any of the waiting 28 ships into Pivdennyi, one of the three ports designated by the agreement for food exports – a clear violation of their commitment. Russia must stop obstructing the operations of this life-saving initiative.”

• Russia has denied a fire broke out at the ministry of defence in Moscow, after users on social media and reports in the local Tass news agency said emergency services had been called to the building. State-owned Tass initially reported on a fire at the ministry early on Thursday morning, but later reported the ministry saying there was none.

Earlier today Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak sought to downplay the idea that there was a counteroffensive coming from Ukraine that would mark a significant shift of gear. He tweeted:

Once again about the counteroffensive. Without further questions.

1. This is not a “single event” that will begin at a specific hour of a specific day with a solemn cutting of the red ribbon.

2. These are dozens of different actions to destroy the #Russian occupation forces in different directions, which have already been taking place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.

3. Intensive destruction of enemy logistics is also a counteroffensive.

However, as my colleague Dan Sabbagh, our defence and security editor, notes: “Except, at some point, Ukrainian ground forces will need to attack with sufficient combat mass …”

Russia has replaced its Wagner private military units with regular soldiers in the outskirts of Bakhmut but the group’s fighters remain inside the devastated city, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Thursday.

Her comments appeared at least partially to confirm an announcement by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin that his group had started withdrawing its forces from Bakhmut in east Ukraine and handing over its positions to regular Russian troops.

Yesterday, Julian Borger reported for the Guardian from Kyiv that Progozhin had said that 20,000 of its fighters have been killed in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. He also warned that Russia could face another revolution if its leadership does not improve its handling of the war.

Prigozhin pointed to the social disparity underlined by the war, with the sons of the poor being sent back from the front in zinc coffins while the children of the elite “shook their arses” in the sun.

“This divide can end as in 1917 with a revolution,” he said in an interview posted on his channel on the Telegram messaging app. “First the soldiers will stand up, and after that – their loved ones will rise up. There are already tens of thousands of them – relatives of those killed. And there will probably be hundreds of thousands – we cannot avoid that.”

Reuters reports Russian prosecutors have asked a court to recognise crimes committed by Nazi Germany in the Moscow region during the second world war as a genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Russia said on Thursday it would expel five Swedish diplomats in what it said was a retaliatory measure for Sweden’s “confrontational course” in relations with Russia.

The Russian foreign ministry said it was responding to the expulsion of five of its diplomatic staff from Sweden last month, which it called an “openly hostile step”.

Relations between the two countries have worsened since Sweden last year announced its intention to join Nato after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Reuters reports the Russian statement said ties had “reached an unprecedented low”.

A senior Ukrainian presidential aide said on Thursday that Ukraine had nothing to do with a “strange and pointless” drone attack on the Kremlin and played down the findings of two US media reports.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, told Reuters in a statement that Russia was trying to reduce arms supplies to Kyiv by playing on western fears of a possible escalation because of alleged Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil.

The New York Times reported that assessments by US spy agencies showed that a drone attack on the Kremlin this month was probably orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units. Moscow blames the attack on Ukraine.

The US ambassador to Ukraine has criticised Russia over its implementation of the newly extended Black Sea grain initiative. Bridget Brinktweeted:

After repeated threats to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russia now refuses to allow any of the waiting 28 ships into Pivdennyi, one of the three ports designated by the agreement for food exports – a clear violation of their commitment. Russia must stop obstructing the operations of this life-saving initiative.

Russia’s defence minister has said Belarus remains a “faithful ally and reliable partner” to Russia in the face of western states doing “everything possible … to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine”.

Russia launched part of its full-scale invasion and failed attempt to capture Kyiv from Belarusian soil in February 2022, in what it termed a “special military operation”.

In statements published on Telegram by Russia’s ministry of defence, Sergei Shoigu is quoted as saying his meetings with his Belarusian counterpart have become more regular, saying:

This is especially important in the context of the rapid growth of tension, the destruction of the foundations of strategic stability and the unprecedented intensification of international confrontation. Everything possible is being done to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine, which is receiving all kinds of military support. The Republic of Belarus has been and remains our faithful ally and reliable partner.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson has said of reports in the New York Times that Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin that “it doesn’t make much difference which of the units of the Kyiv regime is behind it”.

Reuters reports Dmitry Peskov told the media: “We immediately said that the Kyiv regime was behind this.”

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, denied at the time that Ukraine was responsible.

Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.

Tass has more detail on the document signed today concerning arrangements for Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons. On Telegram it quotes Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu saying “deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus does not transfer it to the republic control over it, and the decision on its use remains with Moscow”.

It also reports Shoigu noted the measures implemented by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations”.

Tass writes:

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on 25 March that Russia, at the request of the Belarusian side, would deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in the republic, as the US has long done on the territory of its allies. According to the head of the Russian state, on 1 July it is planned to complete the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. Moscow has already handed over to Minsk the Iskander missile system, which can be a carrier of nuclear weapons, and has assisted in re-equipping Belarusian aircraft to be able to use special ammunition. Belarusian servicemen have undergone appropriate training in the Russian Federation.

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has started withdrawing its forces from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in a video published on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Prigozhin had repeatedly threatened to withdraw troops from the area before it was taken, citing his dispute with the Russian military and defence establishment over supplies of ammunitions. A couple of days ago Prigozhin sarcastically suggested that his mercenary troops could be replaced by “a battalion of generals”.

The defence ministers of Russia and Belarus on Thursday signed a document on the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported.

Separately, citing Russian media, Reuters reported that the Russia defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the west was waging an “undeclared war” against Russia and Belarus. Shoigu is in Minsk for a meeting of the Council of Ministers of Defense of the CSTO member states, which include Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Russia and Belarus, which are close allies over the conflict in Ukraine, agreed earlier this year to deploy part of Moscow’s tactical nuclear arsenal in Belarus. Russia launched its failed attempt to capture Kyiv from Belarusian territory last year.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this update on the overnight situation, writing on its official Telegram channel:

At night, air defence forces destroyed 36 of the 36 ‘Shahed’ drones that Russia launched over Ukraine, the air force reported.

Also at night, the Russian military struck Tsyrkuny in the Kharkiv region. The S-300 missile hit the ground. A private house was damaged, there were no injuries.

In the Chernivtsi region, two power lines were damaged as a result of the fall of the drone debris – part of the Dnipro district was cut off. Three residential buildings were damaged.

Yesterday, the Russian army shelled the Kherson region 83 times: four people were injured.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has posted to Telegram to state that in the last 24 hours one person has been killed and six injured by Russian shelling in the region. He listed a number of locations where houses and infrastructure had been destroyed, including Horlivka, Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. The claims have not been independently verified.

The Russian-imposed head of Crimea’s administration said on Thursday that air defences had downed six drones overnight in different areas of the region. There were no casualties, Reuters reports Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.