Ukraine-Russia war latest news: Kyiv’s drones fly record 1,100 miles to strike Putin’s bombers

Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Lozuvatske in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported, citing claims by Russia’s defence ministry.

Lozuvatske lies some 50 kilometres southeast of the city of Dnipro.

Russia has lost 573,510 troops since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv has claimed.

That includes 1,210 casualties suffered by Vladimir Putin’s forces over the past day alone, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed on Saturday.

The Ukrainian military claimed Moscow had also lost some 8,311 tanks, 15,885 artillery systems, 905 air defence systems, 28 ships and one submarine.

The president of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, Vadym Guttsait insisted that Russian and Belarusian athletes “do not exist” for Team Ukraine.

Russia and Belarus are banned from competing in the Olympics due to International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctions regarding their involvement in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, in December the IOC confirmed that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be able to complete as neutrals at Paris 2024 – Individual Neutral Athletes (INA) – under strict eligibility conditions.

Asked at a press conference how Team Ukraine would prepare to face Russian athletes, Guttsait said: “All the athletes in the Olympic Village have had the impact by Russia and war in Ukraine so they all know what’s going on right now in our country.

“All the Ukrainian athletes who are now in the Olympic Village have now felt the war themselves. Some of them lost their families, or part of their families, relatives. Some of them lost friends and close people, so, for us, the Russian and Belarusian athletes do not exist. We don’t greet them, we don’t say hello and we don’t look at them.”

Rebecca Johnson has the full story:

Ukraine’s air defences shot down four attack drones and one missile fired by Russia in an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force has said.

“All targets were shot down by the Ukrainian Defence Forces in Dnipro, Poltava, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions,” the military said in a statement.

US treasury secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that “things look good” for Group of Seven wealthy democracies to agree the terms of a $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by Russian assets by October.

Ms Yellen said in an interview on the sidelines of a G20 finance leaders meeting in Brazil that talks to advance the loan were constructive, including over US demands for reassurances that the assets would stay frozen for a longer period of time.

“We’ve had constructive conversations here. And we’re working closely together to try to move this forward,” Ms Yellen said. “I think things look good in terms of getting to a place where we can get this done probably by October.”

The $50bn loan, agreed in principle by G7 leaders in June, would be serviced with proceeds generated by some $300bn of Russian central bank assets frozen in the West after Moscow invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

While there is not unanimous support among the G7 to fully confiscate the $300 bn of capital, the bloc agrees that it is legally possible to siphon off the profits that the assets are generating.

Ukraine said on Friday that its missile forces struck a Russian military airfield in Crimea that has been used for attacks against it.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks on Crimea in recent months and says the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet, headquartered in Sevastopol, has been forced to move its combat vessels to safer harbours elsewhere.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said in a statement that Russia’s Saky airfield in western Crimea was the latest target to be struck and that it was assessing the aftermath.

“This is one of the operational airfields that Russia uses to control the airspace, in particular the Black Sea, and for launching airstrikes on Ukrainian territory,” it said.

The statement did not say which weapon was used, only that the attack was carried out by Ukraine’s missile forces. There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defence ministry or local officials.

President Volodymyr Zelensky implicitly acknowledged the strike in his nightly video address, commending “our soldiers who are striking Russian bases and logistics on occupied territory”.

“To our guys, our soldiers, I thank you for your accuracy,” he said.

Russian air defences intercepted 12 Ukrainian drones in the space of an hour late on Friday over southern Russia’s border region of Bryansk, the regional governor said.

“Thanks to our valiant defenders, all airborne targets were intercepted and destroyed,” governor Alexander Bogomaz wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

There were no casualties or serious damage reported.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod region, also on Ukraine’s border further to the southeast, said three drone attacks and a number of shelling incidents had smashed windows and caused some other damage to buildings.

Ukrainian forces have regularly attacked Russian border regions, particularly Belgorod, in a bid to reduce Russian strikes on targets inside Ukraine’s border.

The attacks prompted the Kremlin to launch a cross-border incursion into the Kharkiv region in May, with Russian military officials saying they seized a number of settlements. Ukrainian officials say the situation there has stabilised.

Gladkov and other officials restricted access this week to parts of Belgorod region to guard against Ukrainian attacks.