Ukraine war: Russia steps up intensity in conflict as troops attempt to encircle major Donetsk city
Russia has stepped up its offensive in Ukraine, with officials suggesting Vladimir Putin’s troops have taken control of an area outside the major city of Bakhmut.
According to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left”, in the Donetsk region, which includes the town of Soledar.
“The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Mr Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.”
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Ukraine’s presidential office also said at least four civilians were killed, and another 30 were wounded, in Russian shelling between Monday and Tuesday.
In Mykolaiv in the south, Governor Vitaliy Kim said Russian troops had shelled the port of Ochakiv, and the surrounding area, overnight Monday into Tuesday, adding 15 people, including a two-year-old child, were wounded.
The Ministry of Defence said that in the last four days, Russian and Wagner forces (a private mercenary group) have made tactical advances into the small Donbas town of Soledar, and “are likely in control of most of the settlement”.
The ministry also said that Russia’s Soledar axis is “highly likely” an effort to envelop the eastern town of Bakhmut from the north, and to “disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication”.
“Despite the increased pressure on Bakhmut, Russia is unlikely to envelop the town imminently because Ukrainian forces maintain stable defensive lines in depth and control over supply routes.”
Hanna Malyar, the deputy defence minister, said Russia has thrown “a large number of storm groups” into the battle.
“The enemy is advancing literally on the bodies of their own soldiers and is massively using artillery, rocket launchers and mortars, hitting their own troops,” she said.
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Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region’s Kyiv-appointed governor, described the Russian attacks on Soledar and Bakhmut as relentless, adding: “The Russian army is reducing Ukrainian cities to rubble using all kinds of weapons in their scorched-earth tactics.
“Russia is waging a war without rules, resulting in civilian deaths and suffering.”
The Moscow appointed leader of the region, Denis Pushili, said on state television that Russian forces had almost captured Soledar, but the gains were coming “at a very high price”, adding the city would create “good prospects” for taking over nearby Bakhmut and Siversk.
There has been intense fighting in the east of Ukraine for several months, focussing on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Russia claims to control.
Those areas make up the Donbas, an industrial region that borders Russia which Vladimir Putin has identified as central to his war effort.
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Bakhmut, in Donetsk, is important to the Kremlin, as it would mean it controlled Ukraine’s supply lines and open a route for its forces to move toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.
The town has spent weeks without power and water, like other cities under siege, with the region’s governor estimating that 90% of the town’s pre-war population had fled.
In Russia, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said the military would use its experience in Ukraine to improve its combat training, adding communications and control systems will be upgraded with artificial intelligence, while troops will get better tactical gear and equipment.
Russian officials argue the country is not only fighting Ukraine, but also NATO, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that the bloc’s members “have become a party to the conflict, pumping weapons, technology and intelligence data into Ukraine”.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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