Ukraine Russia latest news: Putin’s forces ‘running out of steam’ as Kyiv plans counteroffensive

Ukrainian troops, on the defensive for months, will soon counterattack as Russia’s offensive looks to be faltering, one of Kyiv’s top generals said.

Ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said earlier his forces would soon launch a counteroffensive after withstanding Russia’s winter campaign, which sought gains in eastern Ukraine through a bloody campaign of attrition.

Mr Syrskyi said Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, who have been at the front of Moscow’s assault on eastern and southern Ukraine, “are losing considerable strength and are running out of steam”.

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupiansk,” he said, listing Ukrainian counteroffensives last year that recaptured swathes of land.

There was no immediate response from Moscow to suggestions its forces in Bakhmut were losing momentum, but Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin issued statements in recent days, warning of a Ukrainian counterassault.

Volodymyr Zelensky has asked his European allies to increase and speed up their supply of weapons, as he called on them for long-range missiles, ammunition and modern aircraft after making battlefield visits in Luhansk, Kherson and Bakhmut.

He warned that any delay will give Russia time to regroup and strike harder.

“Let each meeting, each discussion, each day of our work together bring the return of peace closer – bring closer the liberation of our land and all of Europe from Russian evil. If Europe hesitates, evil may have time to regroup and prepare itself for years of war. It is in your power not to allow this to happen,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address yesterday.

US president Joe Biden and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau are poised to announce a deal aimed at stopping asylum seekers from traversing the shared US-Canada land border via unofficial crossings.

The two leaders, in talks in Ottawa, are also expected to discuss how to address the worsening security and humanitarian situation in Haiti.

Trudeau has been under pressure to stop the flow of asylum seekers in Quebec, the mainly French-speaking province where he holds his parliamentary seat.

Mr Biden arrived in Canada on Thursday on his long-delayed visit to express unity on Ukraine.

Overnight Russian missile strikes and shelling killed at least seven civilians in northern and eastern Ukraine, regional officials said this morning.

Emergency services said five civilians were killed in Kostiantynivka in the eastern region of Donetsk region, and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said two were killed and seven wounded following intense shelling of Bilopillia in the northern region of Sumy.

Kostiantynivka sits a few miles west of Bakhmut, the city Russian forces have spent months trying to capture.

Russian ex-President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia was not planning to enter into a direct conflict with Nato and was interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis through talks, the Interfax news agency reported.

However, he warned that any Ukrainian attempt to take the Crimean peninsula – which Moscow annexed in 2014 – would be grounds for Russia to use “absolutely any weapon” against Kyiv in response.

Mr Medvedev has made several belligerent comments in recent days, threatening “nuclear apocalypse” and warning international prosecutors that arresting Vladimir Putin would be considered an act of war.

A Russian security officer who fled the country because he objected to the invasion of Ukraine has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in high-security prison, the Taiga.info news website reported on Friday.

Federal Protective Service Major Mikhail Zhilin, 36, fled to Kazakhstan last year when Russia announced a conscription campaign, illegally crossing the border through woods while his wife and children drove through a checkpoint.

Mr Zhilin sought refugee status in the former Soviet republic but his request was denied and authorities there stopped him from leaving for Armenia.

Kazakhstan handed him over to Russia late last year, leading to the rare conviction of an officer for desertion.

Ukraine continues to use Soviet-era attack helicopters older than some of its pilots to defend against Russian invaders.

They might fly three or four sorties a day, said one commander, whose two-crew Mi-24 helicopter, built about 40 years ago, is older than him.

“We are carrying out combat tasks to destroy enemy vehicles, enemy personnel.

“We are working with pitch-up attacks from a distance from where the enemy can’t get us with their air defence system,” said the commander, who spoke anonymously for security reasons.

Several countries, including the United States and Britain, have pledged to send, or have already sent, helicopters to Ukraine as part of military aid since the start of the war.

Russia’s military training system has been severely impacted by its invasion of Ukraine as is visible from Moscow’s training programme with the much less experienced Belarusian army, the British defence ministry said today.

It noted that Russia had likely redeployed at least 1,000 troops as of mid-March who had been training at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground in south-western Belarus.

“Although no new rotation of troops has been noted, Russia has highly likely left the tented camp in place, suggesting it is considering continuing the training programme,” the ministry said.

It added: “The fact Russia has resorted to training its personnel under the much less-experienced Belarusian army highlights how Russia’s ‘special military operation’ has severely dislocated the Russian military’s training system – instructors have largely been deployed in Ukraine.”

Russia likely also views Belarus’s continued indirect support to the operation as important political messaging, the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.

Russian athletes will remain barred from track and field “for the foreseeable future” because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, World Athletics president Lord Coe has said.

The International Olympic Committee is exploring a pathway for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals at next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

However, it appears likely they will not be able to feature in athletics in Paris, arguably the highest-profile Olympic sport.

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev has said that the country’s forces may have to advance as far as Kyiv or Lviv in Ukraine.

“Nothing can be ruled out here. If you need to get to Kyiv, then you need to go to Kyiv, if to Lviv, then you need to go to Lviv in order to destroy this infection,” Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Mr Medvedev as saying today.