In his Thursday night video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked "the US senators who unanimously approved the resolution calling on the US State Department to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism". According to the Congress website, the adopted resolution "considers the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation, carried out under the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as sponsoring terrorist acts". The document cites the various military interventions decided by the Kremlin, from the military campaign in Chechnya to the support given to pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, through the attacks in Syria.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, was reportedly hit Friday morning by Russian shelling, according to city mayor Ihor Terekhov. The bombardment took place "at 4:09 a.m." and hit "two buildings", he said on the Telegram network. "The state emergency service is already working: they are sorting through the rubble and looking for people below," he said.
Russian forces also struck military and civilian infrastructure in many Ukrainian regions on Thursday, including near the capital kyiv, leaving a total of at least eight dead and around 30 injured. President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced "a real 'missile terror'".
At least five people were killed and 25 others injured, including 12 soldiers, in a strike on two hangars in Kropyvnytskyi, in the center of the country, announced the governor of the Kirovograd region. The Russians had already targeted this city last Saturday, destroying railway infrastructure and causing the death of two civilians. This Thursday, at least one person was also killed in a bombardment that hit the region bordering Dnipropetrovsk.
Continuing their offensive in Donbass, Russian troops are still trying to advance near Siversk and Bakhmout. The staff of the Ukrainian army speaks of a "difficult situation but under control", while the Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive in the occupied region of Kherson, destroying in particular, on Wednesday, the Antonovski bridge, spanning the Dnieper. President Volodymyr Zelensky assured on Wednesday evening that Ukraine would "rebuild the bridge", the latter being the only one connecting the city to the rest of the region.
In its bulletin published this Friday morning on Twitter, the British Ministry of Defense declares that "the Russian private military company that is the Wagner group operates in eastern Ukraine in coordination with the Russian army" and that it "probably was assigned responsibility for specific sectors of the front line, in the same way as normal army units". The ministry adds that this is a significant change from the group's previous employment, which undertook missions separate from the Russian military. "Wagner's role has probably changed because the Russian Ministry of Defense has a severe shortage of combat infantry, but it is highly unlikely that Wagner's forces will be sufficient to make a significant difference to the trajectory of the war. ", says the ministry.
Journalist Marina Ovsiannikova, famous for having interrupted the newspaper of a Russian state channel with a poster against the offensive in Ukraine, was sentenced on Thursday to a fine for having again denounced the conflict. A Moscow court fined him 50,000 rubles, or 800 euros, for "discrediting" the Russian armed forces, an offense that has existed since the beginning of March. He was accused of having said that the operation in Ukraine was a "crime" during an exchange with journalists on July 13, during a hearing concerning an imprisoned opponent, Ilia Iachine. Four days later, the 44-year-old journalist was briefly arrested in the Moscow region.
