MEZIESBLOG

Ukraine’s air force has said it has shot down 60 Russian drones in an overnight attack, out of 78 launched in total.

Russia also used one ballistic Iskander-M missile in the attack, the air force added in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia claims it has captured village near key town

Russian forces have taken control of a village in eastern Ukraine, its defence ministry has said.

MEZIESBLOG cannot independently confirm battlefield reports.

Zavitne is in the Donetsk region, the target of an ongoing Russian onslaught. It is about 30km east of the town of Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub for Kyiv’s forces in the Donbas region on which Moscow’s forces are advancing, with residents evacuating in recent weeks.

Vladimir Putin said this morning that Ukraine’s invasion into Russia’s western Kursk region had failed to slow Moscow’s advance in Donbas and had weakened Ukraine’s own defences along the frontline, helping his forces. 

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based thinktank, Mr Putin believes Russia “can slowly and indefinitely subsume Ukraine through grinding advances and that Russia can achieve its goals through a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces and by outlasting Western support” for Kyiv.

Analysis: Putin is mischief-making when he claims he wants Harris to win

So the Kremlin backs Kamala Harris, apparently… Why? Because of her “infectious” laugh.

Safe to say, Vladimir Putin is having a little chuckle himself here. His comments are almost certainly more mischief-making than a statement of fact because, as we know, Russia’s president doesn’t always say what he thinks.

So why would he say this?

With relations between Moscow and Washington as bad as they are, he will know that any endorsement of a candidate might actually harm their chances come November, rather than improve them.

So that might well be what Mr Putin is trying to do here, hoping instead that Donald Trump takes power.

And why would he want that? Because in all likelihood, it would mean a cut to US aid to Ukraine, which in turn would significantly boost Russia’s prospects on the battlefield.

The election may well be “a choice for the American people”, as Mr Putin put it, but it’s clear that Moscow is watching it very closely.