Ukraine war – live: ‘No let-up’ in Bakhmut fighting as 20 Russian attacks repelled in 24 hours

Ukrainian commanders leading the charge in the bitter battle for Bakhmut have said that the relentless attacks from Russia have continued.

“In the Bakhmut sector, there was no let-up in enemy actions aimed at storming the city of Bakhmut. At least 20 enemy attacks were repelled here alone over the past 24 hours,” the Ukrainian general staff said in a report on Facebook.

At least tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides have been killed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started in February last year.

The battle for Bakhmut has been one of the bloodiest of the conflict, with heavy casualties on both sides and the city largely destroyed.

A Ukrainian drone has crashed near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Russia‘s RIA news agency cited a Russian officer as saying on Wednesday, as the chief of the global nuclear watchdog was expected in Russia for talks on the plant’s security.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi was due to travel to Russia‘s Kaliningrad region on Wednesday, a week after visiting the Zaporizhzhia facility in southern Ukraine, which is controlled by Russian forces.

According to the Russian military officer cited by RIA, a Polish-made drone weighing more than 2 kg (4.4 pounds) had crashed near the plant. The news agency did not say when.

Grossi has been pushing for a demilitarised zone around Europe’s largest nuclear facility, which has come under repeated shelling, with Russia and Ukraine have blamed on each other.

Russia's foreign ministry has claimed that, in dropping non-alignment, Finland was committing a dangerous historical mistake that would fray relations with Moscow and undo its status as a confidence-building presence in the Baltic Sea and Europe at large.

“This is now a thing of the past. Finland has become one of the small members of [Nato] that doesn’t decide anything, losing its special voice in international affairs. We are sure that history will judge this hasty step,” a ministry statement said.

The French government has approved a key budget bill presented as the country’s biggest military spending spree in more than 50 years, underscoring the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The bill foresees €413bn in military spending or the period covering 2024-2030 – up by more than a third relative to the previous timeframe.

Defence minister Sébastien Lecornu said bill’s political, budgetary, military and technological drive is comparable to the huge push in the 1960s that saw France develop nuclear weapons, making the country one of the world’s major military powers.

Championed by French President Emmanuel Macron, the bill would notably modernise France’s nuclear arsenal, boost intelligence spending by 60 per cent, double the number of military reservists, reinforce cyberdefense and develop more remote-controlled weapons.

It would also boost the arms industry’s production capacity in order to provide assistance to Ukraine and adequately supply the French military.

Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to reach Poland shortly as he looks to thank one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies.

Poland has played a key role in galvanising Western military and political support for Kyiv against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“(The visit) should be taken as a sign of trust and of thanking Poland and Poles,” Polish presidential foreign policy adviser Marcin Przydacz said in televised comments yesterday evening, ahead of Mr Zelensky’s expected arrival.

The visit, which was announced this week by Poland but has not been officially confirmed by Kyiv, comes with Ukraine planning to conduct a counter-offensive in the coming weeks or months to recapture occupied land in its east and south.

Poland has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees over the past 13 months of war.

The Nato member has also played an important role in persuading other Western powers to supply battle tanks and other weaponry to Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky has welcomed Finland’s entry into Nato, cheering on the strengthening of the alliance.

“Today, by the way, a historic event took place for our region, for all of Europe, for the entire Euro-Atlantic community. Finland becomes the 31st member of Nato. The alliance is getting stronger on the eastern flank,” he said in his nightly address.

Mr Zelensky congratulated all the people of Finland and the country’s president “personally on a reliable security guarantee – a collective guarantee”.

“Russian aggression clearly proves that only collective guarantees, only preventive guarantees can be reliable. That’s what we always talked about. We also talked about speed – the speed of security decisions matters. Now we can see how fast the procedures can be,” he said.

He added: “By the way, this year’s Nato Summit in Vilnius deserves to be quite ambitious. The more ambitious the one who protects freedom, the less opportunities for aggression the one who wants evil has. The day will come when security will be guaranteed for our country as well.”

A protection officer for Vladimir Putin has defected and labelled the Russian president a “paranoid war criminal”.

Gleb Karakulov, 35, had served as an engineer in the Federal Guard Service (FSO) presidential communications unit and said he has fled Russia over the war in Ukraine.

The former FSO officer claims president Putin opts to stay “in his bunker” rather than make trips because he is so paranoid about an assassination attempt. The Russian president also allegedly travels with a 2.5 metre-high box to prevent his secret talks from leaking and Western bugging.

Mr Karakulov escaped to safety via Istanbul while on a business trip to Kazakhstan in October 2022 after accompanying president Putin on more than 180 trips over the past 13 years. It is unclear where the 35-year-old is now.

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Lawyers representing an American reporter arrested in Russia on spying charges met with him in a Moscow prison yesterday for the first time since his detention last week and said “his health is good,” according to his employer, The Wall Street Journal.

Evan Gershkovich, 31, was arrested on Thursday in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city.

He is the first US correspondent since the Cold War to be detained on espionage accusations. The Journal has denied the charges.

“Evan’s health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release,” the Journal’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said in a note to the newsroom on Tuesday. She said the paper was encouraged by the visit.

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Ukrainian forces placed in the muddy dugouts have described the battlefield situation in Bakhmut where dozens of Russian artillery and missile attacks continue on a daily basis.

Near the town of Niu-York, 50 km south of Bakhmut, a commander of an infantry unit explains: “They creep in, fire and try to exhaust us. Then they evaluate the situation and can move forward for a little more".

"Meanwhile, we try to let them get closer to us so that we can hit them more precisely,” the military commander who gave his nom-de-guerre as "Bodia" told Reuters.

Earlier this week, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that his forces have “legally” captured the mining city and logistics hub but Ukraine swiftly denied the reports and said that the fighting continues.