Ukraine war latest: Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia released after Vatican mediation - as five people killed in drone strike on Russian village (2024)

Russian elites and oligarchs have reportedly moved from criticising the country's war effort in Ukraine to supporting it, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has reported.

Mikhail Zygar, the founder of the Russian opposition television channel TV Rain, reported that many elites who were opposed to the war in 2022 started to support the war in 2023 because they "believe Russia is prevailing".

Mr Zygar said these people made this assessment due to Russia's slow but steady battlefield gains, a persisting Ukrainian munitions disadvantage, and perceived "waning" Western security assistance to Ukraine.

One anonymous Russian oligarch who previously criticised the war reportedly told Mr Zygar that Russia must win the war otherwise "they won't allow us to live... and Russia would collapse".

The ISW said it cannot independently verify Mr Zygar's reporting but it is consistent with the institute's assessment that this section of Russian society came to heel behind Vladimir Putin in support of the war after his government intensified crackdowns against elites in the wake of the 2022 invasion.

As Russia announces it has captured a second village in 24 hours (see 12.26pm post), let's take a look at where Russia has advanced along the frontline with Ukraine.

As well as pockets of advances on the border north of Kharkiv, Russia appears to have captured areas along the length of the front, from the Donetsk region right up to the western edge of Luhansk.

Russia has said it has taken control of the village of Shumy in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry captured the settlement today, state news agency RIA reported.

Shumy is a small village 35.7 miles (57.4km) northwest of Donetsk.

It comes just 24 hours after the ministry said it had taken control of the village of Rozdolivka, around 31 miles (50km) north of Shumy.

But Ukraine'smilitary said heavy fighting was raging in areas around Rozdolivka.

Russian forces pressing forward along the 600-mile (1,000km) frontline have captured several villages in easternregions since they took control of the strategic town of Avdiivka inFebruary.

A weapons expert has told the United Nations Security Council that ballistic missile remnants found in Ukraine "irrefutably" came from North Korea.

The research resulted in a clash between the US and Western allies with Russia and North Korea at the council meeting.

Russia dismissed the "baseless accusations", and North Korea dismissed the meeting as "an extremely brazen act" to discuss "someone's alleged 'weapon transfers'".

Jonah Leff is executive director of Conflict Armament Research, which has been tracing weapons used in attacks in Ukraine since 2018.

In an analysis of a 2 January missile that hit Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, Mr Leff and his organisation documented the missile's rocket motor, tail section and almost 300 components manufactured by 26 companies from eight countries and territories.

It determined the missile was either a KN-23 or KN-24 manufactured in 2023 in North Korea.

The organisation reached its conclusion based on the missile's unique characteristics - its diameter, distinct jet vane actuators that direct the missile's thrust and trajectory, the pattern around the igniter, the presence of Korean characters on some rocket components, and other marks and components dating back to 2023, Mr Leff said.

"Following the initial documentation, our teams inspected three additional identical DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name] missiles that struck Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia earlier this year," Mr Leff said.

They also observed additional conventional weapons, including an artillery rocket produced in 1977, "that had been seized on the front lines and had not been observed on the battlefield previously in Ukraine" that were manufactured by North Korea, and might have been part of a recent larger consignment of rockets.

The council discussed illegal arms transfers from North Korea at the request of the UK, France, Japan, South Korea, and the US.

The meeting followed Russia's 28 March veto that ended the monitoring of sanctions against North Korea over its expanding nuclear program by a UN panel of experts.

The US and its European and Asian allies accused Moscow of seeking to avoid scrutiny as it allegedly violates sanctions to buy weapons from Pyongyang to use in Ukraine.

Russia has said it will not send a judo team to the Paris Olympics this summer after just four of its 17 participants - known as judokas - received permission to compete from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Russia and Belarus have been barred from sending national teams to the Games becuase of Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Belarus, Russia's closest ally, allowed its territory to be used to carry out the invasion.

But several athletes from the two countries are being allowed to participate as individual neutral athletes (AINs) without their flags, anthems and emblems, subject to vetting by the IOC to ensure they have no connection to the military.

Russia's judo federation said in a statement on its website that it would not accept the IOC ruling.

"Until the very end, we had hoped that common sense and a desire to hold full-fledged Olympic Games with athletes from Russia and Belarus would prevail over political intrigues," the statement said.

"Unfortunately, our hopes were not realised... Under the circ*mstances, the presidium of the Russian Judo Federation has decided unanimously that the Russian judo team will not accept the humiliating conditions and will take no part in the Paris Games in the form proposed by IOC officials."

The federation had long pledged to sign no declarations "discrediting the policies of our country" and rejected any selection method "aimed at...breaking the spirit of Russian athletes".

Putin, a judo blackbelt, has often sparred with his country's judokas. The International Judo Federation in 2022 said it had suspended Putin's status as an honorary president.

President Vladimir Putin has called for resuming production in Russia of intermediate-range missiles that were banned under a now-scrapped treaty with the US.

The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty was regarded as an arms control landmark when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan signed it in the 1980s.

It banned ground-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,410 miles (500 to 5,500 km).

The US withdrew from the treaty in 2019, citing Russian violations.

"We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where - if necessary to ensure our safety - to place them," Mr Putin said at a meeting of Russia's national security council on Friday.

Mr Putin said Russia had not produced such missiles since the 2019 treaty scrapping, but that "today it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently it was announced that they are in the Philippines."

The US has tested missiles that would have been banned by the INF treaty since it was scrapped.

The end of the INF was a milestone in the deterioration of relations between the US and Russia.

The last remaining arms control pact between Washington and Moscow is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.

It is set to expire in 2026, and the lack of discussion about anchoring a successor deal has worried arms control advocates.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said that Mr Putin's statement was "part of the Kremlin's ongoing reflexive control campaign...aimed at discouraging Western military assistance to Ukraine".

"The Kremlin has invoked the fear of a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West throughout its full-scale invasion to push the West to self-deter from providing Ukraine the weapons it needs to sustain its defence against Russian forces," the ISW said.

"The Kremlin notably employs this effort during key moments in Western political discussions about further military assistance to Ukraine."

In June, Mr Putin spoke to executives from international news organisations about Moscow's use of nuclear weapons.

"We have a nuclear doctrine, look what it says," he said. "If someone's actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible for us to use all means at our disposal. This should not be taken lightly, superficially."

Footage of the extraordinary rescue of a man trapped in his car after the Russian missile strike on Dnipro has emerged.

The video shows emergency services removing debris from the strike that had severely damaged the vehicle.

One person was killed in the attack, with two more still missing.

At least 12 people, including a seven-month-old baby, were injured.

The Ukrainian air force has said they shot down 10 Shahed drones overnight in a post on Telegram.

"As a result of combat work by fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units... all 10 [drones] were shot down," the air force said in a post on Telegram.

The drones were shot down over Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy, and Vinnytsia.

Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry also said in a Telegram post that they shot down six Ukrainian-launched drones over Bryansk, Tver, and Belgorod, as well as occupied Crimea last night.

At least one person was killed and 12 injured in a Russian missile attack in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The missile hit a nine-storey residential building on Friday.

Ukraine's interior minister Ihor Klymenko warned the death tollwould likely rise as more people remained trapped in thebuilding where four upper storeys collapsed.

The ministry later said a fire at the site had been extinguished and two people were listed as missing.

Among the injured was a seven-month-old child, regionalgovernor Serhiy Lysak said.

Three people were insevere condition.

Dnipro, which had a pre-war population of almost onemillion people, is a major Ukrainian city that lies on the roadto the east of the country where the most intense fighting withRussian forces is raging.

It has been regularly targeted by missile and dronestrikes since the start of Russia's invasion.

Ten Ukrainians who had been imprisoned in Russia for years have been released after mediation was provided by the Vatican, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Some of the former captives arrived overnight by helicopter at Kyiv International Airport.

It was the first time in more than two years that the airport received passengers after it was shut when Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Some of the released civilians had been captured before Russia's 2022 invasion.

One of the freed people was Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy head of the Mejlis, a representative body of Crimean Tatars. He was detained in 2021.

Mr Dzhelyal said: "I was in captivity, where many Ukrainians remain.

"We cannot leave them there, because the conditions, both psychological and physical, are very frightening there."

Prisoners were wrapped in yellow and blue flags as they reunited with their families in the main hall of the airport, where pre-war advertisem*nts still hang.

As well as Mr Dzhelyal, two civilians from Ukraine and five civilians who were captured in Belarus were freed.

Two priests were also among those who were returned.

One of them, Bohdan Heleta, was detained in 2022 inside his church in the occupied city of Berdiansk in the Zaporizhzhia region.

According to Ukraine's Co-ordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 3,310 Ukrainians have already been released from Russian captivity.

Many thousands, both civilians and military personnel, remain imprisoned.

In a post on X, President Zelenskyy said: "I am grateful to everyone who helped. I thank our team that works on freeing the captives.

"I would also like to recognise the Holy See's efforts to bring these people home. We will definitely free all our people."