Russian troops opened fire on the Dnipropetrovsk region’s city of Nikopol with heavy artillery. The relevant statement was made by Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration Head Serhii Lysak on Telegram.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has hit out at critics of Kyiv’s tactics in its counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion, saying they were spitting in the faces of Ukrainian soldiers and should “shut up”, writes The Guardian.

Two Ukrainian “saboteurs” were killed and five captured during an incursion into the region of Bryansk, a Russian official reportedly said. Separately, Russia reportedly said on Thursday it intended to develop ties with North Korea.

A military spokesperson said Ukrainian armed forces are making progress in the direction of Novoprokopivka – the village beyond Robotyne, in the direction of Melitopol.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has decried corrupt medical exemptions that have enabled people to avoid military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.

Ukrainian drones struck targets in at least 6 regions deep within Russia on Wednesday, in one of the largest-scale attacks on Russia in months. Drones hit an airport in the western Pskov region, and the regions of Moscow, Oryol, Bryansk, Ryazan and Kaluga.

The strike on the city of Pskov started a fire and damaged four Il-76 military cargo aircraft, Russian authorities said, engulfing two of the planes in flames.

At least two people were reported killed in Kyiv in what authorities described as the heaviest series of Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital for months. Air defences shot down all 28 Russian missiles and 15 out of 16 drones, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said.

Six Ukrainian pilots were reportedly killed when two military helicopters crashed in the eastern Donetsk region. According to the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, the two Mi-8 helicopters crashed in Kramatorsk on Tuesday. The aircraft were completely destroyed and the bodies of six dead servicemen were found.