Ukraine

KYIV, June 30 (Reuters) - Russia is gradually reducing the number of personnel at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southern Ukraine, Ukraine's military intelligence agency said on Friday.

It did not say why some people had left and Reuters could not independently verify the information. Russia, which has occupied the plant since March 2022, did not immediately comment on the assertion.

Kyiv accused Russia this month of planning a "terrorist" attack at the nuclear plant involving the release of radiation. Moscow denied the accusation.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The ambush had been postponed three times before Ukrainian commanders decided one recent night that conditions were finally right. Cloaked in darkness, a battalion of Kyiv’s 129th brigade pressed ahead, advancing stealthily on unsuspecting Russian soldiers.

By the time the Russians situated along the front line realized they were under attack, it was too late.

TASS, June 28: Polish President Andrzej Duda has arrived on an unannounced visit to Kiev on Wednesday, the Polish leader’s website reported.

"A visit to Kiev and talks with [Ukrainian] President Vladimir Zelensky are due to Constitution Day in Ukraine, as well as consultations on the current actions on the front," the statement said. It also pointed out that the talks "will also tackle preparations for the NATO summit in Vilnius," as well as "threats of a Russian attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities arrested on Wednesday a man they accused of helping Russia direct a missile strike that killed at least 10 people, including three teenagers, at a popular pizza restaurant in east Ukraine.

The Tuesday evening attack on Kramatorsk wounded 61 other people, Ukraine’s National Police said, in the latest bombardment of a Ukrainian city, a tactic Russia has used heavily in the 16-month-old war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The armed rebellion against the Russian military may have been over in less than 24 hours, but the disarray within the enemy’s ranks was an unexpected gift and timely morale booster for Ukrainian troops.

The spectacle of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny in the critical military command and control hub in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and later Russia’s scramble to fortify Moscow as troops marched to upend the country’s military leadership was greeted “with applause” by commanders of Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, said its spokesperson, Serhii Cherevatiy.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The armed rebellion against the Russian military may have been over in less than 24 hours, but the disarray within the enemy’s ranks was an unexpected gift and timely morale booster for Ukrainian troops.

The spectacle of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny in the critical military command and control hub in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and later Russia’s scramble to fortify Moscow as troops marched to upend the country’s military leadership was greeted “with applause” by commanders of Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, said its spokesperson, Serhii Cherevatiy.

KYIV, June 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine's armed forces have halted a Russian offensive towards the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman in the east of the country, and are advancing in the south, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Friday.

"We had very fierce battles in the Kupiansk and Lyman directions, but our soldiers stopped the enemy there," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.

KYIV, June 22 (Reuters) - Ukrainian missiles struck one of the few bridges linking the Crimea Peninsula with the Ukrainian mainland early on Thursday, cutting one of the main supply routes for Russian occupation forces in southern Ukraine as Kyiv pushes to drive them out.

Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Russian-installed administration in occupied parts of Ukraine's Kherson province, released video of himself on the Chonhar road bridge, where craters had been blasted through the asphalt.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An explosion damaged a bridge that is one of the few links between Crimea and Ukraine’s mainland, Russia-backed officials said Thursday, while Ukraine’s prime minister appealed for patience as Kyiv’s armed forces move ahead with their closely watched counteroffensive.

Russian forces in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, use the Chongar bridge to reach southern Ukraine’s Kherson province. Russia and Ukraine control different sides of the province, which is a focus of fighting and attacks as Ukrainian troops try to reclaim Russian-occupied territory.

NEAR KREMINNA, Ukraine, June 19 (Reuters) - The artillerymen of Ukraine's 67th infantry brigade are delighted with the U.S.-supplied M119 howitzer amid an increase in military exchanges south of the Russian-held town of Kreminna.

The men now stationed in Ukraine's northeast have been redeployed from positions around the devastated town of Bakhmut - encircled and locked in fierce fighting for more than nine months before it fell last month to Russian mercenaries.