Ukraine’s counter-offensive plans are hampered by the lack of adequate firepower, from modern fighter jets to artillery ammunition, the country’s military commander Valery Zaluzhnyi said. US General Mark Milley said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is going “slower than expected” but is still advancing.

A Ukrainian military man controls a drone in the direction of BakhmutPhoto: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia

Highlights of the war in Ukraine, day 493, LIVETEXT:

09:11 The Russian government has banned Polish trucks from transporting goods on its territory, with some exceptions, the Russian state news agency TASS reported on Friday.

Russia’s transport ministry said the order excluded essential goods, including medicine and medical equipment, and added that it would not affect transport to the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

09:05 Wagner’s militants, who moved to Belarus after a failed uprising in Russia, could use migrants from Africa and other places where the militant group operates to destabilize Central and Eastern Europe, Poland’s security chief has warned.

The head of Poland’s National Security Agency, Jacek Siewara, said that “the risk for Poland is related to the number of Wagner mercenaries who remain in Minsk.”

The threat, he added, should be assessed “in conjunction with all the assets Wagner has in Africa, the Maghreb, the Sahel and the Middle East, as well as the risk of escalating forced immigration and an asymmetric attack on the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.” (Financial Times)

01:20 VIDEO Zelenskyi: The commanders were instructed to strengthen the northern direction. We carefully analyze every detail and every perspective in all directions

A brief summary of recent events:

  • The Ukrainian military is limited in its counteroffensive by a lack of weapons, especially fighter jets, Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday.
  • Interview with analyst Armand Gochu: “The Russian elite is paralyzed by fear or indifference, and the bravest board private planes and flee abroad.”
  • In Russia, they deny the beginning of the evacuation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Moscow said on Friday that the plant’s employees had not been ordered to leave the facility.
  • The Ukrainian counteroffensive is advancing, but “slower than expected,” according to the US military. Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive is “slower than expected” but still making progress, according to an American general.
  • On Friday, the Ukrainian military released a message to mark the anniversary of Russia’s departure from Snake Island, in which they recalled that it was here that their flagship “learned” what to do.
  • President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi ordered the army commanders to strengthen the northern military sector after the arrival of the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Belarus.
  • On Friday, the Ukrainian parliament voted to return tax levels, starting in August, to the rates they were before the start of the Russian invasion.
  • CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, delivered to Kyiv from Sweden, reached the front line in the east of Ukraine, deployed in the area of ​​the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region.
  • “The ruble continues to collapse”: the Russian currency has fallen to a 15-month low and is not finding support.
  • The armed forces of Moscow destroyed the bridgehead created by the Ukrainian troops across the Dnipro in the Kherson region and in the immediate vicinity of the Antonivsky bridge with an Iskander-like strike.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the military uprising led by Yevgeny Prigozhin was nothing more than a “trouble” and that Russia would emerge stronger from it.
  • Ukrainian troops are advancing in all directions of the counteroffensive against the Russian occupation forces, a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Defense said on Friday, but there is a big “but” in the offensive.
  • The head of the Military Intelligence Service of Ukraine (MUR), General Kyrylo Budanov, said that the FSB had received an order to kill Yevgeny Prigozhin.
  • The Russian military has found a trick to circumvent the law that prohibits sending conscripts to a conflict zone by calling for the re-establishment of so-called “remedial battalions.”

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  • Friday’s events regarding Russian aggression were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro