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State media reports that chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, was in Ukraine to discuss Moscow’s next steps in the war
It has gone 10am in Kyiv and 11am in Moscow. This is our latest Guardian blog covering all the military and diplomatic developments over the Russia-Ukraine conflict amid the continued ramifications of Alexei Navalny’s death, the Russian occupation of Avdiivka, farmers’ protests about grain imports in Poland and continued wrangling over US aid.
Meanwhile, we wake up to news today that barely 10% of Europeans now believe Ukraine can defeat Russia, according to an EU-wide survey – with some form of “compromise settlement” seen as the most likely end point.
Russia launched 19 attack drones at Ukraine over Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, as well as six missiles, with Ukrainian air defences destroying 13 of the drones and one missile, the Ukrainian air force said.
Unconfirmed reports on Russian social media channels accompanied by photos and video claimed 65 Russian soldiers were killed by a Ukrainian missile strike at Trudivske, in Volnovakha district of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Tuesday. Reports said they had been ordered to line up awaiting a commanding officer, leaving them vulnerable to attack, on what was said to be a training ground. Footage showed many bodies lying in a churned-up field. More were injured, reports said.
Eleven Ukrainian children who had been taken away by Russia crossed the border from Belarus back into Ukraine on Tuesday evening. At a humanitarian crossing on the Belarus border, the children hugged waiting family members. Oleksandr, 16, one of the oldest returned, said: “My new life is starting,” describing his “joy and slight nerves”. The children had been received by Qatar’s embassy in Moscow on Monday under a scheme mediated by the Qataris.
Russia’s FSB security services said it had arrested a US-Russian woman suspected of treason for raising funds for the Ukrainian army. The FSB in the central Urals city of Ekaterinburg said the 33-year-old woman was a resident of Los Angeles with dual citizenship. A Russian legal NGO said the woman, named by Russian media as Ksenia Khavana, may stand accused of transferring $51 (£40) to a Ukrainian charity.
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