Bakhmut

The war in Ukraine is at a critical point, as the country’s military leadership, led by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, is implementing a bold plan to reverse the course of the conflict.

Russia said Wednesday that its forces had retaken Klishchiivka, one of a handful of villages on the eastern front that Ukraine claimed back in a 2023 counteroffensive.

Russia's forces have in recent weeks made their biggest territorial gains in the war-battered east in the last 18 months as Ukraine waits for desperately-needed U.S. and European weapon supplies.

Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the beleaguered frontline city of Avdiivka to avoid being encircled, new military chief Oleksandr Syrsky said Saturday, handing Russia its biggest symbolic victory following Kiev's failed summer counter-offensive.

Seventy-two of the 99 journalists killed in 2023 were killed in the Israel-Hamas war, making the last 12 months the deadliest for the media in almost a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. 

Day 499 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

"The Liman-Kupyansk front is longer, which is why the enemy is concentrating its forces there," Cherevaty said in an interview with Ukrainian media on Monday, adding that at the moment there are "more than 120,000 enemy soldiers" on the Liman-Kupyansk line, about 100 kilometers north of Bakhmut.

Day 476 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

Moscow said Monday that its troops were battling a Ukrainian "sabotage" group that infiltrated the southern Russian region of Belgorod as locals fled the latest bout of fighting in the troubled territory.

In a first since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities introduced an "anti-terror regime" in Belgorod.

Although Russia claims it has won control of Ukraine's eastern city of Bakhmut, after a grinding nine-month conflict in which tens of thousands of fighters have died, top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over.

Ukrainian officials acknowledge they now control only a small part of Bakhmut.

Day 452 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours: