Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s troops regain village near Pokrovsk where ISW says Russians falter

Ukrainian troops on Wednesday announced a successful counterattack to retake the settlement of Kotlyne near the key city of Pokrovsk, which many Russian forces have died trying to take over the past year. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said: “The year-long Russian effort to seize Pokrovsk has so far failed, and Russian forces appear to have abandoned the effort to take the city directly, preferring instead to conduct a wide envelopment. The Kremlin may have abandoned even that effort for now, however, in the fact of increasing Ukrainian resistance in the area and extremely high Russian losses.”

The Russian defence ministry said its forces had recaptured the settlements of Pogrebki and Orlovka, north of the town of Sudzha, in Kursk oblast where Ukraine has held territory inside Russia since August 2024. The ministry added that Russian forces had struck Ukrainian units and positions near more than a dozen settlements, including several around Sudzha. Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, noted it was nearly seven months that Ukrainian forces “have been holding the buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory in Russia. They have almost become used to it.”

The Ukrainian military said it had attacked Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery on the Black Sea coast and that at least 40 explosions had been recorded at the site. Tuapse is home to one of Russia’s biggest oil refineries and has been targeted by Ukrainian drones several times before. The Ukrainian military also said it had attacked two military airfields in Russia-controlled Crimea but gave no further details. Russia confirmed drones attacked its southern Krasnodar region, including the port of Tuapse, on Wednesday. Drones also attacked the Russian regions of Bryansk and Kursk, which border Ukraine, according to Russia’s defence ministry.

Ukraine said Russian strikes on Kostyantynivka city in the east killed at least five people and wounded eight more. Russian drones also killed two people near Kyiv, including the Ukrainian journalist Tetiana Kulyk who worked for the Ukrinform news agency. Ukraine’s interior ministry said separately that two people were wounded in Kharkiv city during a drone attack. Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said one of its facilities had been damaged in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Any peace deal for Ukraine must include “security guarantees” involving the “Atlantic alliance”, according to Giorgia Meloni, who was referencing Nato. The Italian prime minister spoke as it emerged a draft deal between the US and Ukraine does not include security guarantees, but only references Ukraine somehow obtaining them. Peace in Ukraine “can only be achieved if Kyiv is given adequate security guarantees to make sure that what we have seen over the past three years does not happen again”, Meloni said on Tuesday.

While Donald Trump said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would sign their “very big agreement” in Washington on Friday, Zelenskyy insisted that “guarantees of peace and security” remained vital as he prepared for “talks” with Trump. “For me and for all of us in the world, it’s important that US support is not stopped. Strength is needed on the path to peace,” Zelenskyy said during his evening address to Ukrainians on Wednesday. Zelenskyy elsewhere suggested the deal provides a “framework” under which security guarantees would be agreed jointly with the US and Europe. On security guarantees, Trump said “we’re going to have Europe do that” and Ukraine should forget about joining Nato.

Zelenskyy is expected to visit Britain this weekend for talks with its prime minister, Keir Starmer, and other European leaders. Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that after his proposed trip to Washington on Friday, “I plan to go to London: and immediately after this I and the Europeans will meet there with Keir Starmer”. Keir Starmer will convene the meeting after he returns from also meeting with Trump in Washington.

The Romanian parliament has authorised its army and allies to shoot down drones illegally breaching Romanian airspace. The EU and Nato member has had Russian drone fragments repeatedly fall on to its territory as Moscow has attacked Kyiv’s ports.