Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv troops retreat from key eastern town as Moscow conducts nuclear drills

Ukraine has pulled back its soldiers from the outskirts of eastern Chasiv Yar town where they are losing territory to Russian forces.

Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 255th assault battalion, which has been fighting in the area for six months, claimed the Russians burned every building not destroyed by shelling after capturing the neighbourhood.

“I regret that we are gradually losing territory,” he said, speaking by phone from Chasiv Yar, but added, “we cannot hold what is ruined”. He said Russia is using scorched-earth tactics in an attempt to destroy anything that could be used as a military position in an attempt to force the Ukranian troops to retreat from the strategic town.

Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. The intensity of the Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defensive line in the area has increased over the past month, Kyiv said.

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were carrying out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency reported this morning.

A six-year-old girl died in hospital after a Ukranian drone attack on the town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, the regional governor, said on Friday.

He said six people were hospitalised after the attack. Ukraine has not commented on the incident so far.

A Russian military court has placed the commander of the country’s 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade in pre-trial detention for two months on charges of large-scale fraud, the Tass state news agency reported.

In 2022, The New York Times reported that Colonel Artyom Gorodilov was in command of Russia’s 234th Air Assault Regiment