Russia Ukraine war – latest: Putin’s offensive slowing as forces ‘struggling to advance’

A source close to Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine has already altered some of its military plans after a large leak of classified documents, reported CNN.

The documents also show the degree to which the US has penetrated the Russian defence ministry and its proxy mercenary Wagner Group, mostly through intercepted communications and human sources, while also likely raising their chances of being cut off.

Among the leaks was information on key weaknesses in Ukraine’s weaponry, air defence, and battalion sizes and readiness at a crucial point in the war as Ukraine seeks to turn the corner with its spring offensive.

South Korea is aware of news reports about a leak of several classified U.S. military documents and it plans to discuss “issues raised” as a result of the leak with the United States, a South Korean presidential official said on Sunday.

Several classified US military documents have recently been posted on social media offering a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three US officials told Reuters on Friday, adding that Russia or pro-Russian elements were likely behind the leak.

The US Justice Department said it is investigating the leak.

One of the documents, obtained by Reuters, showed details about internal discussions among top South Korean top officials about US pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine, and its policy of not doing so.

In the space of just one week, the influential American news and opinion outlet Foreign Policy published no less than six pieces demanding US and Western policymakers confront China more forcefully on human rights, shipping, finance, climate change, quantum computing, and microchips.

Just in case anyone missed the point, another called on Washington to create an “economic war council” to add a financial component to the military posture against China.

A new cold war is being thrust upon the world – one that could shape lives and nations for decades to come.

Weekend shelling by Russian forces killed at least seven civilians, Ukrainian officials reported on Sunday. Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said two men died Sunday in shelling in Kupiansk, a city that Russia held before Ukrainian forces regained control of almost all of the province.

The city remained under attack later Sunday as Russian forces targeted residential areas with multiple rocket launchers, Syniehubov said. Elsewhere in the province, a 30-year-old man was hospitalized in serious condition after Russian shelling of the city of Chuhuiv, he said on Telegram.

Shelling also killed two people overnight, one of them a child born in 2012, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the capital of that province, according to City Council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev.

The Zaporizhzhia region’s governor, Yurii Malashko, said 18 communities in all were shelled. Three people were killed and five were wounded on Saturday, Malashko said.

The Defense Department is reviewing a handful of documents that were released on several social media sites and appear to detail U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine, but may have been altered or used as part of a misinformation campaign.

The documents, which were posted on sites such as Twitter, are labeled secret and resemble routine updates that the U.S. military’s Joint Staff would produce daily but not distribute publicly. They are dated ranging from Feb. 23 to March 1, and provide what appears to be details on the progress of weapons and equipment going into Ukraine with more precise timelines and amounts than the U.S. generally provides publicly.

They are not war plans and they provide no details on any planned Ukraine offensive. And some inaccuracies — including estimates of Russian troops deaths that are significantly lower than numbers publicly stated by U.S. officials — have led some to question the documents’ authenticity.

Russia lost elections to three United Nations bodies this week, a sign that opposition to its invasion of Ukraine over a year ago remains strong.

The votes in the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council follow approval of six non-binding resolutions against Russia by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. The latest — on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion — called for Moscow to end hostilities and withdraw its forces and was adopted by a vote of 141-7 with 32 abstentions.

In the ECOSOC votes, Russia was overwhelmingly defeated by Romania for a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women. It lost to Estonia to be a member of the executive board of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF. And it was defeated by Armenia and the Czech Republic in secret ballot votes for membership on the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

Russian forces are likely to have reached the centre of Bakhmut in their push to take over the city, according to UK intelligence.

Moscow’s troops have also seized the west bank of the river in the devastated area – endangering a key supply route to Ukraine.

Kyiv said Russia was concentrating all its efforts on capturing the eastern city, describing the situation as “difficult”, but said Ukrainian forces were holding out despite Russia’s numerical advantage during heavy fighting.

There are signs Russia is taking key equipment from occupied Crimea and redeploying it in Ukraine’s southern sector while also fortifying the contested peninsula ahead of an expected Ukrainian spring counteroffensive.

This comes as Ukraine has said talks with Russia on Crimea will take place if the planned counteroffensive succeeds.

“Russian forces may have withdrawn equipment from occupied Crimea for redeployment elsewhere in southern Ukraine out of fear of a Ukrainian counteroffensive,” the US-based Institute for the Study of War has said.

Deep underground in southeastern Ukraine, miners work around the clock extracting coal to power the country’s war effort and to provide civilians with light and heat.

Coal is central to meeting Ukraine’s energy needs following the Russia‘s military’s 6-month campaign to destroy power stations and other infrastructure, the chief engineer of a mining company in Dnipropetrovsk province said.

Elevators carry the company’s workers underground to the depths of the mine. From there, they operate heavy machinery that digs out the coal and moves the precious resource above ground. It is hard work, the miners said, but essential to keep the country going.