Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy hails troops for 'good results'

President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday, that Ukrainian soldiers had recaptured the village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region.

Posting a video online, he wrote, "Our South! Our guys! Glory to Ukraine!"

Earlier, Russian military bloggers had said that the latest Ukrainian push was focused on Staromaiorske village near an area separating Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces. 

They had noted that the victory there would open the way for the Ukrainian forces to push southward toward the coast.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, has been spotted on the St. Petersburg Russia-Africa summit, a month after the brief rebellion against Moscow's military leadership.

According to Russian sources, Prigozhin was seen with an African dignitary at the meeting.

The head of Russia’s cultural center in the Central African Republic, Dmitry Syty, posted a photo on Facebook on Thursday of Prigozhin meeting with Africa's ambassador in St. Petersburg.

Prigozhin's Wagner forces are still active in the Central African Republic (CAR).

According to the news reports, Prigozhin continued to stay in St. Petersburg even after the attempted coup in June, despite reports he had traveled to Belarus.

Fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine has "intensified significantly," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

According to Putin, Ukraine has not achieved any success on any fronts.

Putin, who is in St. Petersburg for a summit of African leaders, also praised the “heroism” of Russian soldiers repelling Ukrainian attacks. 

His claims could not be independently verified.

According to the reports, a Western official said that fierce fighting raged in Southeastern Ukraine on multiple points, as Kyiv has been waging a counteroffensive with Western-supplied weapons. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited Dnipro in southeastern Ukraine to discuss the situation on the battlefield with military commanders and local officials.

"We started the working day in Dnipro," Zelenskyy said in a video posted to the Telegram messaging app.

"As always, we pay close attention to the supply of ammunition to our troops. The efficiency of using the existing air defense systems and reinforcing the sky shield, taking into account supplies from partners," he said.

Dnipro, a city that had a pre-war population of about 1 million, is an economic hub in Ukraine's southeast. Since the outbreak of the war, it has also become an important logisitical and humanitarian center.

Russia's FSB security service says it has discovered "traces of explosives" on a ship traveling to the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don through the Black Sea.

In a statement on its website, the FSB said the vessel, the BMO River, had left the Turkish port of Sinop and had previously entered the Ukrainian port of Reni. It said the ship had been ordered to leave Russian waters.

"The foreign ship may have been used earlier to transport explosive substances to Ukraine," the statement said.

"A decision was taken to prevent the ship's passage under the shipping arch of the Kerch Strait and it has been turned back from Russian territorial waters," it added.

Moscow last week pulled out of a deal that allowed the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea, despite the war. Russia now says it considers all ships traveling to Ukraine to be potentially transporting military cargo.

The Ukrainian port of Odesa was struck by a Russian missile attack overnight, said Oleh Kiper, the region's governor. 

The attack killed one security guard and damaged a cargo terminal at the port. 

Since Moscow exited the UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal last week, Odesa has become a regular target of Russia's attacks. 

Moscow's anger against Ukraine and its Western backers was reflected when Russia refused to speak at a UN Security Council meeting called to discuss the recent attacks by the Kremlin on the Ukrainian port of Odesa. 

The confrontation began at the start of the council session, which was called by Russia to discuss the divided Orthodox Church in Ukraine. 

Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky protested that the UK, which currently holds the council presidency, was permitting only two briefers while Moscow also wanted the Archbishop Gideon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to speak.  

Polyansky accused the UK of bias and censorship.

Deputy British Ambassador James Kariuki said that, despite a time constraint, the UK offered a compromise to allow a third Russian briefer to submit a statement. 

Polyansky was not satisfied. This prompted Kariuki to put Russia's proposal to have the archbishop's brief to vote.

China and Brazil supported Moscow, while 12 other council members abstained from voting. 

Polyansky called the council's response an "egregious" example of double standards on human rights and freedom of religion. 

He said that as "a sign of protest" Russia would not to speak during a Ukraine-backed session called by Kyiv to take up the Odesa attacks. 

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Thursday pressed African leaders who are attending a summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin to confront him on the grain crisis. 

Russia recently withdrew from the Black Sea grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export 33 billion tonnes of wheat and grains. 

This has exacerbated a food security crisis, especially in the Middle East and Africa, where   grain imports are high. 

Several African leaders, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, are expected to attend the Konstantinovsky Palace summit in St. Petersburg. 

Blinken pointed out how certain African leaders have backed Moscow or refused to denounce Putin's invasion. He insisted that the leaders attending the summit "know exactly who's to blame for this current situation."

"My expectation would be that Russia will hear this clearly from our African partners," he said. 

He added that Moscow has "explicitly threatened shipping" and sent a "very clear message" by repeatedly bombing the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. 

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has been ensuring African partners by saying that they're ready to export grains for free to African countries in need.

US President Joe Biden has ordered his administration to cooperate with the International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigation into Russia's alleged war crimes in Ukraine, said a US official. 

Previously, the US had been hesitant to cooperate with the ICC due to fears that it would pave the way for the court to prosecute American troops deployed overseas. 

Both Russia and the US are not members of the ICC. 

"Since the beginning of Russia's assault on Ukraine, the president has been clear — there needs to be accountability for the perpetrators and enablers of war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine," said a US national security council spokesperson. 

He added that due to confidentiality clauses of the ICC, the specifics regarding the historic cooperation with the court cannot be divulged.

Western and Ukrainian authorities have said that there is evidence of multiple war crimes like murders and executions, shelling of civilian infrastructure, forced deportations, child abductions, torture, sexual violence and illegal detention.

Russia denies these allegations. 

In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for  suspected deportation of children from Ukraine.

Ukraine said that it had "destroyed" 36 cruise missiles launched by Moscow in a fresh wave of attacks. 

Without specifying whether the missiles hit their targets, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk said via a Telegram channel that the missiles were heading towards western Ukraine.

Ukraine's air force also mentioned another Russian strike that targeted the Khmelnytskyi region in western Ukraine, which has already borne witness to multiple attacks by Moscow.  

Authorities said information regarding that strike was being "clarified" and that the missiles used in that attack were particularly difficult to intercept. 

Zelenskyy during his evening address thanked the air force for having shot down "the vast majority" of the missiles. 

"There were a few hits, and some missile fragments fell. But it is very important that the audacity of this attack was destroyed," he added. 

Since exiting the Black Sea grain deal recently, Russia has amped up its attack on Ukrainian cities, particularly targeting the port city of Odesa. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian soldiers have "made very good progress on the front." 

"Good for them! Details will follow," he added. 

Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that the counteroffensive launched by Kyiv last month in the eastern and southeastern parts of the country is proceeding more slowly than desired. 

Meanwhile, drone production in Ukraine has increased to support the counteroffensive and Kyiv intends to arm itself along the Russian frontlines with 1,700 new drones. 

"They're all now being transported to the frontlines in order to protect the lives of our soldiers...and destroy the enemy," said deputy head of government Machailo Fedorov. 

He added that more than 10,000 drone pilots have been trained and another 10,000 will soon follow.

ns/sri (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)