Ukraine war live updates: Russia likely reinforcing defenses as Ukrainians make gains, advancing in grueling counteroffensive

Russia called on the U.N.’s highest court in The Hague on Monday to throw out a case that centres around claims by Moscow that its invasion of Ukraine was carried out to prevent genocide.

The request was made at the start of hearings dealing with the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court.

Ukraine brought the case just days after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 last year. Kyiv argues Russia is abusing international law by saying the invasion was justified to prevent an alleged genocide in eastern Ukraine.

Russian officials continue to accuse Ukraine of committing genocide. On Monday, Russia repeated allegations that the “Russophobic and neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv” was using the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which both countries are a party, as a pretext to “drag” a case before the court.

Russia wants the case to be thrown out and says the court has no jurisdiction. The hearings, set to run until Sept. 27, will not delve into the merits of the case and are instead focused on legal arguments about jurisdiction.

“Ukraine is not accusing Russia of committing genocide. Ukraine is also not accusing Russia of failing to prevent or punish genocide. On the contrary, Ukraine insists no genocide has occurred,” Russia’s agent to the court, Gennady Kuzmin, said in opening remarks.

“That alone should be enough to reject the case. Because according to the court’s jurisprudence, if there was no genocide, there cannot be a violation of the Genocide Convention.”

While Russia has so far ignored the ICJ’s orders to stop its military actions and the court has no way of enforcing its decisions, experts say an eventual ruling in favour of Ukraine could be important for any future reparations claims.

— Reuters

Over the last two weeks, Russia has likely reinforced what Britain’s Defense Ministry called its “hard-pressed” 58th Combined Arms Army in southern Ukraine with additional, elite airborne units.

“Throughout the war Russian commanders have attempted to regenerate the airborne forces as a highly mobile, striking force for offensive operations. Once again, they are being used as line infantry to augment over-stretched ground forces,” the ministry said in an intelligence update Monday.

It noted that Russia appeared to be reinforcing its units in the area around the front-line town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces are trying to advance and break through three main layers of Russian defenses.

The ministry said a total of at least five elite VDV [Russian airborne forces] regiments drawn from the 7th and 76th divisions, “are likely now concentrated within several kilometres of the frontline village of Robotyne.”

“At full strength, such a force should constitute around 10,000 elite paratroopers. However, almost all units are highly likely dramatically under strength,” the U.K. noted, adding that “the current situation is likely to be seen as highly unsatisfactory by the VDV hierarchy.”

— Holly Ellyatt

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, begins on Monday a four-day trip to Russia during which both nations are expected to pledge deeper mutual political trust, readying for a possible landmark visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing in October.

Wang, who heads the foreign ministry as well as the ruling Communist Party’s foreign affairs office, will meet Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev for annual security talks, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

The veteran diplomat’s talks with counterpart Sergei Lavrov will cover a “wide range of issues” including “contacts at higher and the highest levels,” the Russian foreign ministry said last week.

Wang is expected to lay the groundwork for Putin’s visit to the Chinese capital for the third Belt and Road Forum after an invitation by President Xi Jinping during a high-profile visit to Moscow in March.

Putin attended China’s first two Belt and Road Forums in 2017 and 2019. But he is not known to have travelled abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him on grounds of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

On Sept. 1, Putin said he expected to meet Xi soon, but did not explicitly confirm that he would travel to China again.

The warrant, issued just days before Xi visited Russia, obligates the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to the Hague for trial if he enters their territory. However, China is not a party to the Rome Statute that led to the establishment of the ICC in 2002.

The visit will also see a detailed exchange of views on issues including Ukraine, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week.

— Reuters

Ukraine recaptured two villages in the area around Bakhmut in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, in recent days as its grueling counteroffensive continues in the south and east of the country.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Monday that Kyiv’s forces had liberated Andriivka and Klishchiivka over the weekend but said Russian was “trying with all his might to regain lost positions.” 

“Our fighters hold back the enemy’s attacks there and are entrenched at the achieved frontiers,” she said in a post on Telegram. Two square kilometers, or 0.77 miles, of territory had been regained in the past week around Bakhmut, an epicenter of fighting for months.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated his forces in the region in his nightly address Sunday, saying “I would like to especially recognize the warriors who are gradually regaining Ukraine’s territory in the area of Bakhmut.”

Ukrainian forces are also trying to push southward to regain towns and cities toward, and on, the Sea of Azov.

Maliar said Ukraine is continuing its “offensive operation in the Melitopol direction” and that there was success in the area south and east of Robotyne, a town in the southern Zaporizhia region that Ukraine said it had recaptured in late August.

In the past week, defense forces in the south have liberated 5.2 square km of territory. Since the start of the counteroffensive, 261.7 square km has been retaken in the region.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian troops have likely been reinforcing their defenses around the occupied town of Tokmak in southern Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update Sunday.

“Tokmak is preparing to become a lynchpin of Russia’s second main line of defences,” the ministry said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It noted that Russia is likely deploying additional checkpoints, “hedgehog” anti-tank defenses and digging new trenches in the area, which is held by its 58th Combined Arms Army. Tokmak is around 10 miles behind the current front line.

The ministry noted that improvements to the town’s defenses likely indicate Russia’s growing concern about Ukrainian tactical penetrations, in recent weeks, of the first main defensive line to the north.

— Holly Ellyatt