Ukraine downs explosive drones and ‘traps’ Moscow’s forces in Bakhmut

Kyiv said its forces had shot down 26 explosive drones fired by Moscow’s military and had “trapped” occupying troops in the eastern city of Bakhmut, as Russia investigated the murder of a former submarine commander whom Ukraine accused of involvement in a deadly missiles strike.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 28 Shahed drones in the early hours of Tuesday, two of which evaded interception and hit the port area of Odesa on the Black Sea coast, while in Kyiv falling debris damaged several buildings. No one was hurt in the attacks, but Russian shelling killed one person and injured two in the southeastern Kherson region.

Ukrainian officials posted photographs of smoke rising above the occupied southeastern city of Berdyansk and said a missile had badly damaged a hotel that had served as a local headquarters for the Russian military. Collaborationist official Vladimir Rogov said a “local business” had been hit but did not provide details.

Kyiv says its troops are making slow but steady progress in heavily mined areas of southeastern Ukraine, and have retaken the initiative around Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, which Russia occupied in May after months of heavy shelling.

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“Bakhmut. The enemy is trapped, the city is under the fire control of the defence forces,” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces, wrote on social media.

Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar added: “In Bakhmut, our defenders have been keeping the entries, exits and movement of the enemy through the city under fire control for several days. This became possible because, while advancing, our troops took control of the main commanding heights around Bakhmut.”

Russia’s investigative committee said on Tuesday it had arrested a suspect in the murder of Stanislav Rzhitsky, a senior military recruitment officer in the southern Krasnodar region and former commander of a submarine named after the province. He was shot dead on Monday while jogging through a park in the regional capital, also called Krasnodar.

Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service took the unusual step of releasing a statement on the case, which added to suspicion that Kyiv’s security services could be involved in the killing of Capt Rzhitsky (42).

“In Krasnodar, the commander of the Krasnodar submarine, involved in missile attacks on Ukraine, was eliminated,” GUR said. “At around six in the morning, seven shots were fired at him from a Makarov pistol… Rzhitsky died on the spot. Because of the heavy rain, the park was deserted, so there are no witnesses who could provide details or identify the attacker.”

Some Ukrainian sources said Capt Rzhitsky was in command of the submarine that fired cruise missiles at the city of Vinnytsia last July, killing at least 23 people, including three children, and wounding dozens more when they destroyed several civilian buildings. Russian media quoted his relatives as saying that he left that post in late 2021, however.

Russian investigators said the man detained in Krasnodar region was in possession of the pistol and silencer that are believed to have been used in the murder.