Russia attacks in east Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin celebrates

Russian forces attacked settlements in eastern Ukraine from the ground and air, officials said on Thursday, in support of the Kremlin’s apparently scaled-back ambition of only securing the bulk of Ukrainian lands it has claimed in the war.

This came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated seizing territory during the nine-month war, saying Russia had already achieved a “significant result” with the acquisition of “new territories” in Ukraine — a reference to the annexation of four partly occupied regions in September that Kyiv and most members of the United Nations condemned as illegal.

Fighting was underway along the entire line of demarcation in the Donetsk region on Thursday, with the frontline town of Avdiivka shelled by Russian tanks on Thursday morning, said Tatiana Ignatchenko, a spokeswoman for the regional administration.

Near the city of Lysychansk, Russia deployed more troops to try to capture the village of Bilohorivka, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk region said, while a commander in another fought-over settlement described an intensifying Russian air offensive.

“They are bringing in more and more reserves,” around Bilohorivka to try to capture the village, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haiday told Ukrainian television. 

Griner freed  in return for ‘Merchant of Death’

US basketball star Brittney Griner has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia and is now in US custody, President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

The Russian foreign ministry said it traded Griner for Russian citizen Viktor Bout, a former arms dealer. Bout has been dubbed “the merchant of death” and “the sanctions buster” for his ability to get around arms embargoes. The swap occurred at the Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates, Russian news agencies said. “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” Biden said in a tweet.