The Russian Defense Ministry announced that a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket took off this morning from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome
and put a Russian military satellite 'Kosmos-2567' into orbit.
This was reported by the Interfax agency.
"The spacecraft reached the target orbit at the scheduled time and was taken under control by the ground facilities of the space forces," the Moscow ministry said.
This morning the Russian ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov returned to attack the West.
"Western countries led by the United States have decided to bring humanity to the brink of nuclear Armageddon," he said in response to statements by senior US officials that depleted uranium munitions are weapons that have been in use for decades and would present no high risk.
"Commenting on this kind of nonsense is really difficult. The US authorities have reached a new low with their irresponsible statements," Antonov said.
Ukraine, Lavrov: 'Uranium bullets will cause further escalation'
Russian troops spotted and killed, using APC-82 weaponry, a crew of Ukrainian drone operators who were sheltering in a detached house near Donetsk, Ivan Bigma, spokesman for Battlegroup South, told TASS. armored personnel carriers APC-82 of a motorized regiment, in the course of joint offensive operations in the settlement of Maryinka near Donetsk, detected a place where the Ukrainian military launched and operated unmanned aerial vehicles.The nationalists used a dwelling single-family double-decker as cover. The crew of the unmanned aerial vehicle operators were destroyed with standard APC armaments," he added.
Ukraine, residential building in Zaporizhzhia bombed: one dead and over 30 injured
The Russian offensive at Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine is "slowing down" as the pace of operations in nearby Avdiivka increases, according to the Institute for the Study of War in its daily update on the conflict.
The Guardian reports it.
Russian operations around Bakhmut appear to be "slowing down amid Western reports that Russian forces may be attempting to launch offensives in other directions," writes the US research center.
Russian forces, he continues, are stepping up the pace of their offensive operations around Avdiivka - which is located about 55 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut - with the aim of encircling the city.
And experts at the study center don't rule out that the Russians are doing it at the expense of their operations in Bakhmut and Vugledar (about 70 kilometers southwest of Avdiivka), where the offensive appears to have stalled.
Even the British Defense Ministry, in its intelligence update yesterday, spoke of a "realistic possibility" that the Russian assault on Bakhmut is losing the limited momentum it has gained, in part as some units have been redeployed to other sectors.