Russian forces have suffered more than 6,000 casualties in the last four days after Vladimir Putin’s army attempted a renewed offensive to capture more land in Ukraine, officials said.

Ukrainian army commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian operations were a “colossal pressure” and their forces were beaten back.

“The enemy tried to break through the defensive formations of our troops in several strategic directions at once… In total, the enemy conducted 619 assault actions during these four days,” he said.

The Russian command, he said, threw tens of thousands of soldiers into the “meat assaults”.

“Over four days of intensive assault operations, the enemy lost more than 6,090 soldiers killed and wounded,” Syrskyi said, adding that Kyiv largely managed to repel the offensive.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), police and national guard in Moscow have been put on higher alert due to intelligence that there is a threat of a sabotage attack from Ukraine, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported today.

The FSB, the main successor to the KGB, had received intelligence that Ukraine planned acts of sabotage and attacks on “government officials, military personnel of the Russian Defence Ministry and law enforcement officers”, according to the Russian state agency report.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, was shot three times in February with a Makarov pistol equipped with a silencer in an apartment block on the Volokolamsk highway in northern Moscow. He survived the attack.

Ukraine’s military intelligence has “irrefutable” evidence that Russia continues to provide intelligence to Iran and such activity can only prolong the war in the Middle East, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

“Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East,” he said on X after meeting the head of military intelligence.

Zelensky, later in his nightly address, said there was “growing evidence” of continued Russian efforts to funnel intelligence to Iran.

“This is clearly destructive activity and must be stopped as it only leads to further destabilisation. All decent states are interested in guaranteeing security and preventing a larger crisis,” he said.

“Markets are already reacting negatively and this is significantly complicating the fuel situation in many countries. By helping the Iranian regime survive and strike more accurately, Russia is effectively prolonging the war,” he said.

The Kremlin last week dismissed a Wall Street Journal report that Russia was sharing satellite imagery and improved drone technology with Iran as “fake news”.

Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk has resumed crude oil loadings following a suspension of operations due to drone attacks, according to two industry sources and LSEG ship-tracking data.

Two of Russia’s main Baltic Sea outlets, Primorsk and Ust-Luga, halted operations on Sunday after drone attacks. Ust-Luga resumed exports on Monday.

The local governor said the fuel reservoirs at Primorsk had caught fire following the drone attacks.

LSEG data showed that the oil tanker Anlan has been set up for loading at Primorsk’s port facilities this morning.

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged fuel reservoirs at the oil export hub of Primorsk in northwestern Russia, regional authorities said yesterday.

Russian strikes overnight on ⁠energy infrastructure in Ukraine disconnected Moldova’s ⁠key ​power ⁠link with Europe, ⁠president ​Maia Sandu ⁠said ‌this morning.

“Alternative routes are ‌in place, ‌but the ⁠situation remains fragile. Russia alone bears responsibility,” she said ‌in a statement ​on ‌social ⁠media website ⁠X.

At least five people have been killed and 16 others have been injured after Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack on multiple Ukrainian cities overnight, local officials said.

The explosions were reported from the cities of Poltava and Zaporizhzhia shortly before 3am.

Ukraine’s air force warned the country of incoming Russian ballistic missiles around 2.45am local time.

The large-scale attacks killed two in the Poltava region, with Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Kharkiv each reporting one death, reported AFP.

The Russian strikes disconnected Moldova’s ⁠key ​power ⁠link with Europe, ⁠president ​Maia Sandu ⁠said ‌this morning.

“Alternative routes are ‌in place, ‌but the ⁠situation remains fragile. Russia alone bears responsibility,” she said.

Poland scrambled fighter planes and allied aircraft to respond to the Russian strikes, though it later confirmed that “no violations of the country’s airspace were observed”.

Moscow’s shipment of modernised drones to Iran made Russian drone production sites legitimate military targets, a top Ukrainian diplomat said, urging Western powers to equip Ukraine with weapons capable of hitting those sites.

Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Andriy Melnyk, said Russia’s support of Tehran with modernised versions of its Iranian-designed Shahed drones and other military support, meant it was now Tehran’s main accomplice in the Middle East war.

Moscow has been using the Shahed drones against Ukraine since early in its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“The recent conflict in Iran has revealed how intertwined this crisis is with Russia’s military invasion and the Kremlin’s malign, imperialistic goals,” he told a special Security Council session on the Ukraine war.

Russia’s shipments of modernised versions of Iran’s Shahed drones, using licences provided by Tehran, marked an unprecedented escalation that would allow Iran to attack Gulf countries and US forces in the region for a long period, destabilising the region and threatening the global economy, Melnyk said.

As a result, Russian drone production sites should be considered “legitimate targets for military strikes in the campaign against the mullah regime,” he said.

Polish Air Force said it scrambled fighter planes and allied aircraft to protect Poland’s eastern airspace in the early hours today after Russia launched a major missile and drone attack on Ukraine.

Poland’s Armed Forces Operational Command (DORSZ) announced on X that Polish and allied air forces had been deployed, including the on-duty fighter pair and early warning aircraft.

Ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems were also activated, they said.

Around 7am local time, DORSZ said the pre-emptive operations had ceased and “no violations of the country’s airspace were observed”.

​Russia has launched 392 drones ⁠and 34 missiles in an ⁠overnight ​attack ⁠targeting ⁠Ukrainian cities, Ukraine’s ​air force ⁠said ‌this morning.

Air defence units ‌shot down ‌or neutralised ⁠25 missiles and 365 drones, the air force ‌said in ​a ‌post ⁠on ⁠Telegram.

Russia plans to open four ground control stations for long-range attack drones in Belarus, president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, citing information from Ukraine’s military intelligence service.

Zelensky, who in recent months has repeatedly warned about Belarus becoming more involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine, added in comments on X that he had instructed the service’s chief to inform Kyiv’s partners about these plans.

Earlier in the now four-year-old war, Zelensky said Belarusian assistance had for a time intensified the damage inflicted by Russian attacks until Ukraine took action against it.

“We now have information from our intelligence that Russia intends to continue using the territory of Belarus and temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine to build ground control stations for long-range drones,” he said.

“There will be responses to this. And they will be felt,” he said.