Ukraine live briefing: U.S. says Kyiv’s counteroffensive moving ahead

Russian attacks overnight targeted the capital city of Kyiv and the Odessa region, officials there said early Wednesday, causing damage to infrastructure.

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

Ukraine still has significant combat capability, Ryder said in response to media questions about whether the bulk of Ukraine’s combat power had been introduced into the battlefield. The Pentagon remains confident that Ukraine “will continue to be able to have the means by which to prosecute this campaign,” Ryder said.

Officials in Kyiv and the Odessa region reported damage to buildings and infrastructure. In the Ukrainian capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said wreckage from a drone had damaged a nonresidential building. There were no casualties, he added. Oleh Kiper, the regional governor of Odessa, reported damage to port and industrial facilities from drone attacks.

Ukrainian law enforcement officials announced that they were investigating a large-scale draft evasion scheme involving falsified medical certificates declaring participants unfit for service. Those involved, including officials from the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi territorial recruitment center and members of the military medical commission, also destroyed official documentation in an effort to cover up their activities, the national police reported on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy expects its economy to grow about 5 percent in 2024, a senior ministry official said, according to Reuters. Natalia Horshkova, the chief of the ministry’s department for strategic planning and macroeconomic forecasting, said the growth will be fueled by reconstruction efforts and consumer spending. The ministry expects the war to end in 2024. The ministry forecast Ukraine’s growth this year to be 2.8 percent. Ukraine’s economy contracted by more than 30 percent in 2022.

Ukraine’s birthrate has declined during the war. Almost 97,000 children were born in Ukraine during the first six months of the year, which is 28 percent fewer than the 135,000 babies born in the first six months of 2021, according to Opendatabot, a Ukrainian data website. Birthrates have been falling since 2013 by about 7 percent each year. Nearly 210,000 babies were born last year. In 2021, close to 278,000 babies were born.

Russian shelling hit a medical facility in Kherson on Tuesday, killing a doctor, injuring a nurse and damaging a surgical department there, Oleksandr Prokudin, the region’s governor, said in a statement.

Russian air defenses thwarted several drones trying to reach Moscow, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. He said a skyscraper that was previously struck on Sunday was hit again and the facade of its 21st floor was damaged. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attacks in Moscow but has described them as legitimate. In Crimea, the Kremlin-appointed governor said Russia had shot down a drone.

Belarusian helicopters violated Polish airspace during a training exercise on Tuesday, Poland’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The Belarusian Defense Ministry rebutted those claims, calling them “far-fetched.” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak ordered more soldiers along the border.

Ukraine summoned Poland’s ambassador to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs after a senior Polish official said Ukraine should “start appreciating” the country’s help. “During the meeting, it was emphasized that the statements about the alleged ingratitude of the Ukrainians for the assistance of the Republic of Poland do not reflect reality and as such are unacceptable,” the Ukrainian ministry said in a statement. In response, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the summoning of the Polish ambassador should never have happened.

Drones hit glitzy Moscow buildings as Ukraine says Russians should feel war: The Moscow-City complex, nestled west of the city center and decorated with glittering skyscrapers, has been hit repeatedly by drone attacks in recent days, report Francesca Ebel, Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova. Among them is the IQ-quarter tower, which houses several government ministry offices. In an attack on Sunday, offices of a government ministry appeared to suffer serious damage, according to photographs published on Russian media.

In the same complex, at least 19 apartments have been registered to the cousin of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and the wife of another one of his cousins since 2013, according to the anti-corruption organization Global Witness.