More than 10,000 Ukrainian fighters have been killed since Russia launched its invasion, the country’s government said yesterday.

The grim milestone was announced by presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, who said daily losses since February had averaged 100 soldiers.

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The Turkish army has completed its preparations for a military operation against the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, according to the Turkish daily Sabah.

The outlet added that the military are awaiting orders from the Turkish government to begin the operation.

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Ukraine said on Saturday it had recaptured a swathe of the battlefield city of Severodonetsk, where intense fighting continued, in a rare counter-offensive against Russia’s main assault force that had been steadily advancing in the east.

The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified and Moscow said its own forces were making gains there. But it was the first time Kyiv has claimed to have launched a big counter-attack in Severodonetsk after days of yielding ground there.

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Ukraine will fight off Russia’s invasion, its president has said, while the Kremlin pledged to persist until “all our goals have been achieved” as Moscow’s war entered its 100th day with Russian troops pounding the Donbas region.

“Victory shall be ours,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video featuring the same key ministers and advisers who appeared with him in a defiant broadcast on 24 February, the day his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, launched his unprovoked assault.

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Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that the eastern Ukrainian town of Lyman had fallen under the full control of Russian and Russian-backed forces in the region.

Pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic had said on Friday that they had fully captured the town, a railway hub west of Sievierodonetsk.

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