A person causing the explosion was killed at an Army Recruitment Centre in western Ukraine on Wednesday, authorities said in a series of attacks on mobilization efforts. Four other people were injured in the explosion at the Kamianets-Podilsky Recruitment Center, said area manager Sergiy Tyurin. Ukrainian police said it was the ninth attack on the recruitment centre this year, claiming that the perpetrators were hired by Russian agents. In all cases, the assailant was in detention. The person who caused the explosion on Saturday at the draft centre in Rivne in northwestern Ukraine was also killed in the explosion, causing six other people to be injured, police said. Also on Saturday, a man with a hunting rifle shot and killed recruiting soldiers from the Ukrainian army, and both fled by draft before being caught by police.
Russia and Ukraine each said 150 of the soldiers captured on Wednesday were returned in exchanges of prisoners. “Some people were in captivity for more than two years,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russia has confirmed a swap mediated by the United Arab Emirates.
The Ukrainian military will create robotic vehicle units for deployment to the front line, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said on Wednesday. “Our goal is to create an army where innovative technology can help us perform the most dangerous tasks and save the lives of our defenders,” he said. The ministry has released photos of a robotic vehicle with a gun attached to it. With both sides deploying tens of thousands of air drones each month, there is a race that continues to replace as many soldiers as possible with unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs).
The Russian attack on Wednesday killed two people near the frontline of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, while one was killed near Odesa’s Black Sea port, officials said.
Emergency Services said a house was fired in the town of Druzkibuka, south of Kuramatauk city in the Donetsk region, killing two people. Ole Kiper, the local governor of Odesa, said the missile attack killed one man and severely injured another man outside an unfinished building near the port.
Germany is investigating whether vandalism aimed at hundreds of cars, widely criticized by climate activists, was a Russian election campaign that called for the Green Party to be smeared. German prosecutors and officials have not confirmed that Russia is believed to be behind the campaign, but Greene’s Foreign Minister Analena Bearbock said: “Prosecutors in the southern Ulm city said four people between the ages of 17 and 29, four people from the country, including Romania, Serbia and Bosnia, were blocked by car exhaust pipes with self-hardening industrial spray foam. He said he was suspected of being involved in an incident that exceeded the number.
US Vice President JD Vance will be attending the Munich Security Conference next week. There, discussion will be held focusing on national security issues, including Russia’s Ukrainian war.
Le Monde, a major French newspaper on Wednesday, condemned the “disguised expulsion” of Moscow correspondent Benjamin Kennel after the media accreditation was revoked. Since the start of the war, the Kremlin has put domestic journalists and several Western reporters in prison to compensate for the severely restricted war. Jerome Fenolio, editor-in-chief of Le Monde, said: “This arbitrary decision constitutes a new obstacle to the country’s freedom of press. The Russian Foreign Ministry issues press visas to journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda, accusing Paris of being a Russian agent. He said it was retaliation for refusing to do so.
