Meta: Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv’s new PM says ‘more to be done’ after EU’s strongest sanctions package yet on Moscow

The transformed nature of modern warfare is starkly evident to a weary Ukrainian platoon commander, medically evacuated from the front lines.

The skies above Ukraine now swarm with kamikaze, surveillance, bomber, and anti-drone UAVs.

These numerous, cheap, and deadly machines are considered by Kyiv to be a primary reason Ukraine can withstand advancing Russian forces this year and beyond, a view shared by a dozen Ukrainian commanders, officials, and arms manufacturers.

Ukraine’s new prime minister has welcomed the EU’s 18th sanctions package.

But there is “more to be done”, Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

• The major cabinet overhaul aims to revitalise wartime management as prospects for peace with Russia grow dim
• The parliament appointed Ukraine’s first new prime minister in five years – Yulia Svyrydenko
• Former prime minister Denys Shmyhal was appointed as defence minister
• Svitlana Hrynchuk was appointed as energy minister
• Former Svyrydenko deputies Oleksiy Sobolev and Taras Kachka will serve as minister of economy, environment and agriculture and deputy prime minister for European integration, respectively

Ukraine’s Zelensky has appointed former Defence Minister Umerov as Secretary of National Security and Defence Council, according to a decree posted Friday.

The council has a coordinating role on issues of national security and defence under the president and comprises the country’s top political, security and defence chiefs.

The European Union reached an agreement on an 18th sanctions package against Russia over its war in Ukraine, with a raft of measures aimed at dealing further blows to Russia’s oil and energy industry.

Its latest sanctions package on Russia will lower the G7’s price cap for crude oil to $47.6 per barrel, diplomats told Reuters today.

“The EU just approved one of its strongest sanctions package against Russia to date,” said the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on X.

“We will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow,” Ms Kallas said.

Russia’s defence ministry has said its troops have taken control of three villages in three different parts of the frontline running through Ukraine.

Official Ukrainian reports of activity along the 1,000km (600 mile) front disputed part of the Russian account, particularly concerning a key village in the southeast.

The Russian defence ministry report named the three captured settlements as Kamianske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Dehtiarne in northeastern Kharkiv region, and Popiv Yar in Donetsk region, the main theatre of Russian operations.

Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward, mainly through Donetsk region, and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn told the liga.net media outlet that holding Kamianske, southeast of the region’s main town of Zaporizhzhia, was important to keep that city safe from attack.

But Kamianske had been all but flattened by long periods of fighting, he said. Ukrainian forces had moved out of it and successfully attacked Russian troops whenever small groups periodically ventured into it.

“The Russians cannot go into the village and hold it,” Mr Voloshyn was quoted as saying. “There is not a single dwelling left intact, not a single wall left standing, nothing to hold, nothing to enable you to take cover.”

There was no acknowledgement from Ukraine that Popiv Yar had changed hands – the village lies northeast of Pokrovsk, for months a focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region.

For at least a week, it has remained in the “grey zone” of uncertain control as reported by DeepState, a Ukrainian military blog based on open source accounts of the fighting. There was no news from Ukrainian officials of the situation at Dehtiarne.

“Preparations are underway, we are working very closely with the Germans on the Patriot transfer”, General Grynkewich told a conference in the German city of Wiesbaden.

“The guidance that I have been given has been to move out as quickly as possible.”

The skies above Ukraine now swarm with kamikaze, surveillance, bomber, and anti-drone UAVs.

These numerous, cheap, and deadly machines are considered by Kyiv to be a primary reason Ukraine can withstand advancing Russian forces this year and beyond, a view shared by a dozen Ukrainian commanders, officials, and arms manufacturers.

So pervasive are these remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles that Ukrainian soldiers refer to the roughly 10-kilometre corridor on either side of the contact line as the “kill zone,” where targets are swiftly spotted and neutralised by both sides.