Russian forces have taken control of the city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report. Russia calls the city by its Soviet-era name of Dzerzhynsk and says Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region is now part of Russia,

Ukraine accused Russian spies of orchestrating multiple bomb attacks on its draft offices, as officials reported a new explosion on Wednesday that killed one person and hurt four more at a conscription centre in the west of the country.

Ukraine's air defense systems successfully intercepted 56 drones across 11 oblasts, including Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa.