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KYIV — Ukrainian forces have recaptured a clutch of territory around the eastern war-battered town of Bakhmut but made no major advances on the southern front, the deputy defence minister said Monday.

Russia countered saying its forces were improving their positions in the eastern region of Kharkiv and holding Ukraine's forces at bay further south.

Kyiv launched a counteroffensive against Russian troops in June after stockpiling Western weapons and building up offensive infantry units but has conceded that progress has been slow.

"Another three square kilometres have been liberated (around Bakhmut). In total, 43 square kilometres around Bakhmut have been liberated" since the offensive began, Ganna Malyar told state television.

Bakhmut, an industrial town that was once home to some 70,000 people, was captured by Russian forces this summer after months of costly fighting.

Ukrainian forces began pushing back immediately around its flanks and have also been pushing towards the southern city of Melitopol under Russian control.

"In the south, the situation has not undergone significant changes. Our defenders continue to advance in the Berdyansk and Melitopol sectors," Malyar said.

She later added that Ukrainian forces had had successes near Robotyne along the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Russia, in the defence ministry statement, said its forces were fending off Ukrainian attacks in the south near the village of Urozhaine, which Ukraine captured last week.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told AFP last week that his country's forces will liberate all territory occupied by Russian forces regardless of how long it takes.

At the same time, Russian forces have been pushing back in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, where officials recently urged vulnerable residents to evacuate frontline regions.

Russia’s defence ministry said Monday their forces had taken up improved positions in the region with the help of artillery and aerial forces.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia said it thwarted Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and its region on Sunday, a day after a "heinous" missile strike killed seven people and wounded 148 in Ukraine's Chernihiv.

Both sides have reported regular drone incursions during the conflict, with strikes on Russian territory becoming increasingly regular.

"At around 4:00am (0100 GMT), an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by drone on infrastructure in Moscow and the Moscow region was thwarted," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

The Moscow-bound drone was destroyed by "electronic warfare" and crashed into an uninhabited area after losing control, the ministry added, reporting no victims or damage.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin thanked Russia's military for their work on the Telegram messaging app.

Aviation agency Rosaviatsia said flights to the Domodedovo and Vnukovo international airports were "temporarily limited" at night before returning to normal, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

A Ukrainian drone raid also hit a railway station in the western Russian city of Kursk, injuring five people, the regional governor said early Sunday.

In the southern region of Rostov that borders Ukraine, Russian air defence intercepted two Ukrainian drones, the governor said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed “a tangible answer” to Saturday’s attack on the northern city of Chernihiv, which came during the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord as some attended morning church services.

Vyacheslav Chaus, governor of the Chernihiv region, announced “7 people dead, 148 people received injuries” in an update on Sunday.

“41 people remain in hospitals. 15 people underwent surgeries,” he said in a post on Telegram, adding that “more than 500 homes suffered damage”.

Zelensky had noted the dead included a six-year-old girl and that there were 15 children among the wounded.

Denise Brown, UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said it was “heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to church to celebrate a religious day for many Ukrainians”.

Zelensky in Sweden 

Chernihiv, 150 kilometres north of Kyiv towards Belarus, had largely been spared from major attacks since the first months of Russia’s invasion as fierce fighting rages in the east and south.

The Russian army marched through the city when it invaded Ukraine through Belarus in February 2022, before being repelled by Kyiv’s forces. 

Zelensky was in Sweden for talks with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Saturday as Kyiv seeks more weapons from Western allies during a counteroffensive.

The leaders finalised the production of CV90 armoured vehicles in Ukraine and Ukrainian pilots participating in test trials of Swedish Gripen fighter jets, Zelensky said in his evening address.

“Everything powerful that serves us now, we must localise and produce,” he added.

Ukraine launched its widely expected counteroffensive in June but has come up against fierce resistance from entrenched Russian forces.

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalans voted on Sunday in a presidential runoff marked by the harassment of a surprise frontrunner, who has fired up voters with his promises to end the rot of corruption.

The race pits reformist outsider Bernardo Arevalo against former first lady Sandra Torres, both social democrats, meaning Guatemala will have its first leftist leader in over a decade.

Polling stations opened at 7:00am local (13:00 GMT) and voting was to end at 6:00pm (00:00 GMT) with first results expected later in the evening.

The Central American nation is dogged by poverty, violence and graft, with thousands of its citizens heading abroad every year in search of a better life, many to the United States.

Arevalo’s unexpected success in the first round was followed by raids against his Semilla party offices and those of electoral officials, prompting the United Nations, the European Union, and the Organisation of American States to raise the alarm over efforts to undermine the vote.

“The real power of democracy comes from respecting the will of the people,” the US assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, Brian A. Nichols, posted on social media on Friday.

“We have been the victims, the prey, of corrupt politicians for years,” Arevalo, a 64-year-old sociologist and former diplomat, said recently. “To vote is to say clearly that it is the Guatemalan people who lead this country, not the corrupt.”

Arevalo is the son of the country’s first democratically elected president, Juan Jose Arevalo. When the older Arevalo came to power in 1945, he ended the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, an admirer of Hitler who had forced landless Mayans to work on government projects.

Just days before Sunday’s vote, prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche — sanctioned by Washington for corruption — said he did not rule out more raids and possible arrests after the elections.

Corrupt have 

‘taken control’ 

Arevalo is leading with 50 per cent, according to the most recent poll by CID Gallup and the Freedom and Development Foundation, with Torres coming in second with 32 per cent.

Torres, 67, is the ex-wife of deceased leftist president Alvaro Colom. She is taking her fourth shot at the presidency and has focused on violent crime and poverty.

On Friday, she raised doubts about the objectivity of the country’s electoral board, accusing it of leaning toward Arevalo’s party.

She has dismissed Arevalo as a “foreigner” because he was born in Uruguay while his father was in exile.

“We cannot allow Guatemala to fall into the hands of radicals,” she said recently in a jab at Arevalo. “We cannot permit Guatemala to become a Venezuela or a Cuba.”

The winner will replace unpopular right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei, who is constitutionally limited to one term.

Observers have decried state efforts to protect a corrupt system benefiting those in power, with several prosecutors and journalists detained or forced into exile under Giammattei.

The corrupt “have progressively taken control of all state institutions”, former attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz — who is now in Costa Rica — told AFP.

The first round of the election in June saw low voter turnout and more than 17 per cent of ballots cast invalid, with little hope among Guatemalans that their fortunes would change.

Guatemala has some of the worst poverty, malnutrition and child mortality rates in Latin America, according to the World Bank.

The murder rate is one of the highest in the world, with many killings attributed to gang violence related to drug trafficking.

Around 9.4 million of the country’s 17.6 million people are eligible to vote.

The winner will take power on January 14.

CHERNIHIV, Ukraine — A Russian missile strike on Ukraine's northern city of Chernihiv killed seven people and left more than 100 wounded on Saturday, authorities said, hours after President Vladimir Putin met Moscow's top army commanders.

Chernihiv, 150 kilometres north of Kyiv towards Belarus, has been largely spared from major attacks since the first months of Russia's invasion as fierce fighting rages in the east and south. 

The Russian army marched through the city when it invaded Ukraine through Belarus in February 2022, before being repelled by Kyiv's forces. 

The strike came after Putin held talks with top Russian generals in a rare trip to operational hub Rostov-on-Don and as his Ukrainian nemesis, Volodymyr Zelensky, visited Sweden for talks with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. 

"As of 3:25pm, 117 people were injured in the terrorist attack on the centre of Chernihiv, seven of them died," Oleksandr Lomako, Chernihiv's acting mayor, said on Telegram. 

Viacheslav Chaus, head of the Chernihiv region's military administration, said on Telegram that a child was among the dead.

Zelensky said the attack hit "the centre of the city" in a square that houses a "polytechnic university, a theatre".

"An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss," he said after his arrival in Sweden.

He posted a video from the scene showing debris around a large Soviet-era building, with parked cars partially destroyed, smashed roofs and windows blown out.

AFP reporters saw fire trucks outside the Taras Shevchenko Drama Theatre and Music Academy, which suffered some damage. 

Some nearby buildings also sustained minor damaged.

Putin meets military 

top brass 

"There was smoke, screams, people were running, crying, moaning. We ran to the shelter when everything happened and sat there," Iryna, a 24-year-old bartender in Chernihiv, told AFP.

“I’m still a little in shock, because this hasn’t happened in a long time, everyone has relaxed a little. But now we will probably be going down to the shelter.”

Until the war is over, “we have no options. Either accept or go abroad”, added Viktoriya, 40, who manages a coffee shop.

Hours earlier, the Kremlin said Putin had travelled to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Moscow’s hub for its operations in Ukraine, to meet his top generals in a rare trip close to combat zones.

Moscow gave no details of when the meeting took place, but footage released by state media indicated it was at night.

Putin “listened to briefings by the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, commanders of directions and other senior officers of the group”, the Kremlin said.

A video published by the RIA Novosti news agency showed Putin, wearing a suit, stepping out of a jeep in the dark and being greeted with a handshake by Gerasimov, in military attire.

Gerasimov is seen leading Putin down a corridor decorated with portraits of Russian military men and of the president chairing a meeting with army chiefs. 

Rostov-on-Don was also the scene of a dramatic armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in June, which saw them briefly take over the army HQ in Rostov, before halting their rebellion. 

Gerasimov, who Wagner wanted to unseat, has rarely been seen in public since.

Drone attacks 

As Putin met with his generals, Kyiv said it had shot down more than a dozen Russian drones in an overnight attack.

And the Russian army said it had thwarted Ukrainian attacks on Crimea as well as attempted drone strikes on a military airfield in the north-western Novgorod region, Moscow and its region. 

A day earlier, Russian forces destroyed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Black Sea Fleet.

Both sides have reported regular drone incursions as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive to reclaim Russian-held territory.

On the battlefield, Russia’s army said it had “eliminated” 150 Ukrainian troops that tried to cross the Dnipro River into Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, a day after admitting sabotage groups were operating in the area.

MADRID — Spanish lawmakers on Thursday elected the Socialist Party’s candidate for parliamentary speaker following a closely-watched vote that bodes well for Pedro Sanchez’s efforts to return as prime minister.

Thursday’s session was widely seen as a trial run ahead of a crucial investiture vote — which determines who forms the government — after an inconclusive July election.

Francina Armengol, 52, was named parliamentary speaker — the third-highest office in Spain after the king and the prime minister — with an absolute majority of 178 votes in the 350-seat chamber.

Her election was secured following a last-minute deal with the hardline Catalan separatist party JxCat, which has been cast in the role of kingmaker.

During the July polls, neither the left nor the right won enough seats to constitute a working majority of 176 representatives — with each side only able to amass the cross-party support of 171 law makers.

That has put JxCat in an influential position, with the votes cast by its seven lawmakers on Thursday proving decisive to secure Armengol’s election.

And Sanchez is hoping he will be able to do the same in an investiture vote, although experts say those negotiations will be far more complicated.

Although winning the speaker vote was “a good sign” for Sanchez, it “by no means guarantees his appointment for another term, given substantial obstacles to meeting JxCat’s demands,” said Federico Santi, an analyst at Eurasia Group in London.

The vote also highlighted the problems facing Alberto Nunez-Feijoo whose right-wing Popular Party (PP) won the election but with less support than expected, meaning he will need the far-right Vox to form a government.

But rather than throwing their support behind Cuca Gamarra, the PP’s candidate in Thursday’s vote, Vox’s 33 MPs voted for their own candidate, leaving Gamarra floundering.

After choosing a speaker, parliament’s first job will be to choose a prime minister, with an investiture vote due later this month or in early September.

‘Progress and peaceful coexistence’ 

During her first speech as speaker, Armengol announced that the Catalan, Basque and Galician — which are official languages in Spain — could now be used in debates in the national parliament.

Congratulating Armengol, Sanchez said “We are already working for a new legislature that is about progress and peaceful coexistence.”

JxCat said allowing the use of Catalan in the assembly was one of the four demands which the Socialists and their radical leftist ally Sumar had agreed to in exchange for its support.

The party insisted the deal was “not linked to the investiture vote”.

It also involved the creation of two inquiry panels into the 2017 Barcelona terror attacks and the use of Pegasus software to spy on Catalan separatists.

But for an investiture vote, the bar has been set much higher.

The separatists want an amnesty for anyone pursued by the Spanish justice system over their failed 2017 independence bid and a referendum on self-determination, with JxCat leader Carles Puigdemont demanding solid guarantees before offering support to Spain’s next government.

“We have no confidence in Spanish political parties,” he wrote Wednesday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Nod to separatists 

Puigdemont himself is one of those wanted by the Spanish justice system for his role in the botched independence bid of 2017.

Now 60, he headed the regional government of Catalonia when it staged a referendum banned by Madrid on October 1, 2017, which was followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

He fled Spain shortly after to avoid prosecution and currently lives in Belgium from where he leads JxCat.

Sanchez’s choice of Armengol was widely seen as a nod to the separatists: Between 2015-2023, she was regional leader of the Balearic Islands, where Catalan is widely spoken.

And on Wednesday he promised to promote the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician within Europe — a long-running demand of nationalist parties.