Leaders of a coup in Niger declared General Abdourahamane Tiani as the new head of state on Friday days after saying they had ousted President Mohamed Bazoum in the seventh military takeover in West and Central Africa in less than three years.

African countries, Western powers and regional and international organizations have voiced support for Bazoum and called for democracy to be restored. Some officials suggested the outcome was not yet final.

France's Foreign Minister Catherina Colonna explicitly referred to it as an "attempted coup" on Friday, while White House national security spokesman John Kirby said there was still room for intra-African diplomacy.

The upheaval has raised concerns about the security of a region where Niger has been a key ally of Western powers seeking to contain insurgencies by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

"A military takeover may cause the United States to cease security and other cooperation with the government of Niger," Kirby told a briefing.

Tiani was the head of the presidential guard whose soldiers shut Bazoum inside his palace on Wednesday, causing confusion over who was in control.

Bazoum has not made a statement since Thursday morning, when he vowed to protect "hard-won" democratic gains in a post on social media.

Several world leaders said they have spoken to him since the coup, and that he is still detained in the palace with his family but "fine".

Former colonial power France said it still recognised Bazoum as the legitimate leader.

The general appeared on state television on Friday with a banner on the screen that described him as the president of a newly formed military body, the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP).

"The President of the CNSP is the head of state," an officer said, reading out a statement.

The constitution has been suspended, all government institutions dissolved and the CNSP will exercise all legislative and executive power until constitutional order returns, the statement added. It gave no timelines.

Tiani met with the heads of all ministries at the presidential palace on Friday afternoon. A CNSP member told journalists after the meeting the ministries will continue to provide services.

TRADITIONAL TIES AT STAKE

Before the uprising, Niger was seen as the West's most stable ally in an unstable region.

It borders three countries - Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad - hit by coups in the last two years. Some were spurred by frustration over growing insecurity.

France, Germany, Italy and the United States have troops in Niger on military training and counter-insurgency missions.

Niger is also the world's seventh-biggest producer of uranium, the radioactive metal widely used for nuclear energy and in nuclear weapons, as well as for treating cancer.

Like the military rulers of Mali and Burkina Faso, Tiani justified the coup by saying that the government had been failing to contain the Islamist insurgency.

In the capital Nimaey, reactions to the coup have been mixed.

"We need to be very vigilant to ensure that this fight against terrorism does not give them a position or an opportunity to stay in power forever," said resident Ousmane Kansey.

Another passerby, Ibrahim Hamidou, saw the takeover as a positive move against bad governance and insecurity he blamed partly on the presence of foreign boots.

"The results are not good... this means that their presence is of little use," he told Reuters.

Jihadist militants have been spreading across West Africa's Sahel region for years. Niger so far has held them off better than Mali and Burkina Faso, where violence has only worsened since the military takeovers.

The juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have increasingly turned toward Russiaas a strategic ally and distanced themselves from traditional partners such as France, which has faced a growing wave of resentment towards its influence in the Sahel.

There were some Russian flags among coup supporters who took to the streets in the capital Niamey on Thursday.

One of the few international voices to welcome the takeover was Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains active despite leading a failed mutiny against the Russian army's top brass last month. He described the coup as an uprising against colonizers and offered his fighters' services to bring order.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said constitutional order should be restored.

FOREIGN RESPONSE

Foreign countries have not announced any plan to intervene in Niger but Tiani warned against any attempts to extract Bazoum, saying foreign military intervention would result in "the massacre of the Niger population and chaos".

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an emergency summit in Nigeria on Sunday to discuss the situation.

Niger will test for the regional bloc, which has struggled to convince soldiers to give back power after the latest wave of coups in member states Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

ECOWAS has wrangled with the juntas on transition timelines it deemed too lengthy and imposed sanctions on Mali and Guinea over their reluctance to cooperate.

The European Union has threatened to cut budgetary support to Niger, while the United States said its cooperation with Niger's government was contingent on "democratic standards".

The United Nations said it would still deliver aid in Niger even though it had not had any contact with the military since the coup.

Reuters

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Neutral status for Ukraine ‘fundamental’ to Russia – Putin

Kiev becoming a member of NATO is an existential threat to Russian national security and will not be tolerated, Russian President Vladimir Putin told representatives of several African countries on Friday.

In the document that ushered in Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, “it is written in black and white that Ukraine is a neutral state,” Putin reminded the visiting African leaders, during the public part of their meeting in St. Petersburg. The president was referring to the 1990 declaration proclaiming Soviet Ukraine a sovereign state that would strive to become “a permanently neutral country.”  

“This is of fundamental importance. Why the West began to drag Ukraine into NATO is not very clear to us. But this created, in our opinion, a fundamental threat to our security,” Putin added.

We cannot accept the advance towards our borders of military infrastructure of a bloc that is de facto hostile to us.

Putin and several members of the African Union peace mission met to discuss the Ukraine conflict, after the two-day Russia-Africa summit attended by representatives of 49 states from the continent. 

While Russia has always said it is ready to negotiate an end to hostilities, Kiev has passed a law prohibiting talks with Moscow and reneged on the agreement negotiated in March 2022 in Istanbul, Putin stated. 

According to Putin, during last year’s meeting in Türkiye, the Ukrainian delegation initially agreed to sign a neutrality pact that would also cap Ukraine’s heavy weapons and hardware. However, the preliminary deal had been “thrown out” shortly afterward, the Russian leader said earlier this year.

Ukrainian officials walked away from negotiations after accusing the Russian military of atrocities in Bucha and other areas around the country’s capital. Moscow had denied that its troops were killing civilians.

Kiev later argued that meaningful negotiations cannot commence until Moscow surrenders Crimea and four other territories that voted to leave Ukraine and become parts of Russia. Moscow repeatedly stressed that it was impossible. 

Speaking on Friday, the Russian president repeated his long-standing position that the current crisis was caused by the 2014 “anti-constitutional, armed, bloody coup” in Kiev, carried out with “active support” of the US and other Western governments.

Following the coup, Crimea organized a referendum to join Russia. Kiev sent the military and nationalist militias to crush dissent in Odessa and Kharkov regions, but ran into resistance in Donetsk and Lugansk, which would declare independence later that year. The 2015 Minsk Agreements envisioned a process by which the two regions could return to Ukraine with guarantees of autonomy, but Kiev never implemented it. 

Former German leader Angela Merkel claimed last December that the Minsk process was only a play for time by the West to arm Ukraine for a war against Russia. Former president of France, Francois Hollande, secondedMerkel’s interpretation.

As part of the African Peace Initiative, leaders of seven countries from the continent visited Ukraine and Russia in mid-June. Though Moscow expressed interest in exploring the African proposal further, Kiev has insisted that only its “peace formula” – a ten-point plan amounting to Russia’s unconditional surrender – would be acceptable to Ukraine.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine uses North Korean rockets to blast Russian forces - FT

Ukrainian soldiers were observed using North Korean rockets that they said were seized by a "friendly" country before being delivered to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

Ukraine's defence ministry suggested the arms were captured from the Russians, the newspaper said.

The United States has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia, including alleged shipments by sea, but has not offered proof and North Korean weapons have not been widely observed on the battlefields in Ukraine.

North Korea and Russia deny conducting arms transactions.

The North Korean weapons were shown by Ukrainian troops operating Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems near the destroyed eastern city of Bakhmut, site of lengthy brutal fighting, the report said.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu made a rare visit to Pyongyang this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, the first visit by Moscow's top defence official since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.

During the visit, Shoigu was photographed viewing banned North Korean ballistic missiles with leader Kim Jong Un at a military expo in Pyongyang, signalling deeper ties between the two countries as they each face off with the United States.

RT/Reuters

A large study covering 37 years from start to finish has revealed something about those who tend to stay up late: These night owls are more likely to die at a younger age, but due to smoking and drinking-related causes rather than how late they go to bed.

Data on 22,976 Finnish adult twins were analyzed for the study, with 42.9 percent identifying as "somewhat evening types" or "evening types". Technically, this is our chronotype – our tendency to want to sleep or be active at certain times.

Previous studies have suggested night owls have a higher mortality risk and a tendency to prefer riskier behavior. In this study, it seems a greater chance of an earlier death isn't directly due to chronotype but to what it leads to.

"Our findings suggest that there is little or no independent contribution of chronotype to mortality," says Christer Hublin, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Instead, "the increased risk of mortality associated with being a clearly 'evening' person appears to be mainly accounted for by a larger consumption of tobacco and alcohol. This is compared to those who are clearly 'morning' persons."

Having identified the chronotypes for the study participants in 1981, the researchers followed up in 2018, looking at death rates ascertained through nationwide registers. Factors such as education, BMI, and sleep habits were adjusted for in the analysis, as well as the amount of smoking and drinking each individual did.

By 2018, the researchers found that 8,728 of the participants had died. The chance of dying from any cause was 9 percent higher in those who declared themselves definite (not "somewhat") evening types than those who were definite morning types.

However, non-smokers who also didn't drink much in this night owl group were at no increased risk of dying from any cause. The team found that smoking and drinking (leading to alcohol-related diseases as well as alcohol poisoning) were responsible for the extra deaths.

While being an evening person doesn't necessarily mean poor sleep habits, the two often go together. Impaired sleep can lead to a host of mental and physical issues and has also previously been linked to addictions – to nicotine or alcohol, for example.

"There is a reciprocal relationship between the reward system and circadian system, and the level of alcohol and substance use correlates with the preference to stay up later at night," write the researchers in their published paper.

Unlike the earlier study that prompted this one, the team didn't find any increase in cardiovascular-related mortality risk. There are some differences in the population sample though used – the previous research involved UK adults who were generally healthier than the average UK population, while here, the cohort's health was more in line with the general population.

As always, more detailed studies involving more people across more countries will help shed more light on this relationship further. However, it seems that we need to look not just at our sleeping habits but also some of the lifestyle choices that are more likely to happen due to those sleeping habits.

"Given the associations of chronotype with lifestyle factors that are known to increase the risk of premature morbidity and mortality, the independent contribution of chronotype to mortality is of relevance when providing public health recommendations related to sleep and chronotype," write the researchers.

The research has been published in Chronobiology International.

ScienceAlert

Do you ever have trouble remembering names? Here's a simple trick. To make it easier to remember, we'll introduce it with a little joke: 

A grasshopper walks into a bar. 

The bartender says, "This is a first. Did you know we serve a drink that's named after you?" 

"Wait," says the grasshopper. "You mean you have a drink called Steve?"

I laughed when I first heard this one. But, I also told it to my daughter's friend's dad, after I met him for third time and I still couldn't remember his name. ("Steve," he reminded me.) 

Now, because I associate his name with the grasshopper joke, I can almost guarantee I'll never forget it again. 

The trick to recalling names (and the reason it's so hard sometimes) is grounded in a simple neuroscientific fact: When we meet new people, we usually store their names in the part of our brains devoted to short-term memory. 

Most of the time, that's the right place for it. We're inundated with information constantly, so our brains have evolved to bury less important memories in favor of information that matters more, and can be accessed more quickly. 

As Tomás Ryan of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin and Paul Frankland of the department of psychology at the University of Toronto wrote last year:

"Rather than being a bug, forgetting may be a functional feature of the brain, allowing it to interact dynamically with the environment. Forgetting some memories can be beneficial."

But, when it comes to names, we wind up with a problem or two:

• First, we usually don't know when we meet someone if they, or their names, will be important to us later.
• Second, even if someone does promise to be important, we're still conditioned to clump the memory of his or her name in with all the other short-term data.

So, the trick is to learn to associate names with other memories that we're less likely to bury. 

The grasshopper joke is one example. I couldn't forget my daughter's friend's dad's name now if I tried, because it's associated with the joke (famous last words, but I feel confident: Steve).

There are a lot of other techniques you can use to associate someone's name with another memory, too and make them more accessible. Examples might include:

Visual memories

Suppose you meet a man named John while waiting in line for the restroom. You're literally standing there, looking at the door to a bathroom. This example is almost too easy, but you get the point.

(For non-American or younger readers, sometimes "john" is slang for "bathroom.")

Word association

I find it works to think of an analogous term that someone's name sounds like.

For example, if I met a woman named "Emily Smith," her name might remind me of the "liberty ships" the US built during World War II. (My references can be obscure, but that's OK, since I'm creating them for my benefit, anyway.)

Same thing with a woman I met recently from Turkey named Emine; I guess she's been through this before, because she suggested that I think of the fact that her name is pronounced like "M&A," short for "mergers and acquisitions."

Write it down

I do this sometimes. In fact, there's a holiday party I go to almost every year and I've learned the hard way to jot down notes regarding who I met and what we talked about.

Otherwise, there's a good chance that 12 months later, I'll be back at the same party, meeting some of the same people and trying not to simply repeat the same introductions and stories.

Here, of course, you're embedding the memory, but also creating a record you can refer to, later.

Draw it

A study last year in the journal, Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, found that sketching an event improved recall, compared to simply writing it down.

I admit, I've never tried this one and I'm not the best artist, but even a simple line drawing with the person's name attached might help.

Popular association

If you meet someone with a common enough name, you immediately try to think of other people with the same name.

So, if I were to meet someone named "Henry," I might immediately try to think of some of the other Henrys I've known, like my nephew Henry and my friend's son Henry and Henry Ford and retired soccer legend Thierry Henry, etc.

Character association

Basically, you try to recall a fictional or famous person or a combination, whose names or images work like a puzzle to help you remember someone's name.

Example: Suppose you met the actor Dylan Walsh but didn't know his work. You might recall the old TV show Beverly Hills 90210, in which one of the lead characters' last names was Walsh, and another's first name was Dylan.

Many other techniques

Some of these techniques become more effective the more you use them, which might be because you become more adept at remembering to make the effort to make the connections. And, some of them probably work better for some people than others.

Still, it also adds a bit of fun to what can sometimes otherwise be a stressful experience. As neuroscientist Dean Burnett wrote:

"I hope this information means that you'll understand that if we ever meet for a second time and I don't remember your name, I'm not being rude. Actually, in terms of social etiquette, I probably am being rude. But now at least you know why."

So, let's finish with a test: What's my daughter's friend's dad's name? The one I couldn't recall and so I told him the grasshopper joke?

(Hint: "Wait. You mean you have a drink named?")

Let me know if it worked.

Inc

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu says he understands the hardships that Nigerians are going through at the moment.

Tinubu spoke on Thursday at the state house while receiving All Progressives Congress (APC) national youth leaders from across the country.

Since the president announced the removal of the petrol subsidy on May 29, there have been concerns over the rise in the prices of commodities and the cost of living.

Tinubu said he feels the pains of citizens and assured them that the hardships of the moment will give way to a more “prosperous, equitable and inclusive economy”.

“I make my pledge to the country that no decision will be difficult for this administration to take for the prosperity and unity of this country. Economic reforms could be slow. Be patient a little more,” he said.

“I can assure you that I understand the pains you are going through. It is not easy to get out of the monster of over 40 years called fuel subsidy.”

The president told the youths that his administration would include them in governance, and decision-making processes.

He added that the federal government would do everything necessary to widen the net in order to accommodate more women and youths.

He said this would be done by “liaising with our lending institutions to give micro-loans at a very low-interest rate for economic activities among the citizens”.

Also speaking at the meeting, Abdullahi Dayo Israel, the APC national youth leader, told the president that the youths had come to congratulate him on the party’s victory at the polls.

Israel said they also came to seek inclusion in appointments into the dissolved boards and agencies of government.

The Cable

Former Governors Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), David Umahi (Ebonyi), Nyesom Wike (Rivers), and Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa) are on the ministerial list of President Bola Tinubu. They are four among the 28 nominees forwarded to the Senate by the president.

Also on the list is Dele Alake, who currently serve as media spokesman of the president.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio read out the names at plenary on Thursday.

Below is the full list of the nominees:

Abubakar Momoh

Yusuf Maitama Tuggar

Ahmed Dangiwa

Hannatu Musawa

Uche Nnaji

Betta Edu

Dorris Aniche Uzoka

David Umahi

Nyesom Wike

Badaru Abubakar

Nasiru Ahmed Elrufai

Ekperipe Ekpo

Nkiru Onyeojiocha

Olubunmi Tunji Ojo

Stella Okotette

Uju Kennedy Ohaneye

Bello Muhammad Goronyo

Dele Alake

Lateef Fagbemi

Muhammad Idris

Olawale Edun

Waheed Adebayo Adelabu

Iman Suleiman Ibrahim

Ali Pate

Joseph Utsev

Abubakar Kyari

John Enoh

Sani Abubakar Danladi

Federal Government has unveiled new Public Service Rules for immediate implementation in the service.

The unveiling was done by Olawale Edun, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on monetary policies, at a public service lecture, as part of the activities to mark the 2023 Civic Service Week in Abuja on Thursday.

The theme for the service week is: ‘Digitalisation of work processes in the public service: A gateway to efficient resources utilisation and national development’.

Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), Folasade Yemi-Esan, said Nigeria was fully keying into digitalised public service to meet the required global standards of service operations, hence the need for digital policy in the service.

“Following the very extensive work carried out to put in place the required mechanisms for the smooth transition from physical handling of tasks, I am pleased to state that the office of the Head of Service has gone digital with its work processes.

“By this, I mean, all the personal and policy files have been scanned and stored in digital format; workflow processes are now transacted within the office digitally,” she said.

According to Yemi-Esan, all official correspondence in the form of memos, internal and external circulars are processed electronically through the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) being one of the pillars of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021 –2025 (FCSSIP25).

The initiative, she said, was designed to transform the Federal Civil Service into a world-class service that had noted the need for digitisation of the public service.

The HOS said all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were expected to key into the digitisation initiative by the end of the year 2025.

“From the service-wide perspective, all MDAs are running with the digitisation programme and are at different stages of implementation; with a mandate for all to achieve full migration by the end of 2025.

“It is pleasing to note, some MDAs have also deployed some ECM solutions for their workflows,” she said.

NAN

Corporate Affairs Commission has said it will remove 100,000 registered companies from its database soon.

During a training on ‘Use of the beneficial ownership register’, in Lagos, Registrar-General and Chief Executive Officer, CAC, Garba Abubakar, disclosed the commission’s intention to delete 100,000 registered companies from its database.

“CAC steps up enforcement of 100,000 companies to go off its register for failure to file an annual return,” Abubakar said.

According to him, 100,000 companies that failed to file annual returns in the last 10 years were due to be struck off by the Corporate Affairs Commission.

Abubakar, however, said the commission would send notice of striking off to the affected companies before embarking on the action as enshrined in section 692 of the CAMA, 2020.

He explained that the companies were entitled to be relisted after payment of their outstanding debts and order of a court, as provided by the law.

Abubakar advised companies to ensure timely payment of their annual returns to avoid being struck off.

Speaking on Africa’s first Beneficial Ownership Register, built by the CAC with the support and assistance of the World Bank, the registrar general said it would go a long way in curbing corruption, money laundering, and terrorism financing.

He urged stakeholders, especially, investigating agencies, legal practitioners, journalists, and civil society organisations, to utilise the BOR in discharging their responsibilities.

In his remark, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law, NBA-SBL, Adeyeye Adefulu, commended the CAC for recording another important milestone in its history.

Adefulu said NBA-SBL would sustain its existing cordial relationship with the commission. He charged members to make good use of the knowledge acquired at the training for the benefit of the Nigerian economy.

Also speaking, President of the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria, Aminu Gwadabe, underscored the importance of the BOR in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

Gwadabe, who highlighted some of the dangers associated with money laundering and terrorism financing, advised professionals to apply due diligence while dealing with their clients.

Punch

Putin spoke at the opening session of a two-day Russia-Africa summit attended by a sharply lower number of African heads of state and government compared with a previous summit in 2019. While discussing the halted Black Sea grain deal, he promised large no-cost shipments of grain to six African countries.

“Our country will continue supporting needy states and regions, in particular, with its humanitarian deliveries. We seek to actively participate in building a fairer system of distribution of resources. We are taking maximum efforts to avert a global food crisis,” Putin said.

"I have already said that our country can replace Ukrainian grain, both on a commercial basis and as grant aid to the neediest African countries, more so since we expect another record harvest this year,” he said.

Russia intends to ship up to 50,000 tons of grain aid to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and the Central African Republic in the next three to four months, Putin said.

Without directly referring to Putin's promise, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took a swipe Thursday at donations of grain to developing nations, saying they cannot compensate for the global impact of Moscow’s cutoff of Ukrainian grain exports.

The UN chief said the United Nations is in contact with Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and other countries to try to reestablish the deal that saw Ukraine export over 32,000 tons of grain, allowing global food prices to drop significantly.

Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that taking millions of tons of Ukrainian grain out of the global market will lead to higher prices, and these increased prices “will be paid by everybody, everywhere, and namely by developing countries and by the vulnerable people in middle income and even developed countries.”

“So, it’s not with a handful of donations to some countries that we correct this dramatic impact that affects everybody, everywhere,” Guterres said.

Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain suppliers. They agreed a year ago on a UN- and Turkey-brokered deal that reopened three Ukrainian Black Sea ports blocked by fighting and provided assurances that ships entering the ports would not be attacked. Russia declined to renew the agreement last week, complaining that its own exports were being held up.

Promising Russian food exports to Africa is key to Putin’s stated goal of using the summit in St. Petersburg to bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage.

Africa’s 54 nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The Russian mercenary group Wagner has been active in Mali and Central African Republic, and Eritrea has voted against more UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s invasion than any other African nation.

Burkina Faso is seen by some observers as a likely next target for Wagner, and Zimbabwe has long been bitter about U.S. sanctions against it. Somalia, while a U.S. ally, is often held up as an African country most affected by any restrictions on grain supplies related to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Russia-Africa event follows South African authorities announcing last week that Putin had agreed not to attend an economic summit in Johannesburg next month because the trip could expose him to arrest under an International Criminal Court warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Putin on Thursday announced other moves to deepen relations with Africa, including increased enrollment of African students in Russian universities, the opening of Russian state news media bureaus in many African countries and a proposed “common information space in Russia and Africa, within which objective, unbiased information about events taking place in the world will be broadcast to Russian and African audiences.”

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said that while only 17 heads of state were attending the summit, 32 other African countries were represented by senior officials or ambassadors. The Kremlin said that crude Western pressure to discourage African nations from taking part caused the number of leaders taking part to shrink; in 2019, 43 heads of state attended.

Along with grain, another issue likely to be on the agenda is the fate of the Wagner mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin following its brief rebellion against the top military leadership last month. The private contractor's future will be an urgent issue for countries such as Sudan, Mali and others that contract with Wagner in exchange for natural resources like gold.

Russian officials and Prigozhin have said the company would continue working in Africa.

A peace proposal for Ukraine that African leaders have tried to pursue is set to be discussed as well.

Euro News

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian forces press southward, say strategic village recaptured from Russians

Ukrainian forces pressed their counteroffensive through the Russian-occupied southeast on Thursday, capturing the village of Staromaiorske in a campaign to drive a wedge through Russian defensive positions.

The counteroffensive has focused on securing villages on the southward push and areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut, taken by Russian forces in May after months of battles. Ukrainian officials have reported slow, steady progress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged intensified Ukrainian attacks over the last few days, but said they had made no headway. He told Russian television that every Ukrainian assault had been beaten back, and that Moscow's forces had inflicted significant losses on their opponents.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Ukraine had deployed additional Western-trained troops to at least one axis in the counteroffensive, but had held back some. Media reports spoke of a new phase in the drive.

A video posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Telegram channel showed Ukrainian soldiers celebrating the capture of Staromaiorske in the southeast.

"The 35th brigade and the 'Ariy' territorial defence unit have fulfilled their task and liberated the village of Staromaiorske. Glory to Ukraine!" said a soldier in the video that Reuters was unable to immediately geolocate.

The village lies to the south of a cluster of small settlements that Ukraine recaptured along the Mokri Yaly River as the counteroffensive began.

"Our defenders are now continuing to clear the settlement," said Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar declaring Staromaiorske liberated.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

Zelenskiy has said that the counteroffensive is proceeding more slowly than he would like but warned people not to expect rapid results akin to a movie scene.

Zelenskiy on Wednesday had obliquely hailed "very good results" on the battlefield, while giving no details.

PRESIDENT TOURS EAST, SOUTH

On Thursday, he toured southern and eastern regions, including the major city of Dnipro and the port of Odesa, where he discussed damage to port facilities from Russian air strikes, and the town of Ochakiv, subject to frequent Russian shelling.

In his nightly video address, he said little about the front, other than praising the recapture of Staromaiorske.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko said the new focus of Ukrainian efforts on the southward drive was Staromlynivka, a village less than 5 km (three miles) away.

"It really serves as a stronghold for the Russian occupiers, the peak of the second defensive line in this location," he said in an interview with the RBC UA media outlet.

The drive southward is aimed at severing the land bridge Russian forces have created linking areas occupied in the east in the 17-month-old invasion and Crimea - annexed in 2014.

Despite gains achieved by Ukrainian troops, mostly in the northeast and far south late last year, Russia still holds about 20 percent of Ukraine's land.

On Wednesday, three different media outlets cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying Ukraine had launched a new phase of its ambitious counteroffensive.

Asked about these reports, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister, told Reuters that "there is nothing new" happening at front lines. "In the south, we are moving forward slowly but surely," he said.

In the east, Russia's defence ministry said Russian forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks around the village of Klishchiivka, which occupies elevated ground near Bakhmut, and north of Robotyne on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.

In her account, deputy minister Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were "gradually moving forward" near Bakhmut, and that fighting was continuing near Klishchiivka and two other villages.

Maliar also said Ukraine had beaten back Russian attacks on two northern fronts near Kupiansk and Lyman.

** Western tanks get pummelled on Ukraine front line

The general in charge of Ukraine's stuttering offensive in the south says Russia has created multi-layered minefields and fortified defensive lines which were making it difficult for military equipment, including tanks and armoured vehicles supplied by the West, to move forward.

"That is why most of the tasks have to be performed by troops," Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi tells the BBC.

He says Russia's military has displayed "professional qualities" by preventing Ukrainian forces from "advancing quickly".

"I don't underestimate the enemy," he adds.

So far there's little evidence that Western supplied tanks and armoured vehicles have been able to tip the balance in Ukraine's favour.

Several Leopard tanks and US Bradley fighting vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the first days of the offensive, near the city of Orikhiv.

Ukraine's 47th Brigade, which had largely been trained and equipped by the West to try to break through Russian lines, were soon stopped in their tracks by mines and then targeted by artillery.

Russia released multiple videos of the incident claiming Ukraine's offensive had already failed. In reality it was an early setback rather than a decisive blow.

We visited the same brigade's outdoor workshop, hidden in a forest behind the front line, where they are now trying to repair more than a dozen armoured vehicles - most of them US Bradleys.

They first arrived unscathed but now bear the scars of battle. Broken tracks and buckled wheels - the tell-tale signs that several have hit Russian mines.

Serhii, one of the engineers, says: "The faster we can repair them, the faster we can get them back to the front line to save someone's life."

But he also admits that some are beyond repair and will have to be either scavenged for spare parts or "returned to our partners" to be rebuilt.

While Western armour has provided Ukrainian troops with better protection, it has not been able to punch through the rows of Russian mines - one of the biggest barriers for Ukraine's advance.

Travelling the southern front we also saw British supplied Mastiff armoured vehicles damaged and destroyed.

The 47th Brigade is now using some of its older, Soviet-era tanks to clear minefields. But they too can't escape the explosives hidden in the ground, even when fitted with specialist mine-clearing equipment.

Nearer the front line, tank commander Maksym showed us his recently-damaged T-64 tank. It's been fitted with two rollers on the front to deliberately set off the mines. He lost one of the rollers the night before as he was trying to clear a path for troops.

"Normally our rollers can withstand up to four explosions," he says. But the Russians, he adds, have been laying mines on top of each other to destroy their mine clearing equipment.

"It's very hard because there are too many mines," Maksym says, adding that there were often more than four rows of minefields in front of the Russian defensive lines.

It's been painful to watch the battle unfold for Doc and his drone reconnaissance team from Ukraine's Volunteer Army.

Doc, his call sign, took part in last year's successful offensive on Kherson. But he says this time it's proving to be much tougher. For the first time in the war, he says, soldiers are being injured by mines more than artillery: "When we go forward we meet minefields everywhere."

Doc shows me a video he recently filmed from one of his drones while Ukrainian troops advanced towards a Russian trench.

There's a massive explosion as soon as the soldiers enter. The trench was empty but rigged with mines. Doc says Russian forces are now using remotely controlled mines. "When our soldiers get to the trenches they push a button and it blows up, killing our friends." He says he's seen the tactic being used over the past two weeks and calls it "a new weapon".

There is a military logic to Ukraine's offensive in the south. It's seen as key to dividing Russian forces and reaching the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol - all the way to Crimea. But the focus on this axis means that Ukraine is also now attacking Russian defensive lines where they're strongest.

Gen Tarnavsky says his forces are doing "hard and painstaking work". He says "any defence can be broken but you need patience, time and skilful actions".

He also believes that Ukraine is slowly wearing down their enemy. Russia, he says, doesn't care about losing men, and recent changes in their military leadership "means everything is not OK". He insists that Ukraine has yet to commit its main strike force.

"Slow or not, the offensive is taking place and it will definitely reach its goal," he says.

I ask Gen Tarnavsky how we can judge whether it's a success or a failure?

He smiles and replies: "If the offensive were not successful, I wouldn't be talking to you now."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia announces major airstrikes on key targets in Ukraine

Moscow has launched fresh long-range strikes against Ukraine’s military infrastructure, targeting weaponry stockpiles, ammo and fuel depots, as well as several airfields, the Russian Defense Ministry announced in its daily briefing on Thursday.

The strikes, conducted over the past 24-hours, involved “long-range, air- and sea-based high-precision weapons,” the military said, without elaborating. The strikes targeted “command and control” centers of the Ukrainian military, as well as multiple rear repair bases, storage sites and airfields, it added. The targeted storage facilities were used to stash “water drones, as well as missiles, weaponry and military equipment received from European countries and the US,” according to the ministry. All designated targets were successfully hit, the military stated.

Unverified footage circulating online showed multiple cruise missiles flying over western Ukraine. While Kiev routinely claims destruction of most incoming projectiles, President Vladimir Zelensky in this instance has made a rare admission, stating that “several hits” had been registered. He didn’t specify exactly which installations have been affected by the attack.

The strikes also affected multiple fuel depots, including an aviation-fuel storage facility in Ukraine’s western region of Khmelnitsky, as well as a major fuel and ammo stockpile in Zaporozhye Region, which has seen a sharp uptick in fighting over the past day.

Russian troops have repelled a major attack in the area, inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian forces. According to the country’s military, Kiev’s troops lost more than 280 personnel, at least 25 tanks and ten infantry fighting vehicles during the battle.

Over the past week, the Russian military has ramped up long-range missile and suicide drone strikes against Ukraine, repeatedly targeting port infrastructure in the country’s south, as well as military installations in its west. The strikes come in the aftermath of a recent Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge.

The facility was targeted by two sea drones, which inflicted considerable damage to the road section of the bridge and killed two Russian civilians, a couple whose now-orphaned 14-year-old daughter was seriously wounded in the attack.

** US to begin delivering Abrams tanks to Ukraine in September — Politico

The US administration is poised to begin delivering US-made Abrams tanks to Ukraine in September, the Politico newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper’s sources, several tanks will be sent to Germany for modernization in August.

"The plan is to send a handful of Abrams tanks to Germany in August, where they will undergo final refurbishments. Once that process is complete, the first batch of Abrams will be shipped to Ukraine the following month," Politico quoted anonymous sources as saying.

The US is sending older M1A1 models instead of the more modern A2 version, which would have taken a year to get to Ukraine, the newspaper said.

"The initial batch will involve six to eight tanks," an unnamed industry official was quoted as saying.

According to the report, the older vehicles "are being stripped of their most sensitive technology, including in some cases secret depleted uranium armor, before they can be sent to Ukraine."

The Ukrainian military may start using the tanks after undergoing a 10-week training course. They are expected to complete their training in August.

"We’re definitely working to get them to Ukraine as fast as we can," the newspaper quoted Pentagon spokesperson Col. Martin O’Donnell as saying.

The official, however, declined to discuss specifics on the timeline.

Reuters/BBC/RT/Tass