Ukrainian forces appear to be continuing speedy advance in Kharkiv region as ‘fierce battles’ rage

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

Moscow is sending columns of military reinforcements to Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to reports in Russian media, after the first major Ukrainian counterattack since spring made big territorial gains this week.

Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian forces out of a number of settlements in the region that Moscow occupied since the first days of its invasion, and on Friday Ukraine’s army appeared to be continuing its speedy advance.

Ukraine’s state energy operator: ‘There are risks of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances’

A US citizen has recently died in Ukraine, according to a state department spokesperson.

Officials are in touch with the family and are providing consular assistance, they added.

We also once again reiterate US citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of US citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials, and that US citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately if it is safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available ground transportation options.

On August 26, Russians killed two civilians in Donetsk region – in Bakhmut. Twelve people were injured.

The military strategy expert and author of a new book on conflict says the flawed thinking behind Russia’s invasion stems from the inability of those at the top to take responsibility for mistakes

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Russia’s war against Ukraine has been hampered by failings experienced by autocratic states during conflict, according to a far-reaching new study of command in war by one of the UK’s most prominent academics in the field.

Command, a wide-ranging analysis of post-second world war conflicts by the leading strategic studies expert Lawrence Freedman, examines a series of well-known conflicts, from the Cuban missile crisis to the French defeat at the hands of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, through to the Falklands war and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, up to the present war in Ukraine.

UK Ministry of Defence say ‘increasingly frequent’ attacks behind the frontline are also affecting air basing

• Ukraine launches fresh strike on Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters
• Macron calls Putin over fears Russia is weaponising captured nuclear plant
• What we know on day 178 of the invasion

In case you missed it last night, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, gave a video address to the nation, vowing that every Russian strike on the country would be answered.

Zelenskyy said: All those who experience this constant horror of the destruction of life and the destruction of everything that gives life normality. We will not leave any of these strikes unanswered. We will establish the identity of every occupier who gives orders and executes these strikes at cities. And we will bring them all to justice in one way or another. No murderer will hide.