Western hopes for Ukraine’s counteroffensive to achieve a dramatic breakthrough have been significantly pared back, with US officials now reportedly forecasting that Kyiv will fall short of its key aim of severing Russia’s land bridge with occupied Crimea.

One of the significant challenges confounding Kyiv’s efforts to redraw the frontline is the millions of mines Russia has laid in their path, to the extent that Ukraine is now being described as the most heavily mined country in the world.

“What we are seeing is an industrial level of mine-laying, particularly anti-tank mines,” said Paul McCann, of the Halo Trust, the world’s largest humanitarian landmine clearance organisation. “Nothing like it [has been] seen in Europe since the Second World War.”

Russia said it shot down a Ukrainian drone flying towards Moscow in the early hours of Monday in an incident that once again briefly disrupted flights over the capital.

Authorities have reported more than a dozen attempted drone attacks on Moscow within the past month, a number of which have forced temporary airport closures.

The drones appear to be probing Moscow’s air defences from different angles, with Monday’s brought down in the Lyubertsy region to the southeast of the capital, according to the defence ministry.

State aviation agency Rosaviatsia said three airports temporarily restricted flights but later returned to normal operation.

Moscow reported the first drone attacks on the capital in early May, when two were fired at the Kremlin without causing damage. Since then they have become a frequent occurrence.

Most have been intercepted by Russian air defences, but several have hit buildings in a business district of the capital.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has said that the south-eastern village of Robotyne has been liberated.

Kyiv’s troops are trying to advance further after the victory, which commanders had previously said could unlock Russia’s defences.

Since launching their counteroffensive in June, Ukraine have been pushing for a significant breakthrough.

The village of Robotyne is considered an important objective as it situated on the road to Tokmak, which defends the road towards Melitopol, the biggest city in the area.

Russia has likely cancelled joint military exercises dubbed Zapad (‘West’) that were due to start imminently, amid a lack of troops and equipment.

The planned “joint strategic exercise” was a major annual event intended to be the culmination of the military’s training year.

“The Russian military’s under-performance in Ukraine has highlighted how JSEs have had limited training value and have largely been for show. Russia has likely cancelled Zapad 23 because too few troops and equipment are available,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.

It added that there is a “realistic possibility that the Russian leadership is also sensitive to domestic criticism liable from running another slickly presented JSE during wartime”.

“From 2010 Russia ran a four-year cycle, rotating JSEs around the country. However, since 2021, Russia has based the JSE in western Russia at least every second year as it prioritises confronting what it perceives as the threat from Nato. This follows ZAPAD 21, the largest Russian exercise since Soviet times,” the ministry said today.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he fears Ukraine would be abandoned by its allies in the West and elsewhere if Kyiv expanded its ground operations into Russian territory.

“I believe that this is a big risk, we will definitely be left alone,” the war-time president said in an interview with national media, on being asked if it was time to attack Russia on its own soil.

Ukraine has yet to launch any ground assaults on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula, but drone attacks on Russian provinces have grown in recent weeks, forcing Moscow to shut its airspace on several occasions, and pro-Ukraine saboteurs have claimed success in operations within Russia.

While Ukraine has never come forward to take responsibility for attacks on Russian or Russia-occupied territory, its leaders – including Mr Zelensky – have expressed satisfaction with the results and declined to deny Ukrainian involvement.

In response to news of the crash of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private plane near Moscow, our international editor Chris Stevenson gave his take in this Independent Voices article:

“It is not surprising that Russian authorities have declared Yevgeny Prigozhin dead. Given the attempted mutiny he led with the Wagner mercenary group against Moscow, the assumption was that he may not be long for this world.

“When it comes to the iron-grip President Vladimir Putin has on his nation – if you come for the king, as the adage goes, you best not miss.

“But as the speculation swirls about the end of Prigozhin and the embarrassment that Putin could not let stand, it can be easy to brush past the terrible things Progozhin’s mercenaries are believed to have done. Let’s get this straight, Prigozhin deserved the end that all signs point to him having met.”

A vessel carrying steel products to Africa has left Ukraine’s Odesa port through a temporary Black Sea corridor, a senior Ukrainian government official said.

The ship, en route to Africa, is the second such to do so since Russia withdrew last month from a UN-brokered deal that allowed for grain to be safely exported.

Deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the Liberian-flagged ship PRIMUS had begun sailing through a temporary corridor set up for civilian vessels, confirming a report on Saturday by a Ukrainian lawmaker.

“The 2nd vessel blocked due to the war has left the port of Odesa and is now sailing through a temporary corridor,” Mr Kubrakov posted on the social media platform X, formerly called Twitter.

Mr Kubrakov said the ship had been at the port since February last year, just four days before Russia’s invasion, and was carrying steel products to Africa.

Local reports from inside Crimea indicate increasing dissatisfaction with the Russian military’s efforts to forcibly mobilise the population of the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014.

A closed survey of locals by Russian-backed authorities sought people’s opinions on the military draft in which the results show “an extremely negative attitude” towards conscription, reported Ukraine’s National Resistance Centre in the region.

The movement by Kyiv’s Special Operations Forces is aimed against the occupation of Ukraine.

The survey results, according to the resistance centre, motivated occupation authorities to offer conscripts additional benefits, but these bonuses were unlikely to sway the public mood, the report added.