Watch: BBC follows Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi pushing Russia back on frontline To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: BBC follows Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi pushing Russia back on frontline Close Deep inside an underground bunker in eastern Ukraine, commanders monitor the battlefield through a live video feed as a Ukrainian drone intercepts a Russian surveillance drone. The footage shows the Ukrainian drone hovering above its target, before dropping a net and dragging it from the sky. The interception is part of Operation Vivaldi, a Ukrainian counter-offensive that Kyiv says has recaptured 277 sq km (106 square miles) of territory in the eastern Donbas region in recent months. But Ukraine says new restrictions on Starshield, the military version of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network, are threatening its drone operations.

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, Watch: BBC follows Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi pushing Russia back on frontline Cigarette in one hand, radio in the other, one of them calls in their own drone to bring it down and warns the soldiers below of the threat. The men are dangerously exposed, on the long walk across open ground from their front line positions. They are being replaced after three months forcing the Russians back. This is part of Operation Vivaldi, a Ukrainian counter-offensive which they say has liberated 277 sq km (106 square miles) in the eastern Donbas region in recent months.

Ukrainian forces said its battlefield efforts were temporarily hampered after losing some access to SpaceX’s military-grade satellite Internet service. Experts tell TIME why Starshield is so uniquely important on the Ukrainian battlefield.

A Ukrainian serviceman prepares a Starlink satellite internet systems near the front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine, in 2024. WASHINGTON - Ukraine said on Wednesday that Elon Musk's SpaceX had restricted "military-grade" Starlink services, hampering Ukrainian drone strike missions and air defenses. The complaint has drawn renewed attention to the distinction between Starlink, SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service, and Starshield, a military version developed for the Pentagon. While Musk has said the two systems are separate, in many cases they share the same underlying satellite technology. "Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the U.S. government," Musk said on Wednesday in a post on social media platform X, adding that any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military or the U.S. president.

Zelenskyy accuses U.S. of inaction as Russian strikes kill over 70 in two days One of the two passenger buses struck by projectiles in Kramatorsk, near the front line in eastern Ukraine, on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the U.S. of being unwilling to help Ukraine after a Russian bomb attack on Thursday killed at least 35 people in the east, sending the two-day death toll from Russian strikes to over 70. Hours after the strike on the embattled city of Kramatorsk tore through two buses, Zelenskyy criticized Washington's effort to pursue economic ties with Russia while also seeking to mediate the more than four-year war. City authorities reported a new drone attack in the evening that killed two people. That brought to 35 the total death toll in the city. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Is the war entering a new phase? More killed in Kramatorsk as Russia targets Ukraine's transportation system Share'New tactic': Russia expands deadly attacks on Ukraine's transport system on social media Russian glide bomb hits buses in Ukraine's Kramatorsk, killing at least 30 A Russian glide bomb struck two passenger buses in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk on Thursday morning, killing at least 30 people and wounding 18, regional authorities said. Ukrainian officials said the attack was deliberate. When dropped from planes on the Russian side of the front line, such bombs can glide to fixed coordinates on the ground, in this case, a street in the town that lies about 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) from the front line. "For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target precisely because a single strike can kill the maximum number of people."

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia's drones threaten Kyiv-bound Western officials as war effort stalls Share Russia's drones threaten Kyiv-bound Western officials as war effort stalls on social media Russia has threatened the safety of Ukrainian, American and European officials travelling to and from Kyiv using drones. These attacks have come as Russia's ground war stumbles. On September 13, Russian drones struck a Ukrainian train locomotive 5km (3 miles) from the border with Poland, endangering European officials travelling to Warsaw after they attended the Yalta European Strategy conference, an annual gathering of global political, business and civil society leaders in Kyiv. Boris Johnson, Britain's former premier, and European political and security officials were on the train.

Russia's State Duma elections will be held in occupied territories of Ukraine including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia without OSCE election observers.

NATO scrambled two Italian Eurofighter Typhoons to shoot down a drone over Lithuania that officials say likely entered from Belarus, marking a first for the Baltic nation.

Ukrainian officials say four people were killed and 60 wounded when a Russian drone attacked a shopping mall in Pavlohrad, a city in Dnipropetrovsk region. Shops and vehicles were hit in the daylight attack which took place when the streets were full of people, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said. Two other shopping malls - in the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Sumy - were targeted by Russian air strikes earlier this week, according to Ukrainian media. Russia reported a Ukrainian seaborne drone attack on the resort city of Sochi overnight on Wednesday, in which 28 people were wounded, as well as three more deaths blamed on Ukrainian attacks. A full-scale war has been raging between Russia and Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion more than four and a half years ago.