Ukraine’s military has “good news” in the eastern front of the battlefield where heavy fighting is underway to regain ground, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said, saying Kyiv’s forces were making gains near Bakhmut. “We are moving forward in the Bakhmut direction. The main battles continue in the districts of Andriivka, Kurdyumivka, Klishchiivka. And we have good news there – Andriivka. The situation is very complex and changeable, we keep our fingers crossed,” the deputy defence minister said in her official Telegram channel on Thursday evening. Initially, the minister claimed Ukrainian forces had retaken Andriivka village, which falls south of Bakhmut, but the country’s Third Assault Brigade fighting in the region said the report was “premature”. “Currently, serious and heavy fighting continues in the districts of Klishchiivka and Andriivka,” the brigade from Ukraine’s ground forces handling military operations on the eastern front said. Ms Maliar also said Vladimir Putin’s troops had sustained “significant losses” in attacks on key towns as Ukrainian forces are bolstering their efforts to capture clusters of villages in a drive towards the Sea of Azov. The Russian casualties had “significantly reduced their ability to defend themselves”, she said. Senior military officials said heavy casualties have been inflicted on Russian forces on the southern front, with over 600 deaths of Russian soldiers. “The enemy, as a result of attempts to recapture at least some of the lost positions in the Tavria (south) direction in the last two days has lost 15 tanks and 12 armoured vehicles,” Oleksander Shtupun, spokesperson for troops on the southern front, said on national television. Russian personnel losses stand at 665 over two days, he said. As part of a critical component of Ukraine’s four-month-old counteroffensive, the country’s forces are pushing southward with the aim to split a land bridge created by Russian forces between the Crimean peninsula and the areas Ukraine holds in the east. Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces repelled eight attacks in the east in the hotly contested areas south of Bakhmut. Ukraine’s military confirmed attacks on two Russian patrol ships early on Thursday and said it destroyed a sophisticated air defence system in the west of occupied Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelensky marked a direct and rare celebration of the attacks on the Russian navy in his nightly address. “The entire staff of the Security Service of Ukraine and our Navy should be specially commended for this. I thank you for today’s triumph – the destruction of the occupiers’ air defence system on the land of our Crimea. It is a very significant achievement, well done! Glory to all who fight for Ukraine! And thank you to everyone who helps!” he said in his nightly address. The war-hit nation has been pushing back in the southern region and making increasing missile hits on the Crimean peninsula this week to challenge Mr Putin’s control in the Black Sea region. On Wednesday, Kyiv said it seriously damaged a Russian submarine and landing ship undergoing repairs in a missile strike on a shipyard in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Read More Zelenskyy is expected to visit Capitol Hill as Congress is debating $21 billion in aid for Ukraine Ukraine-Russia war – live: Kyiv is pushing Putin forces back, UK’s most senior military officer says With Russia isolated on the world stage, Putin turns to old friend North Korea for help Kim Jong-un tests out Putin’s limousine during historic meeting Why support for Ukraine is in danger of splitting the EU

It’s been more than two decades since a state governor was elected to the White House, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the 2024 presidential race. Six current or former governors have entered the 2024 GOP primary so far. But no statehouse rivalry is more pronounced in US politics than the one between Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, and his Democratic counterpart from California, governor Gavin Newsom. The two, both seen as serious presidential prospects, if not now then someday, have been trading barbs for years, and things have only heated up as a presidential election season approaches. Most recently, Mr Newsom lashed out at Mr DeSantis this, calling him a “small, pathetic man,” after Florida officials facilitated a large group of South American migrants being dropped off without warning at a Sacramento church, a repeat of the Florida governor’s highly controversial move to do the same in Martha’s Vineyard last year. The California governor said Florida officials could face kidnapping charges. It’s far from the first time the two men – each the leader of a large, economically important state, whose policies typify each party – have locked horns. Their battles have much to say about where each party is going, and the political fate of these two men could suggest which vision of politics and leadership the American people want more. In March, during a visit to California to speak at the Reagan Presidential Library, the Florida Republican blasted Mr Newsom for following the advice of public health experts at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing him of “subcontract[ing] ... leadership to health bureaucrats,” and claimed that Californians were flocking to Florida. “When the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people throughout the United States and indeed, throughout the world. We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed, and their livelihoods were destroyed. We made sure people had a right to work and we got people back to work and businesses back open,” he said. The Florida governor also said the Californian’s leadership showed how Democrats “coddle the criminals and put the rights of the criminals over the safety of the public and the rights of victims.” Mr Newsom, for his part, has made a point of showing how on issues like Covid and gun crime, California is empirically a safer place to be. "Just look at the data – California residents are safer, healthier and more prosperous than those unfortunate enough to have you as their Governor," Mr Newsom told CBS News during the Florida governor’s visit. "Oh by the way, you’re going to get smoked by Trump." Mr Newsom has made his own high-profile incursions into his rival’s state, including donating thousands to Mr DeSantis’s rivals. In April, the California Democrat met with students of Florida’s New College, a public liberal arts college that has recently become a target in Mr DeSantis’s wide-ranging campaign to bend Florida’s education system in a hyper-conservative direction by limiting access to materials concerning gender and sexuality, as well as the history of racism. “I can’t believe what you’re dealing with. It’s just an unbelievable assault,” Mr Newsom said at an appearance at a library near campus. “It’s common with everything he’s doing, bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities. Weakness, Ron DeSantis, weakness masquerading as strength across the board.” Last summer, Mr Newsom had an even bigger provocation for Mr DeSantis, using extra campaign cash to release a 30-second ad in Florida urging residents of the Sunshine State to move to California. "Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” the spot claimed. “Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors," the governor said in a voiceover narration accompanying images of Mr DeSantis and former president Donald Trump. Indeed, the two states couldn’t be more different across a variety of areas, with Florida all but banning abortion, while California ceased doing business with Walgreens because the company wouldn’t sell abortion pills. In addition to a debate over their state’s respective policies, it seems a deep dislike of the other man has fueled the back-and-forth, with the Florida governor painting Mr Newsom as an out-of-touch hypocrite, while the California leader accuses the Republican of being a spiteful bigot and a “bully.” “As he was locking down his citizens, he would then go and have these extravagant dinners at the French Laundry to basically rub his citizens’ noses in the fact that he was treating them like peasants. You know in Florida we weren’t locking them down, we lifted our people up. We made sure to protect individuals’ freedoms,” Mr DeSantis said in July. That same summer, Mr Newsom flatly told an interviewer, “I don’t like DeSantis, the way he talked about Fauci,” after the Florida governor joked about throwing “that little elf” Dr Anthony Fauci into the Potomac River. “My entire life, I don’t like bullies…That’s being celebrated in American politics. DeSantis is the worst of it.” Things escalated further in September, with Mr Newsom challenging the Florida governor to a televised debate, further cementing an idea at the time that the men were running a kind of unofficial presidential campaign against each other, even though at that time Mr DeSantis hadn’t yet declared, and even though Mr Newsom would eventually endorse Joe Biden and formally swear off a primary challenge. The rivalry has extended outside of the presidential contest to the world of business. In May, the Walt Disney Company announced it was pulling out of a planned $1bn development in Florida, keeping thousands of jobs in California, as the Magic Kingdom feuded with Mr DeSantis over the state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law and its decision to dissolve Disney’s special municipal district privileges in the state. But a political face-off between the two doesn’t seem too far away, and any contest would likely be even more intense than the shadow campaign the men have been running against each other for the previous two years. Mr Newsom has admitted a kind of grudging respect for Republicans like Mr DeSantis, who he feels have successfully convinced the country to go along with their vision on culture war issues. The California governor has argued Democrats have a serious “messaging problem.” “We allow these culture wars to take shape, and we are constantly on the back end,” Mr Newsom said. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a presidential run from Newsom, whose term ends in 2027, a “no-brainer.” With Mr DeSantis badly trailing Donald Trump in the polls, it seems a Newsom-DeSantis election may not be happening just yet, but may not be too far away in the future. Read More DeSantis news – latest: Texas sheriff backs Newsom and also recommends criminal charges over migrant flights Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights Ron DeSantis called out for ‘ignoring’ Hollywood beach shooting: ‘He doesn’t care’

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Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said on Friday that Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged are not true. “All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” Mr DeSantis told The New York Times during a campaign stop in Iowa. “It was not an election that was conducted the way I think that we want to, but that’s different than saying Maduro stole votes or something like that,” he added. “Those theories, you know, proved to be unsubstantiated.” Mr DeSantis, seen as the former president’s chief rival in the Republican primary, has in the past largely avoided direct criticisms of Mr Trump’s repeatedly disproven election claims. “We must reject the culture of losing that has impacted our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over,” Mr DeSantis said in a speech earlier this yer, before he formally announced his presidential campaign. “If we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again.” The former president’s repeated falsehoods are back in the spotlight, after Mr Trump was indicted this week for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the presidential election results. “The attack on our nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith said on Tuesday, announcing the charges. “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US government – the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.” This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information. Read More College Board shelves AP psychology class in Florida over guidance on gender content Chris Christie meets Volodymyr Zelensky in surprise Ukraine visit NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week

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