The Russian armed forces have captured the settlement of Belitskoye in the Donetsk region and pounded Ukrainian military ports over the past 24 hours, while the Ukrainian army claimed to have repelled Russian attacks in multiple directions and struck several Russian targets during the same period.
In its daily operational briefing on Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said its forces now have full control of the Belitskoye settlement. Over the past day, the Russian army dispatched aviation, drone, as well as missile and artillery troops to strike Ukrainian facilities producing and storing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fuel and energy infrastructure, and troop deployment points, among other targets.
The Russian forces conducted group strikes on Ukrainian port facilities in Odesa, hitting infrastructure used for unloading and storing military cargo as well as fuel and lubricant storage tanks, according to the ministry.
The Russian air defense systems also intercepted multiple guided bombs and U.S.-made rockets, and shot down 480 Ukrainian drones over the course of the day, the ministry added. In its own release on the latest development on the battleground, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported 261 clashes along the front lines in the previous 24 hours, adding that the army repelled Russian attacks in multiple directions while striking multiple Russian troop concentration areas and key military targets.
The Ukrainian Air Force also said that the Russian army launched missile and drone attacks involving over 100 UAVs, with most incoming threats intercepted by its air defense systems, according to the release.
In another development, Russia's top diplomat delivered a pointed message directly to the United States, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in the Philippines on Thursday.
During the meeting, Lavrov told Rubio that continued Western arms supplies to Ukraine were "unacceptable" to Moscow, according to a press release of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's readiness for a political and diplomatic settlement in Ukraine, the release said.
Russia claims strikes on Ukrainian ports, Ukraine says it repelled Russian attacks
The China Public Relations Association on Thursday hosted an event in Beijing where experts shared insights into the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and discussed its contributions to the development of China and the wider world.
Thursday marks the 105th anniversary of the First National Congress of the CPC, the meeting that officially marked the Party's founding.
On that date in 1921, thirteen delegates, including Mao Zedong and Dong Biwu, attended the congress in Shanghai.
How China achieved success in its poverty alleviation campaign was a topic of widespread interest among Chinese and foreign journalists at the event.
An expert from the Party School of the CPC Central Committee said that the success of the campaign was due to the country's unique institutional strengths.
The country dispatched a total of 255,000 village-based work teams and more than 3 million officials nationwide to work on the front lines of poverty reduction.
At the same time, the central government formulated a series of scientific and well targeted poverty elimination policies.
''By adhering to the development-oriented poverty alleviation policy and taking development as the fundamental solution to poverty, we have worked on improving the conditions for development and achieved a shift in poverty reduction from the model mainly relying on external support to a self-sustaining model. Another example is that our central, provincial, municipal, and county governments have cumulatively allocated nearly 1.6 trillion yuan (nearly 236.5 billion U.S. dollars) in special fiscal funds for poverty alleviation, while coordinating and comprehensively utilizing fiscal funds related to agriculture to ensure that resources are directed where they are most needed,'' said Zheng Huan, a professor of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.
Wang Yi, deputy director with the Department of CPC History of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said China's development philosophy aligns with the broad needs of the international community.
"China's people-centered development philosophy, the idea that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, the community with a shared future for mankind, and the four global initiatives, these are all concepts that promote goodness and progress. I think they can resonate with anyone, as there is no one who could not be drawn to such a beautiful vision," she said at the event.
Event held in Beijing to discuss history, global contributions of CPC
