Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s troops last no more than 30 minutes on battlefield, says CIA chief

Ukraine’s foreign ministry has rejected Russia’s accusations over an attack that killed the chief engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“No independent ​confirmation of ⁠the ‌Russian version or evidence of Ukraine’s involvement ‌has been ‌presented, and information from Russian ⁠occupation authorities cannot be considered reliable,” the ministry said on Telegram.

It added that Russia ‌was trying ​to use ‌accusations ⁠to intimidate the ⁠international community with ‌the ​threat of ‌a nuclear incident.

The attack killed an engineer at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.

President Volodymyr Zelensky moved to extinguish a political crisis sparked by his dismissal of a reformist defence minister, tapping a security official who has overseen Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russia for the post.

In a statement, Zelensky said he was appointing Yevhenii Khmara, acting head of Ukraine’s SBU domestic security service, as acting defence minister and would ask parliament to approve him permanently for the post.

“Yevhenii Khmara has gained extensive and, in many respects, unprecedented experience with technological combat operations,” he wrote on X.

“This is exactly where our defence efforts should be focused during this war.”

Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure and defence industry have ​helped ⁠weaken Moscow’s war machine in recent months, boosting Ukrainian morale at a critical moment in the more than four-year war.

Russian soldiers fighting against Ukraine have an average life expectancy of 20 to 30 minutes on the battlefield, the Central Intelligence Agency chief John Ratcliffe said.

Speaking at a defence and innovation summit in Pennsylvania, the CIA director said: “What I would say is, our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine. So the average life expectancy of a Russian recruit, right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.”

He attributed the higher attrition rate to AI-powered drones, calling them “specialised, low-cost killing machines”.

“And it’s why we’re now four and a half years into that conflict,” he said.

Serhii Koretskyi has been named as the incoming new prime minister by the Ukraine government to lead the war-hit nation.

The state-energy company chief, who will be replacing the outgoing Yulia Svyrydenko, is an unusual choice to lead the government.

An engineer and economist by training, Koretskyi, 48, has not held a government role before and ​has no ties to any political party, which analysts say ​could play to his advantage.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has tasked him with steering the country through what officials expect could be the hardest winter of the war due Russian attacks. He is Ukraine’s third prime minister since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta ⁠think tank, has said that his combination of being known as ​a good manager but being politically neutral gives him an edge.

Koretskyi is a widely respected senior energy executive with more than 20 years of experience in oil production and refining, energy retail, wholesale management, ​and international financing.

The ⁠Russian defence ⁠ministry said ​on ⁠Friday ⁠that ​its ⁠forces ‌had struck ‌Ukrainian port facilities ‌overnight ⁠in Odesa and Chornomorsk.

Details of the attack are not immediately available. Officials in the Ukrainian port regions under attack are yet to share the extent of damage.

Russia and Ukraine have carried out a swap of the remains of killed soldiers, Russian state media reported, with Moscow receiving 31 bodies in return for those of 501 Ukrainians.

The two ⁠countries have regularly carried out such exchanges throughout the war, which ‌is now ​approaching ‌the ⁠four and a half year mark.

Bodies come directly from the battlefield and through repatriation from the Russians. Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has repatriated 25,306 bodies, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Russia hit Ukrainian ports 23 times and carried out 17 strikes on civilian vessels in the first two weeks of July, Ukraine’s seaports authority said on Thursday.

The strikes ‌have led to ⁠a partial halt in grain shipments and an almost complete suspension ‌of grain ​purchases ‌at port terminals, ⁠traders ⁠and analysts say.

Ukraine’s parliament approved top energy executive Sergii ​Koretskyi as the country’s new prime minister, the third wartime head of the government appointed in a wider reshuffle announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Koretskyi is a ‌widely respected senior energy executive with more than 20 years of experience in oil production and refining, energy retail, wholesale management, ‌and international financing.

Since May 2025, he has ‌been CEO of one of Ukraine’s biggest state companies, Naftogaz, the oil and gas giant, which runs much of Ukraine’s gas production, imports and ⁠supply.

Prior to that, he headed Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest oil company and a part of Naftogaz group.

Before moving to the state-owned energy companies, he headed the Western Oil Group, and served as CEO of the Continuum Group and one of the biggest filling station chains in Ukraine, WOG.

Born in Ukraine’s western ‌city of Lutsk, Koretskyi had also founded a coffee ​chain business.