Ukraine Says it Sank Russian Submarine, Hit Airfield, Oil Depots

Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov meets with service members who, according to the Defense Ministry, participated in taking Avdiivka, at a Russian military command center in a location given as Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from video released February 21, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov meets with service members who, according to the Defense Ministry, participated in taking Avdiivka, at a Russian military command center in a location given as Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from video released February 21, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
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Ukraine Says it Sank Russian Submarine, Hit Airfield, Oil Depots

Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov meets with service members who, according to the Defense Ministry, participated in taking Avdiivka, at a Russian military command center in a location given as Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from video released February 21, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov meets with service members who, according to the Defense Ministry, participated in taking Avdiivka, at a Russian military command center in a location given as Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from video released February 21, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

Ukraine's military said on Saturday it had sunk a submarine in Russian-controlled Sevastopol, attacked a southern Russian airfield and hit oil depots and fuel and lubricant storage facilities in Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions.

"A Russian submarine went to the bottom of the Black Sea," the defense ministry said in a post on X, naming the vessel as the B-237 Rostov-on-Don attack submarine, Reuters reported.

The military's general staff said the attack on Sevastopol port also significantly damaged four launchers of the S-400 anti-aircraft "Triumf" defense system.

There was no immediate comment by Russia on the Sevastopol attack.

In other, overnight attacks, the military said it hit an ammunition depot at Morozovsk airfield where Russian forces stored guided aerial bombs among other equipment and a number of oil depots and fuel storage facilities.

"Russian combat aviation must be destroyed wherever it is, by all effective means. It is also quite fair to strike at Russian airfields. And we need this joint solution with our partners - a security solution," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian president has repeatedly called on his Western allies for permission to use their weapons for long-range attacks on Russia, in addition to striking military targets close to the border.

He said on Saturday that Russian forces had used over 600 guided aerial bombs to attack Ukraine in the past week.

The attack on oil depots and fuel and lubricant storage facilities in Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions set fire to at least two oil tanks, according to the Ukrainian military report.

In Russia, local officials reported that tanks at a fuel storage depot in the Kamensky district of Rostov region caught fire as a result of a drone attack.

The regional governor of Belgorod also said Ukraine-launched drones caused a fire at an oil storage depot there, adding that the fire was extinguished and no one was injured.

Ukraine has dramatically stepped up its use of long-range drones this year to attack Russian oil facilities, attempting to damage sites fueling Russian forces and the country's economy in Moscow's 29-month-old invasion.



Trump Says He'll Skip an ABC Debate with Harris in September, Seeks Them to Face Off on Fox News

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
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Trump Says He'll Skip an ABC Debate with Harris in September, Seeks Them to Face Off on Fox News

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)

Donald Trump says he is pulling out of a scheduled September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC and wants them to face off on Fox News, making it increasingly unlikely that the candidates will confront each other on stage before the November election.

In a series of Truth Social posts late Friday, the Republican nominee and former president said his agreement to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC “has been terminated" because he will no longer face Democratic President Joe Biden, who ended his campaign last month after a disastrous performance in their first debate, The AP reported.

Trump now says he will appear on Fox News on Sept. 4 in Pennsylvania with rules that he called “similar” to his debate with Biden, but with a full audience instead of a mostly empty studio. Trump said that if Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, does not agree to the new network and date, he will do a “major Town Hall” with Fox News.

Michael Tyler, a Harris spokesperson, said Trump “is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out.”

It was not immediately clear whether ABC would turn its Sept. 10 event into a Harris town hall in Trump's absence. Tyler said Harris is committed to the time slot and would appear “one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience.”

In a subsequent Truth Social post on Saturday afternoon, Trump said of Harris, “I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all.”

Trump has gone back and forth on debating with Harris since she entered the presidential race. He had told reporters he felt an obligation to debate but also said in a recent Fox News interview that he thought Americans “already know everything” about both candidates Harris has pressed Trump to keep the commitment he made when Biden was in the race. Noting Trump's criticisms of her, Harris dared him recently to “say it to my face.”

In his Truth Social posts, Trump also cited his litigation against ABC News as “a conflict of interest” in his participation in the network’s debate. Trump sued the network in March following an assertion by anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found “liable for rape." A New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll but rejected her claim that she was raped.

But Trump agreed, two months after filing his lawsuit, to the Sept. 10 debate on ABC, as well as the June 27 debate on CNN that helped knock Biden out of the race. David Muir and Linsey Davis, not Stephanopoulos, are set to be ABC's debate moderators.

Trump has skipped debates before, including all the 2024 Republican presidential primary debates.