Kiev aims to recapture all of its former territories, including Crimea, Igor Zhovkva has said The ultimate goal of Kiev’s much-hyped counteroffensive is to take back all of the territories it has lost to Russia, Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said in an interview with CNN on Monday.

Attempting to cross the Dnieper would have been “really bad” for Kiev’s forces, the Russian president said Ukraine was to blame for the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, which helped its soldiers avoid a battlefield bloodbath, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

The decline stems from lower foreign currency inflows and reduced export revenues, market experts say The Russian ruble dropped to its lowest exchange rate against the US dollar since last April, data from the Moscow Exchange showed on Tuesday.