Russia has lost 500,000 soldiers since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the UK’s intelligence chief said in London.

GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler gave the latest figure for Russian casualties in Ukraine during her first public speech at Bletchley Park, saying it proved Vladimir Putin was “going backwards in the battlefield”.

Ms Keast-Butler warned Russia was risking a wider conflict in Europe by targeting critical infrastructure and supply chains across the continent.

Japan has committed around $14.7m (£10.8m) to a Nato-backed programme that helps purchase US-made military equipment for Ukraine, according to Japan’s foreign ministry.

The funding will go towards the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a Nato-US initiative launched last year to speed up deliveries of equipment requested by Kyiv.

Japan said its contribution would be restricted to non-lethal items, in line with the country’s post-war constitutional limits on exporting lethal military aid.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed the move, calling Japan’s support a “powerful message of solidarity”.

Russian officials said Ukrainian drones struck oil-related infrastructure in the southern port city of Taganrog overnight, triggering fires at a fuel tank and an oil tanker.

Rostov Oblast governor Yuri Slusar said on Telegram that an administrative building was also damaged and two people were injured in the attack, according to the Kyiv Independent.

According to local officials, the strike hit loading infrastructure at the city’s port on the Sea of Azov. Separately, residents in occupied Crimea reported explosions in Feodosia and a fire at an oil depot, according to the Crimean Wind Telegram channel.

Ukraine’s military has not publicly commented on the strikes.

The United Nations on Friday added Israel and Russia to a UN blacklist of countries suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict zones, a move that prompted Israel’s foreign ministry to say it would sever all ties with UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres.

Guterres’ annual report to the UN security council on conflict-related sexual violence goes a step further than last year, when he put Israel and Russia “on notice” that they could be added to the ⁠list of parties “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence.”

Being added to the list does not automatically carry specific punitive measures such as sanctions, although public naming ​and shaming can ⁠cause significant reputational damage for the states involved, and those repeatedly listed ‌are barred from UN peacekeeping operations.

A Ukrainian drone attack killed two people ⁠in a car in Russia’s ⁠border ​region ⁠of Belgorod, officials said ⁠early on ​Saturday.

The ⁠region’s Operational ‌Headquarters, in a post ‌on Telegram, added ‌that two people ⁠were injured. The region has been a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks ‌in the ​more ‌than four-year-old ⁠war between ⁠the two countries.