Fierce fighting is continuing in southern Ukraine, including shelling of the Energodar district near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its daily report on the situation in Ukraine.

"Despite the war in Ukraine, on September 1, the Russian military began the Vostok 22 military exercise, an annual joint strategic exercise, which marks the culmination of a year of military training," the ministry tweeted.

"Russia has announced that 50,000 soldiers will participate, but it is unlikely to be more than 15,000, which is about 20 percent of the forces that participated in the last exercise in 2018," he adds.

Latest Defense Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 2 September 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/wvJSvvSkuV

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Y4Lx6QbYuG

— Ministry of Defense 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) September 2, 2022

"Russia's military progress in Ukraine has shown that its strategic exercises, such as Vostok, do not affect the military's ability to conduct large and complex operations.

It is a kind of performance that does not encourage initiative and whose main purpose is to impress Russian leaders and the international audience", the ministry emphasizes.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities say Russians in the south continue to suffer heavy losses.

Thus, the army announced this morning that yesterday in that part of the battlefield 102 Russian soldiers were killed and that six tanks were destroyed.

They also claim to have destroyed an entire weapons range and five weapons depots.

/Telegraph/