It is day 631 of the war in Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine both launched multiple strikes on each other overnight.

An associate of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny was given an 8-year sentence in absentia for his video Putin’s Crimes.

The Czech government has frozen the Russian state’s property portfolio in the country.

Russia and Ukraine both launch multiple strikes on each other overnight

Five Ukrainian drones attempted to attack Russian-annexed Crimea and the country’s Bryansk region overnight on Wednesday, according to Russia’s Defence Ministry, which said that all five had been intercepted.

“Two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were destroyed over the territory of the Bryansk region by air defence systems and three more UAVs were intercepted over the waters of the Black Sea near the coast of Crimea,” the statement read.

The Ukrainian authorities reported that Russia had launched both drone and missile strikes at Ukraine overnight, leading to air-raid warnings in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytskyi regions of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that groups of attack drones were spotted flying over the Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia regions.

The Russian military also launched at least seven missile strikes on settlements in the eastern Kharkiv region, according to regional governor Oleh Sinehubov, who said the strikes had been carried out with S-300 missiles and that the scale of the damage was “being established”.

Navalny associate given 8-year sentence in absentia for Putin’s Crimes documentary

A Moscow court sentenced politician Vladimir Milov to eight years in jail on Thursday after finding him guilty on charges of spreading “known untruths” about the Russian army, Mediazona reported from the courtroom.

As part of his punishment, Milov was also banned from using the internet for four years. The prosecution had asked the court to sentence him to nine years imprisonment. However, Milov left Russia in 2021 and will not be serving his sentence.

The case against Milov was brought over the video Putin’s Crimes, which was published on the Navalny Live channel in March last year. According to the prosecution, Milov has “enmity” for the authorities and “hatred for political institutions" in Russia.

Czech government freezes Russia’s state property portfolio in the country

The Czech government has sanctioned Russia’s state property enterprise Goszagransobranstvo, Czech news agency CTK reported on Wednesday.

The Federal State Unitary Enterprise Goszagranstvo, part of the Russian Presidential Property Management Directorate, manages many Russian-owned real estate properties in the Czech Republic.

“The commercial activities of this company, including the lease of premises, are illegal from now on,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said, announcing the news.

Adding the company to the sanctions list means freezing all its assets in the Czech Republic, CTK said, noting that the company has four buildings in the country at its disposal, including the Russian embassy in Prague.