Ukraine updates: Russia strikes Zelenskyy’s hometown
An overnight missile attack by Russian forces has killed at least six people and wounded at least 25 others in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.
“Unfortunately, there are already six dead. The rescue operation is continuing,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s military administration, said in a statement on social media on Tuesday.
Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said a five-story residential building was hit in the early morning in what he previously described as a “massive missile attack.”
Three cruise missiles were shot down, but others got through, he said, with people likely still caught under the rubble.
Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has also condemned the attack.
“More terrorist missiles,” he wrote on Telegram. “Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said on Twitter that “this kind of thing happens every night … because the Russian Federation is blatantly destroying Ukraine,” and urged the international community to make “key decisions.”
“I understand that sitting thousands of kilometres away from Ukraine you can talk about ‘geopolitics,’ ‘settlement’ and the undesirability of escalation for months,” he wrote. “But the key decisions will still have to be made — Russia is bound to lose and sit in the dock …”
The United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, also condemned the strike, reiterating: “International humanitarian law is clear: civilians and civilian infrastructure are not a target!”
Air attacks were also reported in the capital, Kyiv.
“According to initial reports, the enemy used Kh-101/555 cruise missiles,” the military administration of Kyiv city said, adding that all “enemy targets” had been destroyed and that no casualties had been reported so far.
The northeastern city of Kharkiv also came under attack, with civilian infrastructure being struck by drones, according to the city’s mayor.
“According to initial reports, a utility company in the Kyivskyi district, as well as a warehouse in the Saltivskyi district got damaged. A fire broke out as a result of the explosion on the latter,” Ihor Terekhov said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia about the reported strikes. Russia insists it never targets civilian infrastructure during what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russian general killed, report Russian bloggers
An experienced Russian general has reportedly been killed by a Ukrainian missile strike in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to pro-war Russian bloggers.
“As a result of an enemy missile attack, the Chief of Staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army, Maj Gen Sergei Goryachev, was killed,” the prominent blogger “Voenkor,” said in a Telegram post on Monday, citing Russian army sources.
Sergei Goryachev, a decorated senior soldier, previously commanded Russian troops in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, and was described by Voenkor as one of Russia’s “brightest and most effective military leaders.”
The Russian defence ministry is yet to comment, but several other Russian war bloggers suggested that Goryachev was likely killed by a UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missile.
It is believed that around a dozen Russian generals have been killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Death toll in Kakhovka dam disaster rises
The number of fatalities caused by the breach of the Kakhovka dam has risen to 10, while 41 people are still missing in the floods, according to Ukrainian officials.
The Russian-controlled dam along the Dnieper River on the frontline in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was destroyed on June 6, forcing thousands to flee and sparking fears of humanitarian as well as environmental catastrophe.
“Currently, we know [of] 10 dead in Kherson and the region,” Ukraine’s interior minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram. “We are also reporting 41 people as missing.”
On Monday, the governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said the bodies of two people — “an unidentified woman and a 50-year-old man” — were found drowned in the city of Kherson.
Ukraine recaptures ’90 square kilometres’ in ‘tough’ counteroffensive
Ukraine has reported minor early successes in its counteroffensive, saying that its army has recaptured seven villages in the eastern region on Donetsk, spanning a total area of 90 square kilometres (35 square miles).
“Seven settlements were liberated” in the last week of fighting in the region, said the country’s defence ministry, including Blahodatne, Neskuchne, Makarivka and Storozheve.
It added that Ukrainian forces had advanced “250 to 700 meters” in the direction of the flashpoint eastern city of Bakhmut.
Russian officials did not confirm those Ukrainian gains, saying earlier on Monday that Russian forces had repelled attacks in the same area in the Donetsk region near Velyka Novosilka, and around the village of Levadne in Zaporizhzhia region.
Speaking his nightly address on Monday evening, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described fighting in the long-awaited counteroffensive as “tough” but added, “we are moving forward, this is very important.”
“I thank our guys for every Ukrainian flag that is now returning to its rightful place in villages on the newly de-occupied territory,” he said.
The claims by Moscow and Kyiv could not be verified independently, but the US-based Institute for the Study of War said in an analytical note Monday: “Ukrainian forces made visually verified advances in western Donetsk Oblast and western Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which Russian sources confirmed but sought to downplay.”
‘Not every western tank can be replaced’ cautions Germany
German defence minister Boris Pistorius has cautioned that Ukraine’s western allies “will not be able to replace every tank which is destroyed” as Kyiv’s forces attempt to push back against the Russian invasion.
He announced, however, that Germany would deliver more than 100 refurbished Leopard-1-A5 tanks to Ukraine between July and the end of the year.
Speaking on German broadcaster RTL, Pistorius would not confirm the authenticity of footage purporting to show German Leopard-2 tanks destroyed by Russian forces.
Also Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry published an unverified video showing what it said was a German-made Leopard 2 tank and a US-made Bradley fighting vehicle captured from Ukrainian forces in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
“Unfortunately, it’s the nature of war that weapons and tanks are destroyed and people are killed,” said Pistorius. “This is why our support for Ukraine is so important.”
Pistorius’ comments came after calls this week from both Ukraine and Germany to quickly replace destroyed weaponry in Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian Army drastically needs many more Western tanks and armoured vehicles,” said Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk on Monday in Germany’s Tagesspiegel newspaper.
IAEA chief Grossi due to visit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, is to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, to assess risks to the facility’s safety amid Russia’s invasion.
Grossi is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv before heading to the plant on Tuesday for his third visit there.
His visit comes as the IAEA warns that safety at the plant has been even further compromised by the recent breach of the Russian-held Kakhovka dam in an incident Ukraine blames on Moscow.
The reservoir formed by the dam provided cooling water for the nuclear facility, which is in the hands of Russian forces.
“I will present a program of assistance in the aftermath of the catastrophic Nova Kakhovka dam flooding,” Grossi said in a tweet on Monday.
“I will assess the situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” and “conduct a rotation of ISAMZ,” he added referring to the IAEA’s Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia (ISAMZ), “with a strengthened team.”