Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv troops retreat from key eastern town as Moscow conducts nuclear drills
Kyiv’s troops ‘cannot hold what is ruined’, says battalion commander
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Ukraine has pulled back its soldiers from the outskirts of eastern Chasiv Yar town where they are losing territory to Russian forces.
Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 255th assault battalion, which has been fighting in the area for six months, claimed the Russians burned every building not destroyed by shelling after capturing the neighbourhood.
“I regret that we are gradually losing territory,” he said, speaking by phone from Chasiv Yar, but added, “we cannot hold what is ruined”. He said Russia is using scorched-earth tactics in an attempt to destroy anything that could be used as a military position in an attempt to force the Ukranian troops to retreat from the strategic town.
Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. The intensity of the Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defensive line in the area has increased over the past month, Kyiv said.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were carrying out drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency reported this morning.
Russia destroys Ukrainian MiG-29 jet at airfield - report
A Russian missile hit and destroyed a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet on an airfield in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said this morning, reported TASS news agency.
Russian forces have been targeting Ukrainian air base, as they anticipate the arrival of F-16 warplanes to Ukraine this week.
At least two of Ukraine’s Sukhoi Su-27 fighters parked on tarmac at Mirgorod air base in northern Ukraine were destroyed by Russian Iskander ballistic missiles on Monday.
Russian drones have continued to hover over Ukrainian air bases. While officials have not revealed where the F-16s will be based, Moscow said after the strike on Starokostiantyniv last Thursday that it had targeted airfields it believed would house them.
Ukraine will be informed it can’t join Nato because of its corruption – report
Ukraine’s biggest domestic rival – corruption – is set to impact its Nato membership as Kyiv will be informed of it as the reason it cannot join the European bloc, officials said.
A senior official in the US State Department said Nato will ask Kyiv to take “additional steps” before any progression on membership talks, reported The Telegraph.
Nato leaders are set to gather for the Washington summit from 9 July to 11 July. Nato’s official line is that Ukraine will join one day, but not while the country is at war. “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” its leaders declared at last year’s Vilnius summit.
Kyiv will be informed of Nato’s latest position in writing in the Nato communique, the source said, stating that it is a priority for “many of us around the table”.
“We have to step back and applaud everything that Ukraine has done in the name of reforms over the last two-plus years,” they added.
“As they continue to make those reforms, we want to commend them, we want to talk about additional steps that need to be taken, particularly in the area of anti-corruption,” the source said.
Ukrainian drones hit electricity substation near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, say officials
Three Ukrainian drones struck an electricity substation near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and nearby town of Enerhodar, the plant’s Russian-installed management said on Wednesday.
In a statement on Telegram, the plant’s management said that eight staff had been injured and the substation in south-eastern Ukraine damaged.
Russia’s state news agency TASS had reported earlier on Wednesday that the drones had hit the plant itself.
Five killed in Ukraine after Russian missiles hit Dnipro
A Russian missile and drone attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed five civilians and injured 47 others, including a 14-year-old girl, authorities said.Blasts blew out some windows of a shopping mall, raining shards onto the street, photos published by local officials showed.
Mayor Borys Filatov said the daytime attack also shattered windows in two schools and three kindergartens. Debris struck the intensive care unit of a children’s hospital, and a fire broke out in another hospital.
Volodymyr Zelensky shared a video of the strike and showed a missile with a fiery trail streaking over buildings in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, and debris flying into the air from its impact.
The attacks ravaged other parts of Ukraine as well. In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, Russian shelling struck a village council building, killing one person and injuring two others, regional head Oleh Suniehubov said.
Elsewhere in the region, a Russian glide bomb struck a residential building in the village of Ruska Lozova, injuring at least two people. Others could be trapped under rubble, Syniehubov said.
Erdogan tells Putin that Turkey can help reach fair end to Russia-Ukraine war
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that Ankara could help establish a basis to end the Ukraine-Russia war and that a fair peace suiting both sides was possible, the Turkish presidency said.
They two leaders also discussed the war in Gaza and ways to end the conflict in Syria, the Turkish presidency said in a statement after Erdogan and Putin met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan.
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