Here is the situation on Saturday, July 6, 2024.
Fighting
- Multiple Russian attacks killed at least seven people and wounded more than two dozen others in the eastern Donetsk oblast of Ukraine, according to officials. Russia has centred its firepower on the industrial region that has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed forces since 2014.
- Two of the Russian strikes on the town of Selydove, which lies close to the front where Moscow’s forces are advancing, killed at least five people and injured eight, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.
- A 32-year-old woman was also killed and 20 others were wounded by Russian shelling in the town of Komar, damaging homes, shops and an administrative building, Filashkin said.
- One person was killed in a Russian Smerch rocket attack on the town of Ukrainsk, rounding up the seven casualties in Russian strikes. One person was reported wounded in the same town.
- Denis Pushilin, the Russia-installed official in the Donetsk region, said five people were killed in various Ukrainian attacks on territory that Russia controls.
- Further north in the Donetsk region, Russian forces are pushing towards the hilltop settlement of Chasiv Yar. Images distributed by Ukrainian forces show rows of destroyed and smouldering Soviet-era housing blocks in the town.
-
Ukraine’s air defence says it shot down 24 of 27 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack on Saturday. It said the drones were downed over 12 regions across the country.
-
Russian drone attacks on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy early on Saturday cut power to the local water system and knocked out the water supply. Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported a series of explosions in the city northeast of the capital, Kyiv.
Politics and diplomacy
- In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin told visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that Ukraine must abandon four regions in the east and south – including Donetsk – if it wants peace.
- Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot in May, said he would have joined Orban on his controversial visit to Moscow if his health had permitted.
- The United States has joined the European Union in criticising Orban’s trip to Russia. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the trip “will not advance the cause of peace and is counterproductive to promoting Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Keir Starmer for pledging his government would continue to support Ukraine, in a phone call hours after the United Kingdom’s new prime minister took office. Britain has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
- Starmer told US President Joe Biden that British support for Ukraine’s war with Russia was “unwavering”, in a first call hours after he took charge.
-
NATO allies at their summit in Washington, DC, next week will unveil a “bridge to membership” plan for Ukraine and announce steps to bolster Kyiv’s air defences, a senior US official said.
-
Mihail Popsoi, the foreign minister of Moldova, a former Soviet Republic, said his government reserved the right to order further expulsions of Russian diplomats if Moscow engaged in new activities harmful to the country’s interests. Moldova’s relations with Russia have deteriorated as President Maia Sandu has denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and led a drive to join the European Union.
