A Russian airstrike on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow's forces from an island in the Black Sea had seemed to ease the threat to the city. (AP)Russia-Ukraine War News Live Updates, July 03 2022: Russian and separatist forces have taken full control of the key Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, Russian state news agency Tass quoted defence ministry on Sunday. The Russian ministry said earlier that its forces had encircled Lysychansk and were now fighting inside the city.
As fighting between Russia and Ukraine intensifies in the eastern region, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that fight at Lysychansk, Ukraine’s last big bastion in the strategic eastern province of Luhansk could lead to the city falling. As reported by Reuters, the Ambassador to Russia of the pro-Moscow self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic, Rodion Miroshnik, told Russian television “Lysychansk has been brought under control,” he added, “Unfortunately, it is not yet liberated.”
Three people have died in blasts in Russia’s Belgorod city, near the Ukrainian border, reported on Sunday that led to a fire in a residential building, Governor of Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The blasts partially destroyed 11 apartment buildings and at least 39 private residential buildings, he added. Gladkov said in a message on Telegram, “Reasons for the incident are being investigated…Presumably, the air defence system worked.”
Shelling from multiple rocket launchers killed "many" people on Sunday in Ukraine's eastern city of Sloviansk, which has come under attack from advancing Russian troops, its mayor said, news agency AFP reported.
Germany is discussing security guarantees for Ukraine with its allies, in preparation for a time after the war in Ukraine, German Chancellor Scholz told broadcaster ARD on Sunday. "We are discussing with close friends the question of the security guarantees we can give. This is an ongoing process. It is clear that it will not be the same as if someone were a member of NATO," Scholz said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited three war-ravaged towns in Ukraine's Kyiv region, the local governor said on Sunday. Governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram that Albanese visited the towns of Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel, where Ukraine says Russia committed atrocities against civilians. Russia denies the allegations.
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that Moscow and its allies now controlled all of Ukraine's Luhansk region after capturing the last major city, Lysychansk.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine on the Russian claim, which, if confirmed, would mark a significant milestone for Moscow on day 130 of the war. After being repelled in its initial attempt to capture the capital Kyiv, Russia has focused on driving Ukrainian forces out of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia's first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian defence ministry said Shoigu had informed Putin of the "liberation" of the Luhansk region thanks to the capture of Lysychansk, once a major coal mining hub.
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Sunday that Moscow's forces have taken the strategic Ukrainian city of Lysychansk and now control the entire region of Lugansk, which has been the target of fierce battles in recent weeks.
Russia on Sunday claimed to have captured Ukraine's Lysychansk, the entire Lugansk region, Russian state news agency Tass quotes the defence ministry as saying.
Fighting intensified on Sunday as Russian troops increased their offensive in parts of the hard-fought Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Sunday, after Belarus announced its military had intercepted missiles fired by Kyiv's forces.
Explosions were heard in Russian city of Kursk on Sunday. Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia's Kursk Oblast, has said that Russia's air defence shot down two Ukrainian drones near Kursk, as reported by Kyiv Independent.
Russian gas producer Gazprom said its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point was seen at 42.1 million cubic metres (mcm) on Sunday compared with 42.15 mcm on Saturday.
An application to supply gas via the Sokhranovka entry point had again been rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said. (Reuters)
A group of young off-duty Ukrainian soldiers gathered at a military distribution center to enjoy a rare respite from the fighting that has again engulfed their fractured home in eastern Ukraine.
As they shared jokes and a pizza, artillery explosions could be heard a few kilometers away _ a reminder of the looming battle that threatens to unfold here in the city of Slovyansk, which was occupied by Russian proxy fighters in 2014.
``Everyone knows that there will be a huge battle in Slovyansk,'' said one of the soldiers, who could not be named for security reasons.
Now, eight years after their city was last occupied, the war has returned. Slovyansk could become the next major target in Russia's campaign to take the Donbas region, Ukraine's predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland, if Moscow captures Lysychansk - the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the east. (AP)
Ukrainian forces hit a Russian base with over 30 strikes in the Russian-occupied southern city of Melitopol on Sunday, the city's exiled Ukrainian mayor said. A Russian official confirmed strikes had hit the city.
"At 3 o'clock (1200 GMT) and 5 o'clock (0200 GMT), there were over 30 strikes exclusively on a military base," Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov, who is currently on Ukraine-controlled territory, said in a video address on Telegram, adding that the base had been "taken out of action."
Fedorov also said that resistance activity had caused a Russian armoured train carrying ammunition to derail on Saturday near Melitopol.
Russia's RIA news agency reported that Ukraine had hit the Aviamistechko area of Melitopol where the city's airport is located, but did not specify what had been hit.
RIA cited local Russian-appointed official Vladimir Rogov as saying that around 16-18 Ukrainian MLRS rockets had hit Melitopol in two strikes at 0300 and 0445 Moscow time (1200 GMT and 0145 GMT). (Reuters)
Like many of the ethnic Russians who live along Estonia’s eastern border with Russia, Stanislava Larchenko could not believe that President Vladimir Putin had gone on a killing spree in Ukraine.
Larchenko, 51, got angry with her son when he said in February after Putin invaded Ukraine that Russian soldiers were killing civilians. She insisted the carnage was the work of Ukrainians dressed in Russian uniforms, a trope of the state television beamed in from Russia that she watched.
“For me, Russia was always a liberator, a country that got attacked but never attacked others,” Larchenko said in the Estonian border city of Narva, NATO’s easternmost outpost and the European Union’s most ethnically Russian city. (Read More)
Ukraine forces hit the Russian military base in Melitopol with over 30 strikes on Sunday, said Mayor. (Reuters)
Since the start of Russia's war on Ukraine in late February 2022, Russian internet users have experienced what has been dubbed the descent of a “digital iron curtain.” Russian authorities blocked access to all major opposition news sites, as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Under the new draconian laws purporting to combat fake news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, internet users have faced administrative and criminal charges for allegedly spreading online disinformation about Russia's actions in Ukraine. Most Western technology companies, from Airbnb to Apple, have stopped or limited their Russian operations as part of the broader corporate exodus from the country.
Many Russians downloaded virtual private network software to try to access blocked sites and services in the first weeks of the war. By late April, 23% of Russian internet users reported using VPNs with varying regularity. The state media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has been blocking VPNs to prevent people from bypassing government censorship and stepped up its efforts in June 2022.
Although the speed and scale of the wartime internet crackdown are unprecedented, its legal, technical and rhetorical foundations were put in place during the preceding decade under the banner of digital sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty for nations is the exercise of state power within national borders over digital processes like the flow of online data and content, surveillance and privacy, and the production of digital technologies. Under authoritarian regimes like today's Russia, digital sovereignty often serves as a veil for stymieing domestic dissent. (The Conversation)
Three people have died in blasts in Russia’s Belgorod city, near the Ukrainian border, reported on Sunday that led to a fire in a residential building. Governor of Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov posted a message on Telegram, “Reasons for the incident are being investigated…Presumably, the air defence system worked.”