Right here is how issues stand on Friday, June 27:
Combating
- Russian air strikes killed one particular person and wounded two others in Ukraine’s southern area of Kherson, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin mentioned on Telegram.
- Russian troops have taken management of the village of Shevchenko in jap Ukraine’s Donetsk area, which is near a lithium deposit, after fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, a Russian-backed official within the occupied area mentioned.
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Russian troops additionally took management of the settlement of Novoserhiivka additionally in Donetsk, based on the Russian Ministry of Defence.
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Ukraine’s forces stopped Russian advances within the border space of Ukraine’s northern area of Sumy this week, the nation’s high common, Oleksandr Syrskii, mentioned in a press release.
- Syrskii has additionally ordered defensive traces to be constructed extra rapidly within the Sumy area, as Russian forces achieve floor in direction of the economic Dnipropetrovsk area.
Navy
- North Korea will ship extra troops to Russia to help in its warfare towards Ukraine, probably as early as July, a South Korean lawmaker mentioned, citing info from Seoul’s spy company.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukraine and Russia exchanged a brand new group of captured troopers, the newest in a collection of prisoner swaps agreed at peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month. Neither facet mentioned what number of prisoners had been launched, however that they had pledged to swap at the very least 1,000 troopers every throughout their direct assembly in Istanbul on June 2.
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Russia mentioned there was no progress but in direction of setting a date for the subsequent spherical of peace talks with Ukraine, Interfax information company reported. One other state information company, TASS, quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Russia was in favour of continued United States efforts to mediate talks.
- The European Union’s 27 leaders have agreed to increase sanctions on Russia for an additional six months, resolving fears that Kremlin-friendly Hungary would let the measures lapse, officers mentioned. The sanctions embody the continued freezing of greater than $234bn in Russian central financial institution belongings till at the very least early 2026.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the European Council to ship “a transparent political message” that Brussels backs Kyiv in its effort to affix the EU.
- Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban mentioned {that a} state-organised session gave him a “sturdy mandate” to oppose neighbouring Ukraine’s EU accession on the EU summit in Brussels.
- The worldwide chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), mentioned that it had discovered a banned tear gasoline in seven samples submitted by Ukraine, which has accused Russia of utilizing the riot management agent on the entrance line. It was the third time the OPCW confirmed using CS gasoline in areas the place preventing is going down in Ukraine.
- Polish Overseas Minister Radoslaw Sikorski mentioned a brand new arms race may result in the autumn of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “regime”, similar to it toppled the Soviet Union.
Press freedom
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A Russian courtroom mentioned it had discovered a photographer, Grigory Skvortsov, responsible of treason and jailed him for 16 years after he allegedly admitted passing detailed details about once-secret Soviet-era bunkers to a US journalist.
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Moscow will summon the German ambassador quickly to tell him of retaliatory measures in response to what it sees because the harassment of Russian journalists primarily based in Germany, Russian Overseas Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned.