Closing summary
It is approaching 6pm in Kyiv and Moscow. This blog will be closing shortly, but you can keep you to date with the Guardian’s Russia-Ukraine coverage here.
Here is a summary of today’s developments:
Russian strikes on the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Kharkiv early on Saturday killed at least five people, officials said. A strike on a high-rise building in Kherson killed a couple, said Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor. Russia hit Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, with missiles, Shahed drones and guided bombs before dawn on Saturday, killing three people in what the mayor, Igor Terekhov, described as the “most powerful attack” there since the start of the war. A one-month-old baby and a 14-year-old girl were among the 22 injured.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had fired 206 drones and nine missiles in the overnight barrage, while Terekhov said the attack on Kharkiv also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Citing preliminary data, he said Russia used 48 Shahed drones, two missiles and four aerial glide bombs in the attack.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha described Russia as continuing “its terror against civilians”, after the overnight attacks. “To put an end to Russia’s killing and destruction, more pressure on Moscow is required, as are more steps to strengthen Ukraine,” he said.
In the Dnipropetrovsk province, two women aged 45 and 88 were injured, according to local governor Serhii Lysak. Attacks were also recorded on the Odesa and Ternopil regions. Rescuers in the western city of Lutsk, near the Polish border, meanwhile discovered a second fatality from strikes a day earlier, describing the victim as a woman in her 20s.
Russian forces carried out strikes using high-precision long-range weapons and drones on military targets in Ukraine overnight, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday. “The objective of the strikes has been achieved. All designated targets have been hit,” the ministry said. Four Ukrainian unmanned boats have also been destroyed in the Black Sea, Russian news agencies reported, citing the ministry.
Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine of postponing a large-scale prisoner swap and the repatriation of the bodies of dead soldiers they had agreed on during peace talks in Istanbul. “The Ukrainian side has unexpectedly postponed for an indefinite period, both the acceptance of the bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war,” Russia’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on social media.
Responding to Russia’s accusations, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War accused Moscow of “dirty games” and “manipulations”. In a statement, it said that there was no fixed date for the return of bodies and that Russia was not sticking to the agreed parameters of the PoW swap.
Russian aviation authorities restricted flights at Moscow regional airports on Friday night as the capital came under threat from Ukrainian drones. It was the third suspension since the night of Thursday 5 June.
Russia was attacked with at least 82 Ukrainian drones in areas including the Moscow region over eight-and-a-half hours, the Russian defence ministry said early on Saturday. The Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said another six drones had been headed for the capital. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had downed 36 Ukrainian drones fired at its territory.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Saturday called on the United Nations to assemble a group of countries tasked with seeking a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The initiative, which Lula made at a news conference during a visit to France, comes after French president Emmanuel Macron this week said Brazil had “a very important role to play” in the resolution of the conflict.
Ukraine’s air forces shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet on Saturday morning, the Ukrainian military said. “This morning, on 7 June 2025, as a result of a successful air force operation in the Kursk direction, a Russian Su-35 fighter jet was shot down,” the military said on the Telegram messenger. It gave no more details. Russian forces have not yet commented on the matter while Reuters could not independently verify the report.
A Ukrainian drone attack last weekend likely damaged about 10% of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet and hit some of the aircraft as they were being prepared for strikes on Ukraine, a senior German military official said. “According to our assessment, more than a dozen aircraft were damaged, TU-95 and TU-22 strategic bombers as well as A-50 surveillance planes,” German Maj Gen Christian Freuding said in a YouTube podcast reviewed by Reuters before its publication later on Saturday.
Germany’s armed forces have three years to acquire the equipment to tackle a possible Russian attack on Nato territory, its head of military procurement said. “Everything necessary to be fully prepared to defend the country must be acquired by 2028,” Annette Lehnigk-Emden, head of the federal office for military procurement, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Updated
Brazil's Lula urges UN to take lead role in Russia-Ukraine peace efforts
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Saturday called on the United Nations to assemble a group of countries tasked with seeking a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The initiative, which Lula made at a news conference during a visit to France, comes after French president Emmanuel Macron this week said Brazil had “a very important role to play” in the resolution of the conflict.
A second round of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine opened this week in Istanbul, after a first round failed to secure a pause in more than three years of fighting.
“The UN can become a protagonist in this matter again,” Lula said, calling UN secretary general António Guterres “a good man”. The UN chief should “propose a group of friends” to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who would then “talk with them both, listen to their respective truths and then build an alternative”, Lula said.
“What I am proposing is the creation of a commission consisting of countries that are not involved in the war to talk with Zelenskyy and Putin,” he said, reports AFP. Neither side would “get what they want but they can get what is possible”, he said. “Neither 100 per cent of Zelenskyy’s position, nor 100 per cent of Putin’s position.”
In contrast to most European countries, Lula maintains friendly relations with Moscow and has observed a position of neutrality towards the conflict in Ukraine.
Lula, who in July is to host the next summit of the Brics group of nations in Rio de Janeiro, said that Putin was invited to the meeting despite a warrant for his arrest issued by the international criminal court over alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
