The time is just after 8.30pm in Ukraine. Here is a closing summary of events:
A drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted authorities to evacuate everyone within a 3-mile (5km) radius and briefly suspend road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, the Moscow-installed regional governor has said.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the bridge linking the Crimea peninsula to Russia “brings war not peace” and is therefore a military target.
Russia criticised the US after the alleged death of war correspondent for Russia’s RIA news agency after what was claimed to have been the use of cluster bombs near the frontline in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. Moscow called it “a heinous, premeditated crime” committed by Western powers and Kyiv, vowing a “response” against those to blame.
Russia’s arrest of Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer and leading nationalist military blogger, will probably infuriate elements in the military as well as his fellow bloggers, according to UK intelligence.
The US plans to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $400m as Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinds on, it was reported. Zelenskiy also said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was about to “gain pace”.
Unesco has condemned Russia’s attack on the historic centre of Odesa, which is protected under the World Heritage Convention.
The Polish deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, has said his meeting with the Russian ambassador to Poland – after he was summoned after Vladimir Putin alleged Poland harboured territorial ambitions in western Ukraine – was “very brief”.
President Zelenskiy said he spoke with Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the phone about sustaining the Black Sea grain initiative as well as agreements reached during the Vilnius summit and “further actions regarding the integration of Ukraine into Nato”.
Ukraine’s air defence units shot down five Russian combat and nine reconnaissance drones over the past 24 hours, Euromaidan Press has reported, citing the air force.
The director of the CIA has been made a cabinet member by the US president, Joe Biden, who said the agency has been providing “good intelligence, delivered with honesty and integrity”.
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Ludmyla Osadchuk put her foot to the pedal and the rickety red-and-white tram edged forward, exiting the depot with a crunching of wheels and a rattle of the old, loosely fitting doors. On board were three blue canisters, each holding 1,000 litres of water.
With a “Special route” sign attached to the front window, the tram trundled to the first of four stops in different parts of Mykolaiv. The only passenger was former tram driver Serhiy Vytstyna, who hopped out at the stop and connected a set of pumps to the canisters.
For the next hour, the tram remained stationary, as people came to collect water: some had trolleys with a dozen five-litre bottles to fill; one elderly lady shuffled away holding just one bottle in her hand, as much as she could carry.
Then the pumps were disconnected and the tram carried on to its next distribution point. The water tram has been running through Mykolaiv for a year now, and everyone knows the timetable.
The war has affected every city in Ukraine, but in each place the experience has been different. For Mykolaiv, a southern port city of nearly half a million inhabitants, which the Russians bombarded heavily at the start of the invasion but failed to occupy, a large part of the story has been about water.
Read the full report here.
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