British former defence secretary Ben Wallace warned his successor, Grant Shapps, that the UK was at risk of “falling behind” in its military support for Ukraine because ministers had yet to announce a military aid budget for 2024-5.
A section of railroad near the city of Nizhny Tagil in Russia’s Urals region was hit by a “bang”, Tass and RBC news agencies reported. Baza, a Russian media outlet, said the blast on the railway took place near the station of San-Donato, near an oil depot.
The Swedish prime minister announced that Sweden will send troops to Latvia next year as part of a Canadian-led force to deter Russia from attack – despite not yet being a full member of Nato.
In the Russian-occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, a Russian warplane accidentally released a bomb on the town of Rubizhne, Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the region’s Moscow-appointed government, said. He reportedly said the bomb, an FAB-250 that carries a high-explosive warhead, did not cause injuries.
Pope Francis was quoted as saying in a speech referencing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine that “indiscriminately striking” civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law.
Russia sent dozens of missiles across Ukraine early on Monday, killing at least four civilians, Ukrainian authorities said. Two people were killed in the western Khmelnytskyi region, local officials said. In Kryvyi Rih, a 62-year-old was reported to have been killed. Elsewhere, the governor of the Kharkiv region said a 63-year-old woman was killed in a strike on a town south of Kharkiv. Ukrainian forces destroyed 18 out of 51 missiles launched during the wave of Russian air strikes on Monday, Ukraine’s air force said.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said that Russia has “left people homeless” through its attacks on Ukraine, a reality of war she says “can only be changed by weapons”. “Russian shelling damaged homes and infrastructure in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovs’k, Zaporizhzhia and Khmelnytsky regions. There are dead and injured, including children,” she wrote on X.
Russia evacuated about 300 residents of Belgorod, a city near the Ukrainian border, because of strikes by Kyiv, the governor of the region said. The evacuation from Belgorod is the largest of a major Russian city since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The Japanese foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, forced into a bomb shelter by an air alert in Kyiv on Sunday, pledged $37m to a Nato fund that supports equipment such as a drone detection system. She also announced donations of five mobile gas turbine generators and seven transformers, to help with power cuts caused by Russian attacks.
Five children were among the 11 people killed by a Russian missile strike that hit in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Saturday, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said. According to Reuters, Vadym Filashkin told Ukrainian television that Russian forces engaged in “mass shelling” of Pokrovsk around 3pm.
In Russia, more than 100 residents of the Russian border city of Belgorod had evacuated to an area farther from Ukraine, local officials said. Belgorod is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop in the supply lines of Russia’s invasion forces. The city has come under extensive shelling and drone attacks.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told a conference in Sweden via video link: “Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated.”
Charles Michel has announced he will step down early as European Council president after running in the European parliament elections set for June. The surprise move means EU leaders will have to swiftly agree on a successor to take up his vacated council post, and could pave the way for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to exert more influence over EU policymaking.
