Summary
The time in Kyiv is 9pm. Here is a round-up of today’s headlines:
The British defence secretary has said Vladimir Putin is now unlikely to succeed in occupying Ukraine. Ben Wallace said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “faltered” and was “starting to fail”, as he pledged more financial and military support to the eastern European nation’s defence.
There have been conflicting reports of continued shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said it had been shelled ten times by Russian forces on Thursday, resulting in staff being unable to change shifts. Energoatom said the plant was operating normally. However, Russian news agency Tass reported that the local Russian-imposed authorities in occupied Zaporizhzhia said the plant had been fired upon by Ukrainian forces. Russian-imposed authorities in Zaporizhzhia region have also claimed Thursday that anti-aircraft defence systems thwarted Ukrainian attacks on the occupied city of Enerhodar. None of the claims have been independently verified.
The United States supports calls for a demilitarised zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after fighting involving Russian and Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of the plant, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday. “Fighting near a nuclear plant is dangerous and irresponsible and we continue to call on Russia to cease all military operations at or near Ukrainian nuclear facilities and return full control to Ukraine, and support Ukrainian calls for a demilitarised zone around the nuclear power plant,” the spokesperson said.
Ukraine aims to evacuate two thirds of residents from areas it controls in the eastern battleground region of Donetsk before winter, partly out of concern people won’t be able to stay warm amid war-damaged infrastructure, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday. The government plans to evacuate some 220,000 people out of around 350,000, including 52,000 children, Iryna Vereshchuk told a news conference.
Ukraine expects $3bn of US financial aid to arrive in August and a further $1.5bn in September, its finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said on Thursday. Marchenko said the payments were part of the $7.5bn financial aid package agreed by Ukraine and the US at the start of the summer and would be used to finance “critical spending” such as healthcare and pension costs.
Belarus has said that blasts heard overnight at one of its military bases 19 miles from Ukraine were caused by a “technical incident.” At least eight explosions were heard after midnight near Zyabrovka military airport, according to reports on Telegram messenger. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
McDonald’s will start reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months, in a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia. The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia’s invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald’s employees in the country.
On Wednesday, Ukraine accused Russia of firing rockets from around the captured plant, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, knowing it would be risky for Ukraine to return fire. Ukraine says Russia targeted the town of Marhanets, which Moscow says Ukraine has used in the past to shell Russian soldiers at the plant, which Russia seized in March. Calling on foreign allies to send more powerful weapons, Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address that Kyiv “will not leave today’s Russian shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region unanswered”, and vowed to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible to end the war quickly.
Ukraine’s air force said it believed up to a dozen Russian aircraft were destroyed on the ground in Tuesday’s dramatic explosions at the Saky airbase in Crimea, which Russia said killed one, wounded 13 and damaged dozens of nearby houses. Political sources in Ukraine said it had carried out the attack, but Kyiv did not publicly claim responsibility. One expert said it may have been the product of a daring raid rather than a missile strike.
Russia has doubled the number of air strikes on Ukraine’s military positions and civilian infrastructure compared with the previous week, Ukrainian brigadier general Oleksiy Hromov said. “The enemy’s planes and helicopters avoid flying into the range of our air defences, and therefore the accuracy of these strikes is low,” he told a news conference.
That’s it from the Ukraine live blog for today. I’ll be back tomorrow but for now, it’s goodnight from me.
McDonald’s will start reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months, in a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia.
The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia’s invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald’s employees in the country.
McDonald’s said on Thursday that it would begin gradually reopening some restaurants in western Ukraine and the capital, Kyiv, where other American businesses including Nike and KFC, and Spanish clothing retailer Mango are open.
“We’ve spoken extensively to our employees who have expressed a strong desire to return to work and see our restaurants in Ukraine reopen,” Paul Pomroy, corporate senior vice-president of international markets, said in a message to staff. “In recent months, the belief that this would support a small but important sense of normalcy has grown stronger.”
