We will be pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine and returning in a few hours to bring you all the latest developments. You can find a summary of where things stand here.
Summary
It’s 2am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:
- Russia’s war in Ukraine could take years, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said. “Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices,” he added.
- Five civilians were killed and 12 injured on Saturday in a Ukrainian bombardment of the eastern separatist city of Donetsk, according to local authorities. “As a result of the bombardment by Ukrainian forces, five people were killed and 12 others were wounded in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the local authorities said in a statement posted on Telegram.
- The Pentagon is considering sending four additional rocket launchers to Ukraine, Politico reports. According to US defense department officials speaking to the outlet on anonymity, the US may likely send four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, making the total about of HIMARS eight. The decision will be “based on Ukrainian immediate needs,” the official told Politico.
- Yuliia Paievska aka “Taira”, the Ukrainian captured paramedic who was freed from Russian captivity earlier this week, has released a video thanking the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for her release. “I thank the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for organizing this exchange. I always believed that everything would be exactly this, and everyone who is now on the other side, they know everything will work out,” she said to the camera.
- Russia and Ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange, the Kyiv Independent reports. Five captured Ukrainian individuals were returned to Ukraine on 18 June in exchange for five captured Russian individuals, according to the Ukrainian defense ministry’s intelligence directorate.
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented state awards to border guards in Odesa as he visited the troops in southern Ukraine on Saturday. “I want to thank you from the people of Ukraine, from our state, for the great work you are doing, for your heroic service. It is important that you are alive. As long as you live, there is a strong Ukrainian wall that protects our country,” Zelenskiy said.
- A big explosion rocked an area near the besieged Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk on Saturday. Rodion Miroshnik, an official in the self-styled separatist administration of the Luhansk People’s Republic, posted a video of what he said was the cloud on the Telegram messaging app.Miroshnik said he could not tell whether the blast had occurred in the city or near it.
- Russian missiles destroyed a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, a town in eastern Ukraine, on Saturday. According to the head of the regional administration, three people have been sent to the hospital.
- Russian forces have targeted a gas processing plant near Izium, Kharkiv, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to Khariv governor Oleh Synehubov, several missiles hit the plant and caused a large fire.
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand the blog over to my colleagues in Australia who will bring you the latest updates on Ukraine. Thank you and I’ll see you tomorrow.
