Summary
That’s all from me, Samantha Lock, for now. Please join me a little a later when we launch our new live blog covering all the latest developments from Ukraine.
Here is a comprehensive run-down of where things currently stand as of 3.30am.
- Russia struck Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with missiles early on Sunday for the first time in more than a month. A railway depot was hit in the eastern suburb of Dniprovsky. Five cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea were launched from Tu-95 bombers, one of which was intercepted, Ukraine’s air force said, in an attack that represented a change of approach on the part of Russian forces.
- A Russian cruise missile “flew critically low” over the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, in the south of the country, at about 5.30am, apparently heading for Kyiv. Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom said Russian forces “still do not understand that even the smallest fragment of a missile that can hit a working power unit can cause a nuclear catastrophe and radiation leak” in a statement on Sunday.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow will hit new targets if the west supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles. “We will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” Putin told Rossiya state television, without specifying what those targets were. The comments were made in response to a pledge from the US went through with the delivery of Himars rocket artillery that the White House promised last week.
- Ukrainian forces have counterattacked and retaken half of the city of Sievierodonetsk in the east of the country, officials said. “It had been a difficult situation, the Russians controlled 70% of the city, but over the past two days they have been pushed back,” Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television. “The city is now, more or less, divided in half.” The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, also said Ukrainian forces were “successfully slowing down Russian operations” in Donbas and were making “effective local counterattacks in Sievierodonetsk”.
- President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited his troops on Ukraine’s eastern frontlines in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well as the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday.
- A Russian general, Maj Gen Roman Kutuzov, was killed in eastern Ukraine, a Russian state media journalist said on Sunday, adding to the string of high-ranking military casualties sustained by Moscow. There was no immediate comment from the Russian defence ministry.
- Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Serbia has been cancelled after countries around Serbia closed their airspace to his aircraft, according to local media reports. A senior foreign ministry source told the Interfax news agency that Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro had closed their airspace to the plane that would have carried Moscow’s top diplomat to Belgrade on Monday. “Our diplomacy has yet to master teleportation,” the source said.
- Britain is to supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, including a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems, which can hit targets up to 80km (50 miles) away. UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said the decision to ship the rocket launchers was justified because “as Russia’s tactics change, so must our support to Ukraine”.
- Spain is also to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support to the country, according to government sources cited by newspaper El Pais. Spain will provide essential training to the Ukrainian military in how to use the tanks, according to the reports.
- Nato kicked off nearly a two-week US-led naval exercise on the Baltic Sea on Sunday with more than 7,000 sailors, airmen and marines from 16 nations, including Finland and Sweden whom aspire to join the military alliance. “It is important for us, the United States, and the other Nato countries to show solidarity with both Finland and Sweden in this exercise,” US Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
- A Ukrainian lawmaker, Yevhen Yakovenko, was detained at the Moldovan border at the request of the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, Moldova’s border police said on Sunday. Viorel Tentiu, the head of Interpol in Moldova, said in a statement that Yakovenko was put on the list following accusations from Belarus of bribery and corruption.
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Russia’s sanctions against Gazprom Germania and its subsidiaries could cost German taxpayers and gas users an extra €5bn ($5.4bn) a year to pay for replacement gas, the Welt am Sonntag weekly reported, citing industry representatives.
Updated
Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support to the country, according to government sources cited by newspaper El Pais.
Spain will also provide essential training to the Ukrainian military in how to use the tanks, according to the reports as cited by Reuters. Training would take place in Latvia, where the Spanish army has deployed 500 soldiers within the framework of Nato’s Enhanced Advanced Presence operation.
A second phase of training could take place in Spain, according to the sources cited by El Pais.
The paper said Spain’s defence ministry is finalising a delivery to Kyiv of low-level Shorad Aspide anti-aircraft missiles, which the Spanish army has replaced with a more advanced system.
Spain has so far supplied ammunition, individual protection equipment and light weapons.
