This is the situation as it stands on Sunday, July 2.
Fighting
- Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv after a 12-day break, according to a Ukrainian military official. There was no immediate information about the scale of the attack.
- The Ukrainian military reported fierce clashes in the front-line Donetsk region where it said Russia had amassed troops and attempted to advance. It named the outskirts of three cities – Bakhmut, Lyman and Marina – as front-line hot spots.
- Officials in Donetsk, meanwhile, reported that at least three civilians were killed and 17 wounded by Russian shelling on Friday and overnight on Saturday.
- The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence said the Ukrainian military has secured a bridgehead on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a “serious threat” remained at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine and that Moscow was “theoretically ready” to provoke a localised explosion at the facility.
- Zelenskyy also held a meeting of Ukraine’s top military command and atomic energy officials at another of the country’s top nuclear plants in northwestern Rivne to discuss the “security of our northern regions”.
- Satellite images analysed by The Associated Press show what appears to be a newly-built military-style camp in Belarus, with statements from a Belarusian armed group and officials suggesting it may be used to house fighters from the Wagner mercenary group.
Diplomacy
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez paid a visit to Kyiv as a show of continuing support from Madrid and the European Union for Ukraine’s fight against invading Russian forces.
- Speaking alongside Sanchez, Zelenskyy said he wanted NATO leaders, who will be holding a key summit in Vilnius, to extend an invitation to Ukraine after the war.
- Some 40 Russian diplomats and embassy staff in the Romanian capital Bucharest have left the country as ties between Russia and Romania worsen following Moscow’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
- The director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, said the armed mutiny by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was a challenge to the Russian state that showed the corrosive effect of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
- He added that disaffection in Russia with the war in Ukraine was creating a rare opportunity to recruit spies – and that the CIA was not letting it pass.
Weapons
- Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, announced Madrid would deliver more heavy weaponry to Ukraine including four Leopard tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as a portable field hospital.
- He also said Spain will provide an additional 55 million euros ($60m) to help with reconstruction needs.
- Zelenskyy, meanwhile, expressed frustration about the lack of clarity over Western training for Ukrainian fighter pilots. He said Western allies had not yet set a timetable to train pilots on US-made F-16s despite their expressions of readiness.
