Summary
The training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. It came after the United States gave its green light. He told a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels: “I am happy that finally the training of the pilots for the F-16 has started in several countries. It will take time, but the sooner the better... For example, in Poland.”
Moscow claimed to have pushed back the fighters it said launched a cross-border attack from Ukraine to the Belgorod region. Reuters reported that the claim could not immediately be independently verified. Russia subsequently opened a terrorism investigation.
The governor of Belgorod Vyacheslav Gladkov said the measures Russia claimed were in place to stop terrorism after the crossborder attack had finally been lifted. It came only a few hours after Moscow claimed to have pushed the fighters back over the border.
A Moscow court extended the detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on espionage charges at the end of March. During a brief hearing, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported.
The United States called for Gershkovich’s immediate release. The White House’s national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN: “He shouldn’t be detained at all. Journalism is not a crime. He needs to be released immediately. We’re still going to work very, very hard to see if we can get him home with his family where he belongs.”
Ukrainian forces still controlled the south-western edge of the city of Bakhmut and fighting in the city itself has decreased, deputy Ukrainian defence minister Hanna Maliar claimed on Tuesday. She wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Kyiv’s forces had made some progress “on the flanks to the north and south of Bakhmut” and that Russian forces, which say they have taken the city itself, were continuing to clear areas they control.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited marines on Tuesday on the Vuhledar-Maryinka defence line in the Donetsk region, as part of celebrations for the national day of Ukrainian marines.
The Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi halted operations because Russia was not allowing ships to enter it, a Ukrainian official said. This, in effect, cut it out of a deal allowing safe Black Sea grain exports, they said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has reported that the city of Toretsk was struck without casualties.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that there has been an interruption in power supplies in Kherson as a result of Russian military action.
Ukraine’s general staff said that on Monday Russia carried out 20 missile strikes against Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv oblasts, using cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and S-300 anti-aircraft missiles over the past day. It also claimed that Russia launched 48 airstrikes using Shahed drones, and targeted both civilian and military targets with up to 90 strikes using multiple-launch rocket systems.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet with President Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade
A top Russian official who faces sanctions in the west over Moscow’s war on Ukraine visited Saudi Arabia early Tuesday and held talks with his counterpart in the kingdom. Russian interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev’s visit to Riyadh came days after Zelenskiy addressed an Arab League summit held in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Jeddah
Germany is looking into options to support a coalition of countries that plan to train Ukrainian pilots in flying F-16 fighter jets, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday. He added that any potential German contribution could be minor only, as Germany itself does not own any of the US-built jets.
Three villages in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine are without power after a drone dropped explosives on an electrical substation, the region’s governor says. Roman Starovoit said on Telegram:
Repair crews are currently carrying out restoration work. None of the residents were injured.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, border regions have repeatedly reported drone strikes on their civilian infrastructure. Moscow says Kyiv is directly responsible for attacks inside its territory but Ukraine denies this.
