Closing summary
Belgian police have searched the European parliament office and Brussels home of a parliamentary staffer who is believed to have played “a significant role” in a Russian interference operation, the national prosecutor has said. French authorities also carried out a search of the employee’s European parliament office in Strasbourg at the request of the Belgian examining magistrate overseeing the inquiry into corruption and Russian interference.
The Swedish government has said it will donate military aid to Ukraine worth 13 billion kronor (£962 million) in the largest help package Sweden has so far donated. “It consists of equipment that is at the top of Ukraine’s priority list,” deputy prime minister Ebba Busch said. It includes air defence, artillery ammunition and armoured vehicles, AP reported.
Russian strikes killed two civilians in the city of Nikopol in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Lysak said a Russian drone targeted an ambulance killing a 54-year-old driver and severely injuring his wife. Another civilian, a 52-year-old man, died in a hospital after being wounded in an artillery shelling earlier in the day, he said.
Russia’s human rights commissioner said on Wednesday that prisoner of war exchanges between Russia and Ukraine had been suspended for several months, the state TASS news agency said on Wednesday. TASS cited Tatyana Moskalova as blaming what she called Kyiv’s “false demands.” There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Antony Blinken, is set to arrive in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Wednesday. It the first stop of a brief Europe tour during which he will aim to solidify the western support for Ukraine across Nato allies and neighbouring countries. The US top diplomat’s trip comes as Ukraine is trying to fend off intensifying Russian attacks in the east and as President Vladimir Putin warns that allowing Kyiv use western weapons to hit inside Russia would trigger a global conflict.
Western countries should let Ukraine strike military bases inside Russia with the sophisticated long-range weapons they are providing to Kyiv, French president Emmanuel Macron said, pressuring his allies in the most recent sign of a potentially significant policy shift that could help change the complexion of the war. The question of whether to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weaponry has been a delicate issue since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, AP reported.
Prominent Russian nationalist ex-militia commander Igor Girkin, who accused president Vladimir Putin and the army of failure in the war in Ukraine, lost his appeal on Wednesday against a four-year jail term, the RIA state news agency reported. Girkin, who used the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov during fighting in east Ukraine a decade ago, was convicted by a Moscow court in January of inciting extremism, a charge he denied.
Ukrainian military shot down 13 drones out of 14 launched by Russia in an overnight attack on three regions, the country’s air force said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday. Drone debris fell on energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northwestern region of Rivne, governor Oleksandr Koval said on Telegram. The attack triggered a defence mechanism that cut power to some localities, although it has since been restored, Reuters reported.
The Russian capital Moscow has been successfully protected from Ukrainian drones, a high-ranking Russian air force official said on Wednesday, according to the TASS state news agency. The official was quoted as saying that Ukrainian drones could cover a distance of up to 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles).
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk has said its forces will further fortify the border with Belarus and can use “all available means” to defend the Nato nation’s frontier, after a soldier was seriously wounded with a knife by a migrant. Tusk said that a buffer zone some 200 metres (660ft) wide would be set up along the border, which is also the European Union’s eastern frontier, in addition to a 190-kilometre (118-mile) long metal barrier already in place to prevent an influx of migrants crossing from Belarus.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that planes from its Black Sea Fleet had destroyed two Ukrainian Crimea-bound sea drones in the north-western part of the Black Sea.
Newly-appointed Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov has sent telegrams to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine thanking them for their battlefield progress, official army news outlet Zvezda reported today. Putin in May removed ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister and replaced him with Belousov, an economist and former deputy prime minister, in a surprise move.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Prominent Russian nationalist ex-militia commander Igor Girkin, who accused president Vladimir Putin and the army of failure in the war in Ukraine, lost his appeal on Wednesday against a four-year jail term, the RIA state news agency reported.
Girkin, who used the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov during fighting in east Ukraine a decade ago, was convicted by a Moscow court in January of inciting extremism, a charge he denied.
