Closing summary
Russia said its forces had taken control of the village of Novomykhailivka, 40 km (25 miles) southwest of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the second advance it has announced in two days. The guardian has not yet verified the claim, reported by the defence ministry. Ukraine’s General Staff said in its regular morning report that Kyiv’s forces continued to hold back Russian attempts to advance near the village. Russia said yesterday its forces had gained territory near the key battleground of Chasiv Yar in east Ukraine, taking control of Bogdanivka, a small village less than three kilometres (two miles) northeast of the town.
A Russian air attack on Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, hit TV broadcast infrastructure, prompting disruptions with the signal, a local official said. “At the moment, there are interruptions in the digital TV signal,” regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
The Kremlin has played down the significance of the $60.7bn US aid package for Ukraine, saying it will not change the situation on the frontlines. “The Russian armed forces are improving their positions at the front … The money allocated and the weapons that will be supplied will not change this dynamic,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They will lead to new victims on the Ukrainian side. More Ukrainians will die, Ukraine will suffer greater losses.”
European ministers said they were looking urgently at how to provide more air defence to Ukraine but they stopped short of concrete pledges of the Patriot systems that Kyiv values most. Meeting in Luxembourg, foreign and defence ministers from the EU said the US House of Representatives vote to approve a Ukraine aid package at the weekend should not lead to any complacency on their part. Since Kyiv began a push for more Patriots in recent weeks, Germany has been the only EU country to pledge an extra battery. But officials have said it is hard for countries to part with Patriots as they are an integral part of national defences.
Poland is ready to host nuclear arms if Nato decides to deploy the weapons in the face of Russia reinforcing its armaments in Belarus and Kaliningrad, the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, said in an interview published on Monday. “If our allies decide to deploy nuclear arms on our territory as part of nuclear sharing, to reinforce Nato’s eastern flank, we are ready to do so,” Duda said in an interview published by the Fakt daily.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned that the support of the US, Britain and France for Ukraine was stoking serious strategic risks that had raised the risk of a direct confrontation between the world’s biggest nuclear powers. Lavrov was quoted as saying the US and Nato were obsessed with the idea of inflicting “strategic defeat” on Russia and there were risks in such confrontation that could lead to an increased level of nuclear danger.
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Signal disrupted after Russian air attack hits TV broadcast infrastructure in Kharkiv
A Russian air attack on Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, hit TV broadcast infrastructure, prompting disruptions with the signal, a local official said.
“At the moment, there are interruptions in the digital TV signal,” regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said, adding there were no casualties.
Updated
