Summary
In case you missed anything, here’s a quick round-up of the day’s developments in the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine downed five missiles and 11 drones targeted at cities across the country overnight, military officials said
Three civilians were injured by a mine in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv
Russian forces carried out “massive shelling” in the centre of the city of Kherson, a military official said, adding that no injuries had been reported
Ukraine’s top prosecutor called on the International Criminal Court to prosecute Russia over a missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday
The Kremlin warned that the relaxation of restrictions on the use of Western-supplied weapons to target Russian territory would be a “dangerous escalation”
The Ukrainian estimate of the number of Russian casualties since the start of the war reached 556,650
The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia’s decision to open a new front in the Kharkiv region had seen its average daily casualties reach their highest level since the start of the conflict
Russia’s state-owned telecoms provider announced that YouTube would be slowed down due to “technical problems” amid reports of plans by Russian authorities to block the service altogether
The Kremlin dismissed reports of a plot to assassinated the head of a major German arms manufacturer as a “fake story”, while the German government said it “won’t be intimidated”
The German government has said it “won’t be intimidated” over its support for Ukraine following reports of an alleged assassination attempt on the head of a leading defence company.
On Thursday, CNN reported that US intelligence services had foiled a plot to kill Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, which has provided large amount of armaments to Ukraine.
The report, which cited numerous US and western officials, said the plot was one of several Russian government plans to kill defence industry executives in European countries that have supported Ukraine’s war effort.
Speaking on Friday, German interior ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall declined to comment on the reports, but said Germany takes the “significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously”.
“We know that Putin’s regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government won’t be intimidated,” he said.
Asked about the reports, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that they “do not contain any serious arguments and are based on anonymous sources”.
“It’s all presented in the style of another fake story,” he said. “Therefore, such reports cannot be taken seriously.”
