Summary
It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Here is a summary of the main stories from today:
Officials have said that a number of building were damaged and several people wounded in a large-scale air-attack on Ukraine’s western region of Lviv and the north-western region of Volyn. “Many missiles were shot down, but there were also hits in Lviv,” city mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, adding that orders were given to evacuate at least one burning apartment building.
Russia said its forces struck military industrial facilities at several sites across Ukraine overnight after authorities in the west of the country announced aerial attacks had left three dead. Adding that it had carried out long-range precision strikes on “key” facilities, the defence ministry said in a statement: “Ukraine’s military-industrial complex suffered significant damage.”
The Kyiv Independent reports, citing Volyn oblast Governor Yurii Pohuliaiko, that three people were killed in Russia’s attack on western Ukrainian city of Lutsk overnight. Several people were hospitalised in Lutsk after a business enterprise was hit, Yuriy Pohulyaiko, governor the Volyn region of which Lutsk is the administrative centre, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s central bank has announced it will hold an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday to discuss the level of its key interest rate after the rouble fell to its weakest point in almost 17 months. The currency has been steadily losing value since the beginning of the year and slid past the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar on Monday morning, the Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer reported.
The Bank of Russia has raised its key rate to 12% from 8.5%. The statement doesn’t mention the rouble, which dropped to its lowest level in nearly 17 months yesterday. The Russian currency has been boosted by the central bank’s move. It now takes 97 roubles to buy a dollar, whereas yesterday the exchange rate was at 102 roubles per dollar at one stage. You can read the statement on the Bank of Russia’s website.
Russia on Tuesday fined social media site Reddit for the first time for not deleting “banned content” that it said contained “fake” information about Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, RIA reported, citing a Moscow court. Reddit joins a list of sites under scrutiny in Russia for failing to remove content that Moscow deems illegal, including Wikimedia, streaming service Twitch, and Google.
Three suspected spies for Russia in Britain have been arrested and charged in a major national security investigation, the BBC reports. The defendants are Bulgarian nationals alleged to be working for Russian security services, the BBC said. They were held in February under the Official Secrets Act by counter-terrorism detectives at London’s Metropolitan police, which has a policing responsibility for espionage, the report added.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said Russian athletes should be banned from participating in international competitions after Russian strikes destroyed a sports facility in Dnipro. Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and the leader of the liberal Golos party, also said Ukraine will boycott the Olympic Games if Russia and Belarus participate in the competition.
Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita said on Tuesday that he had spoken on the phone to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, about the coup in Niger. Putin “stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the situation for a more stable Sahel,” Mali’s interim president, Assimi Goita, said on Twitter. The Kremlin said the call was initiated by Mali. The statement added: “The parties specifically focused on the current situation in the Sahara-Sahel region and emphasised, in particular, the importance of settling the situation in the Republic of Niger solely through peaceful political and diplomatic means.”
The US said that Russia would be violating UN resolutions if it reaches an arms deal with North Korea, after the two countries’ leaders called for greater cooperation. State department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters: “Any kind of security cooperation or arms deal between North Korea and Russia would certainly violate a series of UN security council resolutions.”
Sweden’s government said Tuesday that it would donate to Ukraine ammunition and spare parts for previously donated weapon systems worth over $300m (£240m). Speaking at press conference, defence minister Pal Jonson said the military aid package, Sweden’s 13th to Ukraine, would include ammunition and spare parts valued at about 3.4bn kronor ($313m/£250m).
The Ukrainian government is to build new fortifications and military infrastructure in northeast regions that border Russia and Belarus at a cost of nearly $35 million, prime minister Denys Shmyhal said on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia and met troops fighting in the counteroffensive against Russian forces in the south, the president’s office said on Tuesday. Zelenskiy was shown in a video with senior Ukrainian soldiers examining a battlefield map at what the president’s office said was the frontline command point of the 46th separate airmobile brigade, near the town of Orikhiv, Reuters reports.
Russia and North Korea on Tuesday advocated closer collaboration including in the defence sector. Moscow and Pyongyang have drawn closer since the Kremlin deployed troops to Ukraine and commenced large-scale hostilities last year, according to AFP.
The US said that Russia would be violating UN resolutions if it reaches an arms deal with North Korea, after the two countries’ leaders called for greater cooperation.
State department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters:
Any kind of security cooperation or arms deal between North Korea and Russia would certainly violate a series of UN security council resolutions.
Patel highlighted that Russia was relying on some of the world’s most ostracised nations, North Korea and Iran, to support its “war of aggression” against Ukraine, AFP reports.
He added:
Our information indicates that Russia is seeking to increase this type of military cooperation with the DPRK [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].
