War

Explosions went off in the Russian city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, and resulted in a fire at a residential building, the region’s governor said early on Sunday. Three wounded people were taken to hospital, Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Reasons for the incident are being investigated. Presumably, the air defence system worked.” The city is the administrative centre of the Belgorod oblast region.
The Ukrainian army has rejected claims that Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces have surrounded the key eastern city of Lysychansk. A Ukrainian national guard spokesman, Ruslan Muzytchuk, said fighting was raging around the city but it remained under Ukainian control. Russian media showed videos of Luhansk province militia parading in Lysychansk streets waving flags and cheering,
British intelligence says Russian forces are continuing to achieve “minor advances” in Lysychansk amid the continuing air and artillery strikes. Ukrainian forces probably continue to block Russian forces in the city’s south-eastern outskirts, according to the latest UK Ministry of Defence report.
Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces destroyed five Ukrainian army command posts in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv region, according to Russian state media. Three weapons storage sites were also destroyed in the Zaporizhzhia region in south-east Ukraine, the ministry was quoted as saying. The claims have not been independently verified.
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has claimed Ukraine attempted to strike military facilities on Belarusian territory. Reuters, citing the state-run Belta news agency, reported that Lukashenko said – without providing evidence – that Ukrainian armed forces tried to strike facilities in Belarus three days ago but the missiles were intercepted. He claimed Ukraine was attempting to provoke Belarus but his country did not plan to intervene in the conflict.
Rescue workers have recovered as many as 29 body fragments amid the rubble of deadly Russian missile strikes on a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. At least 19 people were killed on Monday after two Russian X-22 cruise missiles hit a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk, officials said.
The British government has condemned the exploitation of prisoners of war as two more British men held by Russian proxies in east Ukraine and charged with “mercenary activities” could face the death penalty. Andrew Hill of Plymouth and Dylan Healy of Huntingdon were reported to have been charged with “forcible seizure of power” and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
A Briton and a Moroccan man sentenced to death by pro-Russia officials in Russian-controlled east Ukraine have appealed against their sentences, Russian state media reported. The supreme court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has received appeals from lawyers for Brahim Saadoun and Shaun Pinner, according to the Russian state-owned news agency Tass. Another Briton sentenced to death by the Russian proxy court, Aiden Aslin, had not yet submitted an appeal, Tass reports.
A series of recent assassination attempts targeting pro-Russian officials suggests a growing resistance movement against Russian-backed authorities occupying parts of southern Ukraine, according to US officials. The resistance could grow into a wider counterinsurgency that would pose a significant challenge to Russia’s ability to control captured Ukrainian territories, CNN cited officials as saying.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Berlin to demand that the German government not intervene in the war in Ukraine. Germany has offered support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, sending billions in military aid and heavy weapons.