There are renewed reports of dead and wounded civilians in Russian attacks. Sieryerodonetsk is largely under Russian control – civilians seek refuge in chemical plant in Sieryerodonetsk. All news about the attack on Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
5:38 p.m .: At least 13 people were killed by rocket launchers in the city of Stakhanov in the eastern Ukrainian separatist region of Luhansk. “About 20 Uragan rockets hit the country,” said the head of the republic, Leonid Pasechnik, to Russian media on Thursday. In addition, at least six injured were recovered from the rubble.
The Moscow-loyal separatists accused the Ukrainian army of shelling a residential area. Ukrainian positions are located about twelve kilometers from the industrial city. The information provided by the warring parties cannot be independently verified.
16:07: The Supreme Court of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has sentenced three foreign fighters in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces to death as mercenaries. According to the Russian news agency TASS, the death penalty will be imposed for “all crimes taken together”. The accused are two Britons and one Moroccan. You can still appeal the verdict within one month.
The trial against the three men began on Wednesday, largely closed to the public. They are accused of acts of violent seizure of power. According to the court, the defendants “admitted their guilt”. One of the men also “admitted to having been trained in terrorist attacks”.
The two Britons were captured by pro-Russian forces in mid-April in the southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol. According to media reports, both had lived in Ukraine before the war and also married there.
9:31 a.m .: According to British intelligence services, Russian troops are said to have targeted areas south of the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum in the past few days. The troops would probably have stepped up their offensive there, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense in London on Thursday. The city of Izyum is located in the Kharkiv region, which borders on the Luhansk region, which has now been almost completely occupied by the Russians. Izyum was occupied by Russian troops in March.
Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression more than three months ago, the British government has regularly released intelligence information about its progress. Moscow accuses London of a targeted disinformation campaign.
9:04 a.m .: In eastern Ukraine, Russian troops are continuing their attacks on residential and industrial areas in the heavily contested city of Sievjerodonetsk, according to Ukrainian sources. Four people were killed as a result of the shelling of the chemical plant Azot, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajday, wrote on Thursday in the social network Telegram. According to Ukrainian sources, the facility is used by hundreds of civilians as an air raid shelter. However, there is currently no threat of a comparable encirclement by Russian troops as was the case until recently in the port city of Mariupol.
The accusation that the Ukrainians lured the civilians into the Azot cellars and then mined the area is repeatedly voiced by the Russian and pro-Russian side. There is no evidence for this. Russia already occupies more than 90 percent of the Luhansk Oblast, in which Sieverodonetsk is located. The Russian war of aggression on the neighboring country has now lasted three and a half months. The information provided by the warring parties often cannot be independently verified.
6:41 a.m .: The Russian army is increasingly using kamikaze drones in Ukraine. This is reported by the Russian state agency Tass, citing the arms manufacturer Rostec.
Accordingly, the “KUB” and “Lancet” models are “heavily involved” in the combat operations. Western observers have so far only had indications of the use of the “KUB” kamikaze drone.
Thursday, June 9, 4:51 a.m.: According to the authorities, several civilians were killed or injured in attacks on Ukrainian locations. Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko blamed Russia for four dead and five injured in the government-held part of the region in the east of the country. “The situation remains difficult. The front line is under constant fire,” Kyrylenko said on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian army spoke of seven repelled Russian attacks in the Donbass. 31 fighters were killed and several armored vehicles were destroyed. The Russian military destroyed about 20 houses as well as two schools and a train station when shelling Ukrainian locations. The information is not independently verifiable.
The Russian army is preparing further offensives in the direction of the strategically important city of Sloviansk and is shelling civilian and military infrastructure, the Ukrainian general staff said. Mortar and aerial attacks were reported from the Sumy region. At least one civilian was injured.
According to the Defense Ministry in Kyiv, Russia has concentrated up to 30 older T-62 tanks in the Zaporizhia region of southern Ukraine. They are used there to fortify defensive lines. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar again called for heavy weapons from abroad to fight against the Russian military. “The Ukrainian army is professional and motivated, but we really don’t have enough heavy weapons to defeat the enemy,” she said in Kyiv.
7:44 p.m .: After weeks of heavy fighting, the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine is “largely” under Russian control, according to the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region. “The industrial zone is still ours, there are no Russians there,” Governor Serhiy Gajdaj told the Telegram messenger service on Wednesday. “Enormous destruction” is also taking place in neighboring Lysychansk, he added.
5:54 p.m .: The administration installed by Russia in the occupied part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia wants to hold a referendum on joining Russia this year, according to the Tass news agency, citing a member of the committee. “People will decide the future of the Zaporizhia region, the referendum is planned for this year,” administration representative Vladimir Rogov is quoted as saying.
4:52 p.m .: Ukraine has announced the renewed exchange of deaths with Russia. 50 “heroes” had been returned by Russia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration announced on Wednesday. Among the 50 dead, 37 were said to have participated as “heroes” in the battle for the Azovsteel steelworks in Ukraine.
According to this information, the exchange of the dead took place in the region of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine. The “50 vs. 50” rule applied. An exchange of soldiers had already been announced last week. On this occasion, 160 soldiers from both sides were handed over. The Association of Families of Defenders of Azovsteel announced on Tuesday that the bodies had arrived in Kyiv.
A third of the dead were “defenders of Azovsteel,” the association said on Telegram. The relatives were now waiting to be summoned for identification. The last Ukrainian defenders of the Azovsteel Steel Works surrendered to Russian troops between May 16 and 20 after three months of intense fighting.
There are currently almost 2,500 Ukrainians in Russian captivity. Russia wants to court-martial them.
9:49 a.m .: Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are currently not allowed to leave Ukraine due to the war. However, 3,250 Ukrainians have attempted to escape since the war began. This was stated by the spokesman for the Ukrainian border guard Andriy Demchenko. Around 900 people tried to leave the country with forged papers. “Unfortunately, there are still attempts to cross the border illegally, especially by men,” he said at a news conference by the Ukraine Media Center in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Every day, 80,000 to 85,000 people would cross the Ukrainian borders in both directions. The largest number of passengers can still be observed at the border with Poland.
“We don’t see any queues exiting Ukraine,” said the spokesman for the border guard. The number of cars waiting at checkpoints in neighboring countries to enter Ukraine has also dropped significantly.
A total of 5.4 million people have left Ukraine since the outbreak of war. Of them, 4.8 million were Ukrainian citizens. “In contrast, 2.8 million Ukrainians crossed the borders into Ukraine during this period,” explained Demchenko.
9:19 a.m .: According to the Russian news agency Interfax, the first train with stolen grain is on its way from the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol to the annexed Crimean peninsula. According to the Russian deputy of the Ukrainian city in Zaporizhia Oblast, a train with 11 cars left Melitopol on June 7.
Wednesday, June 8, 07:02: Russia’s only aircraft carrier is still not operational. As the Russian news agency “Tass” reports, according to “Reuters”, the “Admiral Kuznetsov” suffered another setback in repair work and will not return to active service before 2024. Last year, the planned return had to be postponed from 2021 to 2023.
11:32 p.m .: In the contested eastern Ukraine, Russian troops have not yet achieved a breakthrough, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The situation at the front has not undergone any significant changes in the last 24 hours,” said Zelenskyy in his daily video message on Tuesday evening. “The extremely heroic defense of Donbass continues.”
The fiercest fighting continued for Sieverodonetsk, Lysychansk and Popasna. “It can be felt that the occupiers did not believe that the resistance would be so strong,” said the President. Russia is now trying to deploy additional units in the Donbass, but also in the southern Ukrainian region of Cherson, in order to stop Ukrainian counterattacks.
“But what’s the point? One way or another, the majority of the occupying forces have long since realized that they have no prospects in Ukraine,” said Zelenskyy. Since the start of the Russian attack, more than 31,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine. “Since February 24 Russia is paying for its absolutely senseless war against Ukraine with more than 300 of its soldiers every day.And the day will come when the number of casualties will exceed the limits of what is permissible even for Russia.”
8:16 p.m .: According to the operator, hundreds of civilians have sought refuge in a chemical plant in the fiercely contested city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine. About 800 people are currently staying there, according to the company website on Tuesday. Among those seeking protection are 200 factory workers and 600 residents of the city.
The workers stayed at the factory to secure the remaining portion of the “highly explosive chemicals,” a lawyer for businessman Dmytro Firtash, whose group operates the plant, said on the website. The Ukrainian presidency initially did not confirm the information when asked by AFP.
Ukrainian soldiers and Russian troops continued to fight bitterly in the streets of Sieverodonetsk on Tuesday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in Moscow that the Russian armed forces had taken complete control of the residential areas of the strategically important city. The city’s mayor had previously said the situation was changing “every hour”.
8:07 p.m .: According to official information, at least three people were killed and six others injured by Russian fire in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops fired on Kharkiv and several villages, regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Tuesday evening on the Telegram news channel. “The enemy is unable to break the resistance of our defenders. Instead, the occupiers use terror by firing on unarmed people.”
In the city of Bashtanka in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolayiv, two people were killed and three injured in Russian rocket attacks, the general prosecutor’s office said. According to reports from eyewitnesses, there were violent detonations in the regional capital of Mykolaiv itself, Ukrainian media reported.
Casualties were also reported from the area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Representatives of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” said a man around 70 years old was killed in Ukrainian attacks near the front line in the town of Pervomaysk. Tens of thousands of people were temporarily without power because of the shelling.
4:11 p.m .: According to the United Nations, at least 4,253 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. At least 5,141 other civilians were injured, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday. According to the information, 272 children are among those killed. Another 433 girls and boys were injured. The actual number of civilians killed and injured is likely to be much higher, it said.
Most civilians were killed or injured when fired on from a wide radius by explosive weapons such as artillery and rocket launchers. In addition, civilians were hit in airstrikes. According to the High Commissioner, the targeted shelling of residential areas and civilians is a war crime.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
