A Crimean official has accused Ukraine of attacking an oil rig in the Black Sea. Meanwhile, Russian attacks are said to be coming from Belarus as well. All news about the attack on Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
Monday, June 27, 5:11 a.m.: Six people were injured in a rocket hit in the Odessa region in southern Ukraine. The missile was fired by a Russian Tu-22 strategic bomber, the Ukrainian Defense Command South said on Monday. According to the authorities, a child is among the victims. It is not clear from the information whether the people involved were injured or killed.
“Because of the impact in the residential area of a civilian settlement, several houses and farm buildings were destroyed and set on fire in an area of about 500 square meters,” it said. The fire department is still fighting the fire.
Over the weekend, Ukraine reported a significant increase in Russian missile attacks on the country. A number of regions far behind the front were also hit – from the western Ukrainian region of Lviv to Khmelnytskyi and Zhytomyr to Chernihiv and Kyiv. In the south of the country, Mykolaiv and Odessa, among others, were hit.
9:44 p.m .: A gas production platform was attacked again in the Black Sea. This was announced by representatives of the Crimean peninsula, which was incorporated by Russia, on Sunday evening, as reported by the Russian state agency TASS. They blamed Ukraine for the attack. That couldn’t be checked. There were no injuries, it said. It was unclear whether a fire broke out.
Three oil rigs in the Black Sea were attacked with rockets on Monday. The originally Ukrainian facilities were occupied in March 2014 as part of the annexation of Crimea. At the end of February this year, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The sea area of the Black Sea is also affected by fighting.
6:56 p.m .: After Russian troops took the city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, fighting for the city of Lysychansk continued. The enemy, with the support of artillery, is increasingly trying to block the strategically important city from the south, the Ukrainian general staff said on Sunday evening. Civil and military infrastructure were also hit. This could not be independently verified.
Russia invaded Ukraine four months ago and has since conquered large parts of the east and south of the country. In the Luhansk region, Ukrainian troops now only control the city of Lysychansk. There, too, Russian soldiers have advanced to the outskirts of the city. The Russian Defense Ministry announced the capture of Sievjerodonetsk on Saturday. Ukraine also conceded the loss.
4:22 p.m .: According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia fired the rockets at Zhytomyr and Chernihiv from Belarus. The ex-Soviet republic under ruler Alexander Lukashenko actually describes itself as neutral in the war that has been going on for more than four months. In the Lviv region (formerly: Lemberg), the military area in Javoriv was once again the target of the attacks. According to Ukrainian sources, six cruise missiles were shot down by ships in the Black Sea.
According to the Ukrainian air defense system, it was able to shoot down two missiles in the Khmelnytskyi area. The rubble should not have caused any damage. On the other hand, the Mykolaivka region in southern Ukraine reported a heavy attack. A spokeswoman for the administration said the port infrastructure, residential areas and recreational areas were known to have been attacked by civilians. There were also attacks on the Slovjansk-Kramatorsk-Kostjantynivka conurbation.
12:36 p.m. (updated): The Ukrainian capital Kyiv has been attacked by Russia with rockets for the first time in three weeks. There were several explosions in the metropolis early on Sunday morning. A rocket hit a nine-story apartment building, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote in the Telegram news service. Another rocket fell on the premises of a kindergarten in the Shevchenko district. There were no children there at the time.
According to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, at least four people were injured in the apartment building. A seven-year-old girl and her mother were also rescued from the rubble. The apartment building that was hit is in the immediate vicinity of the Artem armaments factory, which has been hit by rockets for the third time.
MP Oleksiy Honcharenko reported that Russian troops fired a total of 14 rockets at Kyiv and the surrounding area in the morning hours. Even several hours after the attacks, there were air alerts in large parts of Ukraine. Already on Saturday there had been a rocket attack on the western Ukrainian city of Sarny, in which at least three people were killed, according to the authorities.
Russia has been at war with Ukraine for more than four months. The Russian troops are now concentrating on fighting in the east of the neighboring country. Recently there have only been isolated attacks on Kyiv. Most recently, several rockets hit Kiev districts and suburbs in early June.
9:46 a.m .: Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry in Moscow released a video on Sunday showing Shoigu in dark green military clothes getting off a plane and then conferring with military officials. The minister inspected the situation and “listened to reports from the commanders on the current situation and actions of the Russian armed forces in the main theaters of operations,” according to an attached statement.
He also awarded medals to individual soldiers for their commitment in the “special military operation”, as the war against Ukraine is officially called in Russia. Exactly where in Ukraine Shoigu was staying was not disclosed.
Russia, which invaded the neighboring country more than four months ago, is currently focusing its attacks on the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions. After the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army from the city of Sievjerodonetsk in Luhansk, the area is now largely under Russian control.
Sunday, June 26th, 2022, 7:31 a.m .: Ukraine apparently bought weapons directly from German industry again on its own initiative. Kyiv has ordered almost 2,900 RGW 90 Matador portable anti-tank weapons from the German armaments company Dynamit Nobel Defense (DND), reported the “Welt am Sonntag” with reference to Ukrainian government circles. The order has therefore already been delivered.
According to the newspaper, Kyiv paid for the weapons with its own money. The delivery of the weapons requires the green light from the federal government. The Federal Ministry of Economics did not want to comment on the information on request, reported “WamS”.
11 p.m.: At least three people were killed in a rocket attack on the western Ukrainian city of Sarny, according to authorities. Four others were injured and taken to hospital. A car wash and a workshop were hit, said the head of the military administration on Saturday evening, according to the Unian news agency. He blamed Russia for it. That couldn’t be checked. There may be more victims under the rubble. Since the beginning of the war on February 24, Russian attacks have mainly affected eastern Ukraine.
9:05 p.m .: The nuclear research facility “Neutron Source” in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has come under fire again, according to Ukrainian sources. The country’s nuclear regulatory authority said on Saturday that buildings and infrastructure such as ventilation ducts had been damaged. The part of the facility where the nuclear fuel is stored was not mentioned in the damage listing. No increased radiation was found.
Ukraine blamed Russia for the attack. But that could not be checked.
Staff are currently investigating the damage. But this is made more difficult because of the risk of new attacks, it said. In the event of a new shelling by Russian troops, it cannot be ruled out that nuclear safety could be impaired, the authority said.
The “neutron source” is listed in the database for research reactors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but according to the Society for Plant and Reactor Safety (GRS) in Cologne, it is not a classic reactor. The facility has come under repeated fire since the beginning of the war at the end of February.
6.30 p.m .: The Ukrainian army has had to give up its position in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievjerodonetsk (see also entry 5.40 p.m.). The soldiers were relocated. Now the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has published a photo of such a troop transport. The gaze of the man in the foreground – it could become the iconic image of the war.
Australian military expert Mick Ryan tweeted: “A photo of a soldier for the history books. The Ukrainians did a great job stopping the Russians. And this despite the superiority of the Russian army on the battlefield. Of course, giving up territory is painful. But maintaining the troops is vital for Ukraine at this moment.”
5.40 p.m .: According to Ukrainian information, the heavily contested city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine has been completely occupied by Russian troops. They tried to set their own rules there, Mayor Oleksandr Strjuk said on Saturday, according to the Unian agency. “As far as I know, they have appointed some kind of commander.” It was unclear where Strjuk was.
According to him, troops loyal to the government have largely withdrawn from the city. They took different positions, the mayor said, according to the Ukrainian news site 24tv. He did not give numbers or details. The troops had left the chemical plant “Azot”. There were still civilians there.
The Ukrainian army had ordered its withdrawal from the city on Friday. This should take a few days. Sievjerodonetsk was one of the last parts of Luhansk that had not yet been conquered by Russian and pro-Russian fighters.
Several thousand people still live in the city today. According to the pro-Russian separatists, more than 800 civilians have now left the chemical plant, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. According to the state agency Ria Novosti, the site is now under the control of Russian troops and separatist fighters. Recently, there have been different reports of how many people have sought protection from the attacks there.
3:43 p.m .: According to the pro-Russian separatists, Russian troops advanced into the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Saturday. The Russian army and the militia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic have marched into the city, said Andrei Maroshko, a representative of the pro-Russian separatists, in the online service Telegram. “There are street fights at the moment.”
The information, which could not be independently verified, came after Ukrainian forces received orders on Friday to withdraw from the neighboring city of Sievarodonetsk, which had been fought over for weeks.
Should Russian forces capture Sieryerodonetsk and Lysychansk, they could then target Kramatorsk and Sloviansk further west, eventually conquering the entire Donbass region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
The Donbass has been partially under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014, who proclaimed the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics there.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
