Lysychansk is now under Russian control, Kyiv reports. Explosions are also reported from Melitopol. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Ukraine is presenting a plan for reconstruction. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
7:44 a.m .: According to their own statements, the Ukrainian troops have repulsed an attack by the Russian military in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. “Ukrainian militants inflicted significant casualties on the enemy during an attempted attack around the villages of Verkhnyokamkanka, Bilohorivka and Hryhorivka. The occupiers have retreated,” the general staff said in Kyiv on Wednesday. The villages are 10 to 15 kilometers west of the former city of Lyssychansk, which Russia’s troops conquered at the weekend.
Also south of it in the area of Bakhmut it was possible to stop the Russian advance and to ensure “losses” among the attackers, the report said. The information cannot be verified independently. After the fall of the Sievarodonetsk-Lysychansk conurbation, the Ukrainian army built a new defensive wall along the line of the three small towns of Siversk, Soledar and Bakhmut. This is intended to stop the Russian offensive on the Slovjansk-Kramatorsk industrial area, the headquarters of the Ukrainian military in Donbass, from the east. Fighting for the front lines of defense is currently underway.
Wednesday, July 6, 6:13 a.m.: Russian proxies seized two foreign ships in Mariupol. According to the Reuters agency, which refers to available letters, they appropriated the Panama-flagged ship “Blue Star I” and the Liberian-flagged ship “Smarta Shipping” without compensation and made them state property.
It is the first time commercial ships have been impounded. More than 80 foreign freighters are estimated to be blocked in Ukrainian ports due to the war of aggression.
10:40 p.m .: The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, has asked the approximately 350,000 remaining residents to leave the province in order to better defend Donetsk against Russian troops. “As soon as there are fewer people, we can better focus on our enemy and carry out our main tasks,” said Kyrylenko.
Russian forces continued to advance in Donetsk on Tuesday, specifically targeting the city of Sloviansk. Before the war, around 100,000 people lived there, more than a million people lived in the Donetsk region. “The fate of the whole country will be decided in the Donetsk region,” Kyrylenko said.
5:17 p.m .: According to Ukrainian sources, at least two people were killed in rocket attacks on Sloviansk. Seven others were injured, the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram. According to AFP journalists, several rockets hit the market place and streets on site.
4:42 p.m .: According to the police, a woman was killed and at least three other people injured in a Russian attack on a market in Sloviansk. This is reported by the Reuters news agency. It is still unclear how many people were present at the time of the attack, police said. A local reporter reported that rows of market stalls were said to have burned.
3:19 p.m .: According to a statement, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense prohibits men of military age from leaving their place of residence. The basis for this is the Conscription Act of 1992. To leave the registered place of residence, men between the ages of 18 and 60 now need permission from the associated district military replacement office. Controls are currently mainly taking place at the borders between the administrative districts and at checkpoints at city limits.
2:17 p.m .: According to its mayor, the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk came under massive fire from the Russian army on Tuesday. “Slovyansk! Massive bombardment of the city. In the center, in the north. Everyone in the air-raid shelter,” Mayor Wadym Liach wrote on Facebook. The city, which had a population of 100,000 before the start of the Ukraine war, is apparently the next target for Russian forces as they advance into the Donetsk region.
12:59 p.m .: Ukraine’s possible tank deal with Spain is in the hot phase: According to information from “Business Insider” from Ukrainian government circles, a delegation of Ukrainian military officers has traveled to Spain for a multi-day secret visit since last Monday. Ten Leopard 2 A4 battle tanks that Madrid offered Kyiv a few weeks ago are being inspected there.
According to reports, Ukraine intends to make a decision on the offer in the near future. If you want to take over the tanks from Spain, Kyiv will have to pay for the repairs. How long this will last is still unclear. If the Ukraine wants the vehicles, Spain wants to approach Germany and ask for an export license, since the Leopards originally come from Bundeswehr stocks. This has already been announced to the federal government unofficially. Behind the scenes, the Department of Defense is preparing for a concrete application at the working level.
It is the first time that a western country has offered modern main battle tanks to Ukraine. So far, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and other NATO allies have refused such deliveries out of concern that relations with Russia could escalate further.
12.48 p.m .: After a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, Russia accused the other side of torturing prisoners of war. The state investigation committee announced on Tuesday in Moscow that investigations had therefore been initiated. “Facts of inhumane treatment” of Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine would be examined. Moscow and Kyiv each exchanged 144 prisoners of war last week.
According to the information, Russian soldiers then reported that they had “suffered violence”. One soldier reported that Ukrainian doctors treated him without anesthetic and “beat and tortured him with electricity”. In addition, he had been without water and food for days, the soldier said, according to the Russian information.
12.45 p.m .: Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal presented a three-stage plan for the reconstruction of the country at the conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in Lugano. The first phase is already underway. “We are already rebuilding while the fighting is still going on,” said Schmyhal, referring to the energy supply as an example. The second phase would then be about “rapid reconstruction” and the realization of thousands of projects. “We’ll start that after the fighting is over,” Schmyhal said.
In the third phase, the modernization of Ukraine according to the principles of “Building Back Better” would then be pending, in which all necessary steps in the interests of European aspirations should be implemented. In addition, Ukrainian Prime Minister announced that Ukraine would set up various reconstruction centers in Brussels and Washington, among others.
Furthermore, Kyiv registers all losses incurred in order to hold Russia accountable. “The aggressor must pay for the destruction. That will be the basis of a new security requirement,” said Schmyhal. “Any aggressor has to pay for what he does.”
11.46 a.m .: A few days after withdrawing from the last major city in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the Ukrainian army claims to have repelled several advances by Russian troops in the neighboring region of Donetsk. Russian units were thrown back north of Sloviansk near Dolyna, the General Staff in Kyiv announced on Tuesday. Likewise, the Wuhlehirsk thermal power plant continues to be contested. A Russian attack south of it at Nowoluhanske was repulsed. Attacks on the border to the lost Luhansk region near Bilohorivka and Verkhnyokamyanske were also fended off.
A little further south, however, Russian units near Spirne with massive artillery support and air force deployments continued to advance in the direction of the city of Siwersk. In addition, the General Staff reported intensive artillery shelling on large parts of the front in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Airstrikes were also carried out several times, some with helicopters.
For the first time in almost a week there was an air alert across the country – including the capital Kyiv. Several rockets hit Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine. There were also rocket attacks in Kharkiv and Dnipro in eastern Ukraine.
Tuesday, July 5, 9:35 a.m .: Several Russian rockets hit Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine on Tuesday morning, as Mayor Olexandr Senkevych reports. The city is located between Kherson and Odessa.
7:34 p.m .: In eastern Ukraine, after the Ukrainian withdrawal from the city of Lysychansk, the focus of the fighting has shifted to the neighboring Donetsk region. At the border between the two regions, Russian attacks were successfully repelled near Bilohorivka and Verkhnjokamjanske, the Ukrainian general staff said on Facebook on Monday evening. The Wuhlehirsk thermal power plant to the west of Svitlodarsk, which has already been conquered by pro-Russian separatists, is also contested.
On the other hand, the Russian troops had gained territory north of Slowjansk near Masanivka. In addition, Ukrainian positions on large parts of the front were shelled with artillery, rocket launchers and mortars. The Russian air force also bombed positions of Ukrainian units.
Last weekend, the Ukrainian army withdrew from Lysychansk after heavy fighting. This means that the entire Luhansk region is now effectively under Russian control – and from the Kremlin’s point of view, a key war goal has been achieved.
3:32 p.m .: After taking the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, Russian troops continue to advance. “In the direction of Sloviansk, the Russians are trying to establish control over the towns of Bohorodychne, Dolyna and Masanivka,” the Ukrainian general staff said in Kyiv on Monday.
From the east, Russian troops crossed the river Siwerskyi Donets. There the enemy is trying to push back the Ukrainian forces to a new line of defense between Siwersk, Soledar and Bakhmut, according to the situation report from Kyiv. These three cities are about 30 to 40 kilometers east of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk conurbation, which is considered the headquarters of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in Donbass.
On other front sections, both in the north around the city of Kharkiv and in the south in the Black Sea regions of Zaporizhia, Cherson and Mykolaiv, there were no significant troop movements, according to Ukrainian information, despite heavy artillery combat. The information cannot be verified independently.
Monday, June 4, 7:15 a.m .: In the city of Lyssychansk in eastern Ukraine, which was conquered by Russia, only a few thousand are left, according to Ukrainian information, of what used to be more than 100,000 inhabitants. The military governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajdaj, said the number was around 10,000 on Ukrainian television on Monday.
In the neighboring city of Sievjerodonetsk, which is also under Russian control, only about 8,000 people remained. More than 100,000 lived there before the war began. Almost everything in the metropolitan area has now been destroyed: 90 percent of the infrastructure has been damaged and 60 percent of the residential buildings have been destroyed. The information can hardly be verified independently.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
