Lysychansk is now under Russian control, Kyiv reports. Explosions are also reported from Melitopol. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
8:52 a.m .: The city of Melitopol in southern Ukraine, occupied by Russian troops, was shaken by dozens of explosions on Sunday night. More than 30 projectiles were fired at one of the four Russian military bases in the city, said the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, on Sunday in a video address distributed on his Telegram channel. The base was thus put out of action. This information cannot be verified independently.
According to Fyodorov, military equipment and several fuel depots were hit. As a result, the explosions continued hours after the attacks. In fact, pictures and videos have appeared on social networks showing clouds of smoke over the city. At the same time, it was announced that entry and exit from the city were blocked. According to Fyodorov, a Russian train was also derailed. This should bring supplies for the Russian occupiers in the city.
7:57 a.m .: According to Ukrainian information, Russian troops have moved into Lysychansk. “In the Donetsk region, the occupiers are concentrating on consolidating their positions in the cities of Lysychansk and Verkhnyokamyanka,” the Ukrainian General Staff said on Sunday. The Ukrainian military governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Hayday, also confirmed on his Telegram channel that the Russians had advanced “and gained a foothold in the Lysychansk district”. It is still unclear whether Ukrainian units are in the city.
On Saturday, the pro-Russian separatists had already announced that they would take Lysychansk. Kyiv replied that the strategically important city was still under its own control. After the fall of Sieverodonetsk, Lysychansk was the last large Ukrainian-controlled place in the Luhansk region.
According to the general staff report, there were also Russian attacks in the direction of Kharkiv and Sloviansk. Russian attacks were repulsed in both directions.
Fighting continues in the direction of Bakhmut, an important transport hub in the Donetsk region. The same applies to Spartak, a suburb of Donetsk that Russian troops are trying to storm.
7:47 p.m .: According to their own statements, pro-Russian separatists, together with Russian soldiers, took control of the city administration building in the heavily contested eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk. That said the separatist representative Andrei Marochko of the Russian agency Interfax on Saturday evening. Similar reports about the strategically important city in the Luhansk region were also made by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti and by the President of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. This information could not be independently verified.
7:20 p.m .: Videos from pro-Russian channels are circulating on Twitter, which are said to show Russian soldiers hoisting a Soviet flag in the embattled city of Lysychansk. The US security expert Michael Horowitz also shared that video on his Twitter channel and explains: “It seems likely that the city has fallen.” His analyzed geodata would also speak for it. However, the situation is unclear.
According to their own statements, pro-Russian separatists have completely surrounded the heavily contested city of Lysychansk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk. Separatist representative Andrei Marochko told the Russian agency Interfax that “the last strategically important heights” were occupied on Saturday with the help of the Russian army. The President of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said that Russian troops had already advanced to the center of Lysychansk. This information could not be independently verified.
The Ukrainian side also speaks of fierce fighting, but continues to describe the city as contested. The governor of the Luhansk region Serhiy Hayday said the Russians were trying to storm Lysychansk from different directions.
4:05 p.m .: The Ukrainian army has rejected reports of success from pro-Russian separatists about a complete encirclement of Lysychansk in the east of the country. There is fierce fighting around the city in the Luhansk region, a Ukrainian army spokesman said on television on Saturday. Lysychansk was “not surrounded and still under the control of the Ukrainian army”.
A few hours earlier, pro-Russian fighters in Ukraine announced that they had completely surrounded Lysychansk. Together with Russian troops, “the last strategic hills” were conquered today, a representative of the separatists told the Russian news agency TASS. “With this we can report that Lysychansk is completely encircled.”
Lyssychansk has been hotly contested for days. The neighboring town of Sievjerodonetsk was conquered by Russian troops a week ago after weeks of fighting.
11.04 a.m .: According to British assessments, Russia is increasingly using inaccurate missiles in its attacks in Ukraine. The reason is probably that stocks of modern, accurate weapons are dwindling, the Ministry of Defense said in London on Saturday. Analysis of surveillance footage showed that the shopping center in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk was very likely hit by a Ch-32 missile, the agency said, citing intelligence.
This is a further development of the Soviet rocket Ch-22 (NATO code: AS-4 Kitchen), which is still not optimized for hitting ground targets accurately, especially in cities. “This greatly increases the likelihood of collateral damage when targeting built-up areas,” the ministry said.
Ch-22 missiles are believed to have been used in attacks on the southwestern Ukrainian region of Odessa on June 30. “These weapons are even less accurate and unsuitable for targeted attacks and have almost certainly resulted in repeated civilian casualties in recent weeks,” it said.
10.17 a.m .: According to information from Kyiv, Russia is continuing its attacks on a broad front in eastern Ukraine. In the Kharkiv area, the Russian army is trying to recapture lost positions with the support of artillery, the Ukrainian general staff announced on Saturday. Numerous places would be shelled in order to tie down the Ukrainian army there. A Russian attack was repelled in the Donetsk region, it said. Russian air raids were reported from the Avdiivka area. In the Black Sea, on the other hand, Russia continues to block Ukraine’s sea connections.
The information from the combat zones can hardly be checked independently. The Russian war of aggression on the neighboring country has now lasted more than four months.
10.12 a.m .: Russia is said to have used banned cluster munitions in rocket attacks on the city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, which killed at least four, according to Ukrainian information. During the night of Saturday, civilian areas where there are no military installations were hit, Mayor Wadym Lyach reported on Saturday in the online messenger service Telegram. Four people were killed and seven people were injured.
Cluster munitions are rockets and bombs that burst in mid-air over the target, releasing many small explosive devices. Their use is outlawed under international law. Explosions were also reported from the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv areas on Saturday morning. Details were initially unclear. The information from combat zones can hardly be verified by an independent party. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has now lasted more than four months.
Saturday, July 2, 6:54 a.m.: Ukrainian forces have apparently inflicted another heavy loss on Russia. According to the Ukrainian Operational Command “South”, Ukrainian soldiers have attacked two ammunition dumps in the Kherson region, destroying a Russian-controlled “Forpost” drone worth seven million dollars in the Mykolaiv region.
11:24 a.m .: NATO does not expect the Ukraine war to end anytime soon. That emerges from an internal situation report of the military alliance on Monday, which is available to Business Insider.
Accordingly, the analysts of NATO are of the opinion that “in the Donbass both sides probably need a ceasefire in order to re-equip, regenerate and redefine their mission objectives”. However, the report recognizes that Russia has the military superiority in the fighting in the east of the country – largely because of its artillery. Most recently, Russia had conquered or destroyed many areas in the Donbass; However, a complete capture of eastern Ukraine fails due to the resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces.
According to the situation report, NATO expects this resistance to continue. “The likelihood of the conflict escalating into a less intense war of attrition is increasing,” the letter reads. “Either side, without significant reinforcements, has an advantage large enough to decide the conflict militarily in the near future.”
10.40 a.m .: According to information from Kyiv, the situation in eastern Ukraine around the city of Lysychansk besieged by Russian troops is coming to a head. “The enemy is concentrating its main efforts on encircling the Ukrainian soldiers in Lysychansk from the south and west and establishing complete control over the Luhansk region,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report on Friday. Information from the combat zones can hardly be verified independently.
Lysychansk is the last major place in Luhansk Oblast still held by Ukrainian troops. The conquest of the area is one of Moscow’s declared war aims. There is also fighting in the suburbs of the big city. The General Staff reported that the Russian attempt to bring a section of the Bakhmut-Lysychansk supply route under control had failed.
Friday, July 1, 5 a.m.: At least 17 people were killed in a Russian rocket attack on a residential building in the southern Ukrainian region of Odessa, according to Ukrainian sources. The Ukrainian rescue services also spoke of at least 30 injuries. Among them are three children. The rescue work would continue, but they would be complicated by a fire.
The spokesman for the Odessa regional administration, Serhiy Brachuk, had previously said that the rocket hit a nine-story apartment building in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky area, about 80 kilometers south of the port city of Odessa. The rocket was fired from a plane flying over the Black Sea.
According to Ukrainian sources, the residential building was partially destroyed by the attack. The rescue workers had initially spoken of six dead and seven injured. The death toll later rose from 10 to 14 and then to 17.
10.38 a.m .: According to the General Staff, Ukraine has recaptured the famous Snake Island. “There are no more Russians on Snake Island. The Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted a brilliant operation,” said Chief of General Staff Andrei Yermak.
The Russian agency “ria” reports that Russia has withdrawn from the island. “Today, as a show of goodwill, the Russian military completed its duties and withdrew the garrison stationed there,” the report reads. Also to make grain exports possible.
Ukrainian media had already reported in the morning that the Ukrainian military had carried out attacks on the island (see below).
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