Russian troops arrested the mayor of Kherson. The Kremlin also confirmed the attack on the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. However, the shopping center was not the target and was no longer in operation. The British secret service assumes that Russia is increasingly relying on reservists. You can find all the news about the war in Ukraine in the ticker.
9:02 a.m .: The Russian rocket attack on a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk with at least 20 dead could have been a mistake, according to British secret services. It is quite realistic that the attack on Monday should have hit a nearby infrastructure target, according to an update published by the British Ministry of Defense on Wednesday.
Moscow’s long-range missile attacks have also been inaccurate in the past, leading to a high number of civilian casualties – such as the shelling of the train station in the city of Kramatorsk in April, it said. Moscow is ready to accept “high collateral damage”. Since Russia has a lack of modern precision weapons and significant weaknesses in planning its targets, further attacks must be expected to result in more civilian casualties, it said.
London usually uses sharp words against Russia. This time, the British assessment contrasts with that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In his daily video message, he accused Russia of terrorism and emphasized that the attack on the shopping center was aimed at killing as many people as possible.
8:22 a.m .: According to Ukrainian sources, at least three people were killed and five injured in a Russian attack on the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine on Wednesday morning. This is what the military governor of the Mykolayiv region Vitaly Kim wrote in the Telegram news service. “The Russian occupiers flew a rocket attack on Mykolaiv.” A rocket hit a high-rise building.
Local authorities called on people to stay in a safe place during the air raid and not to post pictures of the attack site. Information from the war zone is difficult or impossible to independently verify.
Wednesday, June 29, 7:35 a.m.: According to the Ukrainian military, Russian troops are trying to encircle the strategically important city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine. This is one of the enemy’s main efforts, the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report on Wednesday morning. The offensive towards the city will continue. Details were not given. Russian troops are already on the southern outskirts of the city. Representatives of pro-Russian separatists had also reported that fighting was already taking place in the city.
There are also attacks by Russia in the direction of the city of Bakhmut, west of Lysychansk. In order to keep up the pace, the occupiers had strengthened their battalion group, it said. This information could not be independently verified.
There is little movement in the Russian advance on the Slovjansk-Kramatorsk conurbation. There the enemy is concentrating on creating conditions for further attacks.
9:38 p.m .: The Russian occupying forces arrested Igor Kolychayev, the elected mayor of the city of Cherson in southern Ukraine. This was confirmed by the pro-Russian deputy chief of the military and civil administration in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, on Tuesday to the Ria Novosti news agency. Kolychayev had openly called on the employees of the city administration to sabotage and Stremusov justified the arrest by ignoring the instructions of the new administration.
The ex-mayor was a “hero of the Nazi environment” and caused great damage to the “denazification” of Ukraine, Stremusov claimed. Kolychayev remained in the city after the occupation of Kherson, but refused to cooperate with the occupying Russian forces. “Denazification” is a catchphrase that Russia uses to justify its invasion of the neighboring country.
According to his assistant Galina Lyashevska, Kolychayev was detained by the Russian National Guard and the FSB secret service after a meeting with other former members of the city council. She spoke of a “kidnapping”. Resistance to the Russian occupation is relatively high in southern Ukraine. A member of the pro-Russian administration in Kherson was killed in a bomb attack last week.
3:31 p.m .: The Russian military has confirmed an attack on the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk – but at the same time denied that the shopping center that caught fire was in operation. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday in Moscow that there had been an air raid on halls in which weapons and ammunition delivered from the USA and Europe were stored. The detonation of the ammunition then triggered a fire “in a shopping center that is no longer in use” nearby.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, X-22 air-to-surface missiles were used in the attack. These were fired by long-range Tu-22 bombers from the Kursk region of Russia, it said.
Tuesday, June 28, 1:39 a.m .: After the rocket attack on a shopping center in Ukraine, the authorities received more than 40 missing person reports. This was announced by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the number of people killed rose from 13 to 15, according to the governor of the Poltava region, Dmytro Lunin. According to the prosecutor, 59 people received medical treatment, around half of them are in a serious condition. Ukraine blamed Russia for the attack. The attack was harshly condemned internationally.
The rocket hit the building in the afternoon. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, X-22 air-to-surface missiles were used in the attack. These were fired by long-range Tu-22 bombers from the Kursk region of Russia, it said.
10:13 p.m .: According to the authorities, eight people were killed in a queue in front of a tanker truck with drinking water in the Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in a Russian rocket attack. Another 21 were injured, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajday, wrote to the Telegram news service on Monday. Lysychank is the last major city in the region still under Ukrainian control after the Russian military seized neighboring Seyerodonetsk.
According to Ukrainian regional commander Oleg Sinegubov, Russian shelling killed 5 civilians and wounded 22 others in the city of Kharkiv. Sinegubow wrote on Telegram that five children were among the injured.
8:36 p.m .: After a rocket attack on a shopping center in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, at least 13 people died, according to official information. In addition, around 40 people were injured, some seriously, said the governor of the Poltava region, Dmytro Lunin, on Monday evening. Ukraine blamed Russia for the attack. “The occupiers fired rockets at a shopping center where more than a thousand civilians were staying,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram news service.
In a video that Zelenskyj distributed, among others, the burning building could be seen with thick clouds of dark smoke. In the immediate vicinity of the shopping center there are several industrial plants, including a factory for road construction machinery. According to civil protection, 115 firefighters with 20 fire engines were deployed. According to local authorities, the fire was extinguished in the evening. A largely burned-out building could be seen in a video distributed by Governor Lunin on Telegram.
The rocket hit the building in the afternoon. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, X-22 air-to-surface missiles were used in the attack. These were fired by long-range Tu-22 bombers from the Kursk region of Russia, it said. Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said a second missile had hit a local sports stadium.
3:43 p.m .: Russian troops say they killed more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers in attacks on the Mykolaiv region in southeastern Ukraine. Military equipment was also destroyed near the village of Vyssunsk on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced in Moscow on Monday. In addition, a total of 24 command posts were destroyed in several areas. The information cannot be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Moscow also confirmed rocket attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday – but denied hitting a residential building. The attack was aimed at the Artem armaments factory. Moscow said Ukraine had probably used anti-aircraft missiles, one of which fell into a residential building. The Ukrainian side, in turn, blamed Russian missiles and spoke of several injured residents and one dead.
10:28 a.m .: According to Great Britain, the Russian army will primarily rely on reservists in its war against Ukraine. The combat reserve consists of voluntary part-time workers who are actually intended for security tasks in the rear of the front, said the Ministry of Defense in London on Monday, citing intelligence information. Battalions would probably be filled with veterans who have served in the past five years. “Despite an ongoing shortage of operational reservists for Ukraine, the Russian leadership is likely to remain reluctant to order a general mobilization,” it said.
Tactically, the Russian focus is still on the pocket around the neighboring stands of Sivyerodonetsk and Lysychansk. But the British ministry also sees an additional plan: “A week of constant heavy shelling indicates that Russia is now trying to gain momentum on the northern Izyum axis.” make good use of the wooded terrain for defense.
The British Navy has no plans to help bypass the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports. “We’re looking at what we can do to help repair railways, we’re looking at a land bridge so we can get wheat across the land border,” Government Member George Eustice told Sky News. “It’s very, very dangerous right now to try to send ships into the Black Sea.” The area is mined and Ukraine itself has closed ports for security reasons, Eustice said.
7.50 a.m .: According to their own statements, the Ukrainian military repulsed Russian attacks west of Lyssychansk and thus prevented the strategically important city in eastern Ukraine from being surrounded. “Near Verkhnyokamyanka, the defense forces inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and forced them to retreat,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report on Monday. Verkhnyokamyanka is only a few kilometers west of Lysychansk on the last important supply road for the city.
Lysychansk itself was again the target of heavy air and artillery attacks, according to Ukrainian sources. Russian units are already on the outskirts of the city in the south. Several suburbs have also come under fire. Several thousand Ukrainian soldiers are said to be stationed in the city.
There is also fighting a little further west in the Bachmut area. The city is an important transport hub. According to Ukrainian information, attacks by Russian units on a suburb were also repulsed here. Despite fierce artillery combat, there was little movement during the Russian advance on the Slovjansk-Kramatorsk conurbation.
The general staff also reports Russian artillery attacks from the south of the country, in the Cherson region. At the same time, the Luftwaffe had flown “successful strikes” against accumulations of enemy troops there. This information cannot be verified independently.
5.30 a.m .: The new commander of the Bundeswehr Operations Command, Bernd Schütt, sees the greatest danger of a military escalation with Russia on the north-eastern flank of NATO. “And that’s why the point of credible deterrence in this region is a very central point for me. The presence of land forces plays a central role here,” said the lieutenant general of the German Press Agency. There will also be increased exercises for national and alliance defense in his command. Schütt: “We have not yet trained this type of intensive warfare here. Existing structures and procedures need to be adapted.”
The Operations Command in Schwielowsee near Potsdam manages the contingents of the Bundeswehr on foreign missions in national matters – such as material, personnel and disciplinary matters – but not operationally. During operations like in Lithuania – where the Bundeswehr is leading a multinational NATO battle group (eFP) – the German soldiers are also involved in the defense planning of the respective country. After more concrete Russian threats in the dispute over transit traffic to the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, fears in the Baltic States have recently grown.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
