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.
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.
