UKRAINE WRAP | Several explosions shake Ukraine's capital Kyiv - mayor

June 5 2022 - 14:00

Two districts of Kyiv rocked by blasts from Russian missiles, Ukraine says

Russian strategic bombers fired missiles at Kyiv from as far away as the Caspian Sea early on Sunday and explosions shook two of the Ukrainian capital's eastern districts, Ukraine's air force and the city's mayor said.

Dark smoke funnelled into the sky above the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts on the outskirts of Kyiv. At least one person was hospitalised though no deaths were immediately reported, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.

One Russian missile flew "critically low" over a major nuclear power plant in the southern Mykolaiv region and was probably headed for Kyiv, state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said on Telegram.

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 13:00

Russia says it destroyed tanks in Kyiv sent by European countries - RIA

Russian strikes destroyed tanks and other armoured vehicles on the outskirts of Kyiv that had been provided to Ukraine by European countries, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday.

The ministry's statement came after the Ukrainian capital was rocked by several explosions early on Sunday.

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 12:00

Russian warplanes hit Kyiv with missiles, Ukraine says

Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers launched missiles at Kyiv from the Caspian Sea early on Sunday and two of the Ukrainian capital's eastern districts were rocked by explosions, Ukraine's air force and the city's mayor said.

At least one person was hospitalised though no deaths were immediately reported, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.

Dark smoke rose into the sky above the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts where the explosions rang out.

The attack targeted railway infrastructure, according to Serhiy Leshchenko, an aide to President Volodomyr Zelenskyy's chief of staff.Russia's Defence Ministry said it had fired rockets at Kyiv from long distance and destroyed T-72 tanks and armoured vehicles that had been supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries and were held in a railway carriage repair building

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 11:00

Putin warns West: Russia will strike harder if longer-range missiles supplied

 President Vladimir Putin warned the West that Russia would strike new targets if the United States started supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles, the TASS news agency reported on Sunday.

If such missiles are supplied, "we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting," Putin was quoted as saying in an interview Rossiya-1 state television channel.

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 10:00

WATCH | Explosions shake Ukraine's capital Kyiv

June 5 2022 - 09:00

Ukraine's Sievierodonetsk split in half between Ukrainian and Russian forces - regional governor

Control of Ukraine's city of Sievierodonetsk is split in half between Ukrainian and Russian forces, Serhiy Gaidai, governor or the Luhansk region where the eastern city is located, said on Sunday.

"It had been a difficult situation, the Russians controlled 70% of the city, but over the past two days they have been pushed back," Gaidai said on Ukrainian television."The city is now, more or less, divided in half."

Reuters could not immediately verify Gaidai's claims. 

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 08:30

Ukraine counterattacks contested city of Sievierodonetsk, Britain says

Ukrainian forces have counterattacked in the contested city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, Britain's defence ministry said on Sunday.

This move will likely blunt the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower, the ministry said in a tweet.

"The use of proxy infantry forces for urban clearance operations is a Russian tactic previously observed in Syria, where Russia employed V Corps of the Syrian Army to assault urban areas," it said, adding that the approach likely indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces.

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 07:30

Ukraine says it pushes back Russian troops in battlefield city

Ukraine said on Saturday it had recaptured a swathe of the battlefield city of Sievierodonetsk, where intense fighting continued, in a rare counteroffensive against Russia's main assault force that had been steadily advancing in the east.

The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified, and Moscow said its own forces were making gains there. But it was the first time Kyiv has claimed to have launched a big counterattack in Sievierodonetsk after days of yielding ground there.

Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said street fighting continued during the day on Saturday, with both sides exchanging artillery fire.

“The situation is tense, complicated. ... Our military is doing everything it can to drive the enemy out of the city,” he told national television, saying there was a shortage of food, fuel and medicine.

June 5 2022 - 06:10

Several explosions shake Ukraine's capital Kyiv - mayor

Several explosions took place early on Sunday in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said."Several explosions in Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts of the capital," Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "Services are already working on site. More detailed information - later."A Reuters witness saw smoke in the city after the explosions.Air raid sirens had gone off earlier across much of Ukraine, including in the Kyiv region.

-Reuters

June 5 2022 - 06:00

What you need to know right now

Kyiv said it was pushing back Russian troops in Sievierodonetsk as intense fighting raged around the industrial city, the focus of a Russian offensive to take the eastern Donbas region.

•  Russian forces are blowing up bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River to prevent Ukraine's bringing in military reinforcements and delivering aid to civilians in the town of Sievierodonetsk, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said. 

•  The governor said Ukrainian forces had recaptured around one-fifth of the territory they had lost in the city.

•  Russian defence ministry said on its Telegram channel that Ukrainian forces were retreating toward the city of Lysychansk after suffering "critical losses" of up to 90% in some units during fighting for nearby Sievierodonetsk.

•  Russia's defence ministry said its forces shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane carrying weapons and munitions near the Black Sea port of Odesa.

•  Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

•  Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the war in an interview due to be broadcast on national television on Sunday. In a brief excerpt, Russia's RIA news agency quoted him as saying that Moscow was easily coping with U.S. weapons systems sent to Ukraine and had destroyed dozens of them.

•  Ukraine rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron for saying it was important not to "humiliate" Russia, a position Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said "can only humiliate France".

•  Finland and Sweden's joining NATO would put Russia in a difficult military position in the Baltic Sea, top U.S. General Mark Milley said during a visit to Stockholm ahead of a military exercise.

•  Russia's foreign minister on Saturday said Western sanctions would have no effect on the country's oil exports and predicted a big jump in profits from energy shipments this year.

•  A ship sent to load metal and ship it to Russia has entered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, TASS news agency reported, the second vessel to arrive in the southeastern city since Russia completed its capture last month.

•  Putin denied on Friday that Russia was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting grain, saying the best solution would be to ship it through Belarus if sanctions on that country were lifted.

-Reuters