Here is how things stand on Sunday, June 29:
Fighting
- A Russian drone attack killed a teacher and her husband in Ukraine’s Odesa, and wounded 14 others, according to Ukrainian officials. Three of the victims, including a child, were in critical condition.
- At least two others were killed in another Russian attack on the villages of Kostiantynivka and Ivanopillia in the eastern region of Donetsk on Friday, according to Governor Vadym Filashkin.
- Explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Saturday night, with Mayor Vitali Klitschko warning residents to take shelter from Russian drones “heading for the city”, according to the official Ukrinform news agency.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Chervona Zirka in Donetsk. The ministry later said it had also seized the area between the Vovcha and Mokri Yaly rivers.
- Top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskii also said on Telegram that Russia’s military was “surging towards” the key city of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk, but that “apart from sustaining numerous losses, [it] has achieved nothing”.
- In Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack caused several injuries to a 43-year-old man, including a traumatic brain injury, in the village of Glushkovo in the Kursk region, the TASS news agency reported, citing a local official.
- Ukraine’s SBU security service said Ukrainian forces using special drones attacked the Kirovske military airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea, destroying three attack helicopters and an anti-aircraft missile system.
- Russia’s military said it destroyed 64 Ukrainian drones over western Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea overnight and into Saturday.
Politics and diplomacy
- Poland’s outgoing president, Andrzej Duda, during a visit to Kyiv, asked Ukraine to “please be patient” during the handover to his nationalist successor, Karol Nawrocki. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters he would “of course” invite Nawrocki to Ukraine after he assumed office.
- Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker and chairperson of the Ukrainian Parliament, told Ukraine’s ongoing marathon television broadcast that a bill is being drafted to hold elections after the war, Ukrinform reported.