Russia’s war in Ukraine: Live updates | CNN (2024)

Rocket attacks in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed at least three people and injured 15 others, according to Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

“We have hit along the Dnipro. Rockets hit the industrial enterprise and the busy street next to it,” Reznichenko said on Friday evening. He added that the scale of the destruction was still being assessed.

Among those killed was a driver for one of the city’s main bus routes, according to Ivan Vasiuchkov, a representative of the transportation department of Dnipro’s city council.Vasiuchkov said on Facebook that the bus driver had finished working for the day and was heading to a bus park.

Dnipro City Council Deputy Mayor Mykhailo Lysenko said on Friday that water interruptions might occur in the city due to the attack.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian speaks during a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, on June 27.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian slammed US national security adviser Jake Sullivan for accusing Iran of preparing to send hundreds of weapons-capable drones to Russia, calling theclaims“baseless allegations against Iran,” Iran’s state-run IRNA reported on Friday.

“Information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred (unmanned aerial vehicles), including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House press briefing on Monday.

“Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs, with initial training session slated in as soon as early July. It’s unclear whether Iran has delivered any of these UAVs to Russia already,” he added.

Some more context: A spokesperson at the White House National Security Council told CNN that the information Sullivan described to reporters was based on recently declassified intelligence.

Russia looking to Iran to supply drones “speaks volumes” about the isolation of both nations from the international community and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “problems in terms of replenishing his own defense needs,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN on Thursday.

Rescuers inspect a heavily damaged building on July 15 in Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

Ukraine’s defense ministry spokesperson says up to 70% of Russian missile strikes are on peaceful cities and non-military targets.

Oleksandr Motuzyanyksaid on Friday only 30% of Russian missile strikes are on military targets.

He went on to say, “The only way to stop this missile terror is to destroy the missiles that Russia launches over Ukraine.”

According to Motuzyanyk, the anti-aircraft systems worked “as well as it could” when Vinnytsia was attacked on Thursday.

“Two missiles out of five were shot down. If we had more powerful modern anti-aircraft weapons, we could destroy more of those Russian missiles. Today we need modern air defense,” Motuzyanyk said.

He added HIMARS are working well on the front lines and more than 30 of Russia’s military logistics facilities have been destroyed.

Russia's ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin is seen in London on February 24.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has summoned Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin “to express the UK’s deep concern at reports of the death of British National Paul Urey in captivity in the non-Government controlled areas of Ukraine,” FCDO said in a statement Friday.

“I am shocked to hear reports of the death of British aid worker Paul Urey while in the custody of a Russian proxy in Ukraine. Russia must bear the full responsibility for this,” UKForeign Secretary Liz Truss said.

Truss said Urey “was captured while undertaking humanitarian work” and that he was in Ukraine “to try and help the Ukrainian people in the face of the unprovoked Russian invasion.”

A statement on the website of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic ombudsman Daria Morozova claimed that a British citizen whose name she gave as “Paul Johnson Anthony Dominic Urey” had been detained in April and “charged with mercenarism.” Urey had been “diagnosed with a number of chronic diseases,” the statement added.

Truss has instructed Sir Tim Barrow, second permanent FCDO under-secretary, to summon Kelin “to urge Russia to clarify the status of Mr Urey,” FCDO said.

“Sir Tim will demand that that the Russian Federation meet all its obligations under International Humanitarian Law, including by respecting and protecting all civilians,” FCDO said.

“He will make clear that the UK holds the Russian Federation responsible for the safety and welfare of civilians in the non-Government controlled areas of Ukraine, including those within the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘People’s Republics’, which the United Kingdom does not recognise as independent states,” it added.

Urey had the “biggest heart,” his friend Lex Roberts told CNN on Friday.

Few details are known surrounding Urey’s death, Roberts said. He said he had spoken with Urey’s mother, who is “devastated.”

Roberts grew up with Urey in Manchester, UK.According to Roberts, Urey had a number of health conditions including diabetes.

CNN’s Karen Smith contributed reporting to this post.

An employee displays a gold bar at a gold refining workshop in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Russia, on October 17, 2014.

The European Commission has proposed an import ban on Russian gold as part of its latest package of sanctions against Russia.

“The European Commission has today adopted a joint (High Representative-Commission) proposal for a new package of measures to maintain and strengthen the effectiveness of the EU’s six wide-ranging and unprecedented packages of sanctions against Russia,” the commission said in a press release.

The proposed package aims to also prevent EU sanctions from targeting “in any way the trade in agricultural products between third countries and Russia.” It also suggests the extension of the current EU sanctions for six months, until the next review at the end of January 2023.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said: “Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine continues unabated. Therefore, we are proposing today to tighten our hard-hitting EU sanctions against the Kremlin, enforce them more effectively and extend them until January 2023. Moscow must continue to pay a high price for its aggression.”

The package will still need to be discussed and adopted by the EU member states.

Germany plans to give Moldova 40 million euros ($40.2 million) in direct budgetary support to help protect the poorest people in one of Europe’s poorest countries from breakneck inflation as it continues to host Ukrainian refugees, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Friday.

Baerbock said that Moldova — a country of 2.5 million people sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine —is still hosting more than 70,000 Ukrainian refugees as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Moldova is ”feeling the economic shockwaves of the war,” Baerbock said, adding that the war has contributed to the country’s 29% inflation rate, which is ”something many of us can hardly imagine.”

Germany’s Foreign Office and Development Ministry will provide the 40 million euros to help the country develop renewable energy sources, Baerbock said, adding that the support must still be approved by the German parliamentary budget committee.

Tatiana Gavriliuc pictured in Popeasca with her daughter Alerina.

When Tatiana and Iuri Gavriliuc, along with their four adopted children, crossed the Ukrainian border into Moldova, they had no plan. They just knew they had to leave.

Their home in Chornomorsk, a town near Odesa in southern Ukraine, was shelled regularly after Russian forces intensified their assault on the region in mid April. And Iuri lost his job when the local port shut down because of the war.

When the family crossed the border in their car, Tatiana said she asked her husband where they were going.

“And he says, ‘just straight ahead and we’ll see,’” Tatiana said with a laugh.

Near the village of Popeasca, they saw a big sign that said, “We stand with Ukraine” in the Ukrainian language.Locals there pointed the exhausted family to a nearby refugee shelter where they have stayed ever since.

The center, which is inside an old school building with a dormitory, has toys and computers and a big playground outside where their 5-year-old daughter Alerina loves to run around and play.

Tatiana and Iuri have six children — two biological and four adopted — and four grandchildren. The couple’s older kids, a 29-year-old daughter and a 31-year-old son, are still in Ukraine along with their own families.

“Our son is fighting for the Ukrainian army. He is stationed near Odesa,” Tatiana said. “He is tall, beautiful, young. He is defending Ukraine.”

A general view of a building damaged by a Russian military strike in Mykolaiv,Ukraine, in this screen grab taken from a handout video released on July 15.

Rescue operations continue in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv after four people were injured in missile strikes on Friday morning, according to Hanna Zamazeieva, the head of the Mykolaiv regional council.

At least 10 missiles were aimed at two universities and civil infrastructure facilities, Zamazeieva said on Telegram. Residential buildings were damaged.

All of the injured haven been taken to medical facilities for assistance.

The strikes happened around 7:50 a.m. local time, when there were “many people on the streets,” Mayor Oleksandr Syenkevych said earlier on Telegram.

Photos on the Facebook page of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine show damaged buildings and firefighters extinguishing fires amid the rubble.

Firefighters work at the site of a Russian military strike in Mykolaiv,Ukraine, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on July 15.

In a separate Telegram post, Vitalii Kim, head of Mykolaiv region military administration, named the two universities hit as the Mykolaiv Pedagogical Institute and the Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Institute.

According to Syenkevych, Mykolaiv was hit by 10 strikes overnight, causing “powerful explosions.”

Rescuers work next to a damaged building the day after a Russian missile strike in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on 15 July.

The relatives of people missing after Thursday’s missile strikes on the central Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia have submitted DNA samples to help officials identify the dead, according to a Ukrainian police chief.

“Fourteen relatives of missing persons have submitted their biological samples,” Ihor Klymenko, chief of Ukraine’s National Police, said in a statement on Facebook.

“Our specialists have already conducted more than 200 comparisons of selected DNA profiles. Twelve of the 19 identified persons were recognized with the help of this rapid DNA identification technology,” Klymenko added.

Eight people are still missing, Klymenko’s statement said.

Klymenko also gave details of the three children who died in the attacks — a 4-year-old girl, whose mother is in hospital, and two boys, aged 7 and 8.

“One of the boys was being examined at the medical center at the time of the attack. He died together with his mother. Another was waiting for his uncle in a parked car and got into a fire trap. A relative of this boy was thrown away by the blast wave, now he is hospitalized,” Klymenko said.

Some background: The Russian Ministry of Defense said Friday that themissile attack in Vinnytsiain central Ukraine targeted a military facility at a time when a meeting of the Ukrainian Air Force command was taking place.

At least 23 people were killed in the attack according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, including three children. On Thursday, the Vinnytsia head of police, Igor Klymenko, said that “three Russian missiles were aimed at a building with office premises.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the missile attack as “terrorism” and a “deliberate murder of civilians to spread fear.”

In the wake of the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the international community to officially recognize Russia as a terrorist state, saying “Russia has shown its attitude to international law, to Europe, and to the entire civilized world.”

CNN’s Anna Chernova and Chris Liakos contributed reporting to this post.

A British man has died in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), according to a local official.

A statement on the website of the DNR’s ombudsman Daria Morozova claimed that a British citizen whose name she gave as “Paul Johnson Anthony Dominic Urey” had been detained in April and “charged with mercenarism.”

Urey had been “diagnosed with a number of chronic diseases,” the statement added.

“On our part, despite the severity of the alleged crime, Paul Urey was provided with appropriate medical assistance,” the statement said. “However, given the diagnoses and stress, he passed away on July 10.”

“We are urgently seeking clarification from the Russian government on media reports that a British aid worker has died in Ukraine,” a spokesperson from UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

The DNR is a pro-Russian separatist-held region in theDonbas region of eastern Ukraine.

A woman who was severely injured by Thursday’s Russian missile strikes on the central Ukrainian town ofVinnytsia still doesn’t know that her child died in the attack,said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine.

Doctors are unable to tell the mother, Irina,that her 4-year-old daughter Liza has died because of her challenging medical situation and how the news could affect her recovery,Tymoshenko told CNN during a visit to the hospital where Irina is being treated.

“She is with a mask, that is why we don’t speak to her. We come for a few seconds, and came out from there,” he added.

At least 23 people died in the strikes, including three children, and many more are still unaccounted for, according to Ukrainian authorities.

“It’s really terrible, it’s many people,”Tymoshenko said Friday. “It’s really horrible. I don’t know how to explain. Because there is no war, no war objects, there were civilian objects. And in one moment, rockets come to them.”

The attack was carried out with Russian “Kalibr” cruise missiles launched from submarines stationed in the Black Sea, Tymoshenko said on Thursday.

Prosecutors on Thursday collected Liza’s pink stroller from the sidewalk, where the mother and daughter stood at the moment the strikes hit.

The city of Mykolaiv in Ukraine was hit by an onslaught of strikes overnight causing “powerful explosions,” as fighting intensifies and Ukrainian forces try to penetrate Russian occupation in southern areas of the country.

Brittney Griner arrived at the Khimki court of the Moscow region Friday for a fourth hearing in her trial, where lawyers defending the WNBA star told judges she was prescribed medical cannabis for “severe chronic pain.”

Here are the latest developments:

Missile strikes bombard Mykolaiv: Details of this morning’s ten missile strikes in Mykolaiv emerged at an on-camera press briefing by Vitalii Kim, head of the city’s regional military administration. Kim said five S-300 missiles hit the National University of Shipbuilding and four hit the National University of Mykolaiv (formerly the Pedagogical Institute) in central Mykolaiv.Rescue teams are working at the sites of the strikes, where the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Syenkevych, said there are two people injured “as of now.”

New details emerge in Brittney Griner trial: During Griner’s hearing Friday, her defense team submitted to the Russian court a letter from a US medical center issuing a permit in the state of Arizona for the use of medical cannabis for Griner to treat her chronic pain, caused by sports injuries. Griner’s court hearing was subsequently postponed until Tuesday, July 26 after her defense team said they needed time to prepare their client for the next steps of the trial. “Yesterday was quite an emotional day for her … And now she just wants to take a rest,” one of Griner’s lawyers, Alexander Boykov, told reporters outside the court.

Zelensky calls for Russia to be recognized as “terrorist state”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the international community to officially recognize Russia as a terrorist state after missiles struck the city of Vinnytsia Thursday. He said that among 23 people killed were three children under the age of 10.“Russia has shown its attitude to international law, to Europe, and to the entire civilized world,” he said. “It is absolutely necessary to implement as soon as possible such restrictions against Russian energy exports, which will not allow terrorists to cover their costs at the expense of the international community.”

Ukrainian forces regain control in parts of Kherson: More than 40 settlements in the largely Russian-occupied Kherson region have been liberated, according to Dmytro Butriy, the acting head of the region’s military administration. AUkrainian offensive in Kherson began in Mayand has since recovered a number of villages, but no towns of any size. Butriy said thesettlements were still suffering as they were under constant Russian bombardment. “We urge people to evacuate to protect themselves and their families. Russian occupiers are not human,” he added.

Putin ratifies economic measures to bolster military: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Thursday allowing the government to introduce special economic measures to support the Russian armed forces during “counter-terrorism and other operations” outside the country. As the special measures get adopted, companies will not be able to refuse government contracts and employees will have to work at night and on holidays.The government also received the right to temporarily reactivate mobilization capacities and facilities and the right to unbook the material assets of the state reserve.

Firefighters remove rubble out of a damaged building following a Russian airstrike in the city of Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on July 14.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Friday that the missile attack in Vinnytsia in central Ukraine targeted a military facility at a time when a meeting of the Ukrainian Air Force command was taking place.

“On July 14, Kalibr high-precision sea-based missiles hit the Garrison House of Officers in Vinnytsia,” the Russian MOD said on Telegram.

“A meeting of the Ukrainian Air Force command was being held at the facility with representatives of foreign arms suppliers discussing sending another batch of aircraft and destruction means, as well as organizing the repair of Ukrainian aircraft. The attack resulted in the elimination of the meeting participants,” it added.

At least 23 people were killed in the attack according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, including three children. On Thursday, the Vinnytsia head of police, Igor Klymenko, said that “three Russian missiles were aimed at a building with office premises.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the missile attack as “terrorism” and a “deliberate murder of civilians to spread fear.”

In his nightly address on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the international community to officially recognize Russia as a terrorist state, saying “Russia has shown its attitude to international law, to Europe, and to the entire civilized world.”

More details about this morning’s missile strikes in Mykolaiv have emerged at an on-camera press briefing by Vitalii Kim, head of the city’s regional military administration.

Kim said five S-300 missiles hit the National University of Shipbuilding and four hit the National University of Mykolaiv (formerly the Pedagogical Institute) in central Mykolaiv.

Two floors of the National University were destroyed, he said, calling it “impossible to restore the premises before the beginning of the academic year.”

Two houses and eleven apartments had also been damaged, he added.

US WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner talks to her lawyers from inside a defendants' cage during a hearing at the Khimki Court in the town of Khimki, Russia, on July 15.

WNBA star Brittney Griner’s court hearing has been postponed until Tuesday, July 26 after her defense team said they needed time to prepare their client for the next steps of the trial.

“Yesterday was quite an emotional day for her. She saw her general manager, her friend and teammate Evgeniya Belyakova for the first time in many months. And now she just wants to take a rest,” one of Griner’s lawyers, Alexander Boykov, told reporters outside the court after the hearing ended Friday.

“We’re now on a break of the trial so we could prepare for the next stage,” Griner’s second lawyer, Maria Blagovolina, said.

When asked about how Griner feels, Blagovolina replied: “She’s tired.”

“It was quite hard for her (to see her teammates in court) yesterday. But it went well,” Blagovolina added.

A former teammate along with the director of UMMC Ekaterinburg Maxim Ryabkov, the team for which Griner played in Russia during the WNBA offseason, testified at the hearing Thursday. They later told reporters they came to support Griner and “be there for her.”

Some background: Griner arrived at the Khimki court of the Moscow region Friday for a fourth hearing in her trial, after pleading guilty to drug charges.

Lawyers defending Griner submitted to the Russian court a letter from a US medical center issuing a permit in the state of Arizona for the use of medical cannabis for Griner to treat her chronic pain caused by sports injuries.

Blagovolina submitted the letter as evidence along with medical test results from 2018, and a medical report by an American doctor from 2020 confirming Griner had “a chronic debilitating disease caused by severe chronic pain.”

According to Blagovolina, the doctor advised his patient Brittney Griner to use medical cannabis due to the diagnosed “chronic and debilitating medical condition” that “caused chronic and acute pain.”

U.S. basketball player BrittneyGriner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, on the day of a court hearing in Khimki, Russia, on July 15.

Lawyers defending WNBA star Brittney Griner told judges at the Khimki court of the Moscow region Friday that Griner was prescribed medical cannabis for “severe chronic pain.”

Griner’s defense team submitted to the Russian court a letter from a US medical center issuing a permit in the state of Arizona for the use of medical cannabis for Griner to treat her chronic pain, caused by sports injuries.

“On May 18, 2020, Brittney Griner underwent a clinical examination…The patient complained of acute chronic pain due to multiple ankle injuries, as well as injuries and pain sustained during her sports career. The patient complained of pain in the middle back, lower back, knees, and ankle pain,” Griner’s lawyer, Maria Blagovolina, said as she read out the letter in court.

Blagovolina submitted the letter as evidence along with medical test results from 2018, and a medical report by an American doctor from 2020 confirming Griner had “a chronic debilitating disease caused by severe chronic pain.”

The doctor advised his patient, Brittney Griner, the use of medical cannabis due to the diagnosed “chronic and debilitating medical condition” that “caused chronic and acute pain,” according to Blagovolina.

Some background: Griner arrived at the Khimki court Friday for a fourth hearing in her trial, after pleading guilty to drug charges.

Her hearing Thursday ended without a verdict.

The two-time US Olympics basketball gold medalist wasarrested February 17at a Moscow airport, a week beforeRussia invaded Ukraine. Russian authorities said she had cannabis oil in her luggage and accused her of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance.

Thursday’s hearing came as many in theWNBA, along with otherathletes, coaches and politicians, have called for Griner’s release over fears she is being used as a political pawn amid the war in Ukraine.

“We just want to make sure her name is out there, that people know her story,” Sue Bird, who played with Griner on Team USA, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “We want to support the administration. We want to make sure they’re doing everything they can. So some might call it a little bit of pressure, (but) we’re calling it support, and we just want to make sure her name is out there.”

CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin and Amir Vera contributed reporting to this post.

Diana Negru, a psychologist who works at the UNICEF Blue Dot refugee assistance center in Palanca.

The walls of the playroom at the Palanca border crossing between Moldova and Ukraine are covered in children’s drawings. Among the sea of hearts and Ukrainian flags, one picture stands out: an elephant floating above a Russian tank.

Drown with a pink sharpie, the artwork is signed “Vanya, 12.”

“He drew himself as an elephant and said that if he was an elephant, he’d be able to destroy the tank by stepping on it,” said Diana Negru, a psychologist who works at the UNICEF Blue Dot refugee assistance center in Palanca.

Vanya, his mother and two siblings escaped from Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine that has seen heavy fighting since the beginning of the war and is now under Russian control.

When Negru met the family, they were en route to Germany. Vanya’s father stayed behind to fight.

Like many children who come through her door, Vanya needed urgent care. He couldn’t breathe, his eyes were moving around and he was very emotional, Negru said.

“Some children are traumatized, they react to any noise. If the door closes, they become scared and aggressive, so we need to calm them down, try to focus their eyes, use breathing techniques to help them,” Negru explained.

The team of psychologists, social workers and therapists have limited time with each family. The Blue Dot provides refugees with information and helps them with their onward journeys, but it’s not an accommodation facility.

A drawing made by a 12-year old boy from Kherson.

At the time of CNN’s visit on Wednesday, a few families were waiting in the center for buses to take them to Germany. A little girl was in the playroom, stacking bricks on a toy truck, attended by a therapist.

A bus with 70 refugees from southern Ukraine was on its way to the border and the workers manning the help point were rushing to prepare meals and make sure the center was ready.

Sometimes, several buses arrive all at once, with hundreds of people needing help at the same time.

“It’s not a full therapy, we may only have 20 minutes with the child, so the aim is to stabilize them and calm them down,” Negru said.

“We just show them they are now at a place where it’s safe.”

US WNBA basketball superstar Brittney Griner enters a defendants' cage before a hearing at the Khimki Court in the town of Khimki outside Moscow, Russia, on July 15.

A fourth hearing for American WNBA star Brittney Griner is underway today at the Khimki court on the outskirts of Moscow.

Griner was back in court yesterday, a week after pleading guilty to drug charges. The hearing ended without a verdict.

A former teammate and the director of UMMC Ekaterinburg, the team for which Griner played in Russia during the WNBA offseason, testified at yesterday’s hearing, where the defense presented their case with character witnesses.

Some context: The two-time US Olympic basketball gold medalist was arrested Feb. 17 at a Moscow airport, a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, on accusations of alleged attempted drug smuggling — an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

According to Griner’s lawyer, today’s hearing is expected to be procedural with written evidence provided. Griner is expected to be questioned at a later stage. No verdict is expected today.

Charge d’Affaires of the US embassy Elizabeth Rood is also attending today’s hearing.

Ten strikes hitthe city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight causing powerful explosions, mayorOleksandr Syenkevych said on his Telegram channel.

Two universities were hit during the strikes,the head of the region’s military administration said.

A firefighter works at the site of a building damaged by a Russian military strike inMykolaiv, Ukraine, on July 14.

Some context: The fighting around Mykolaiv hasramped upin recent days with villages along the border with the Kherson region becoming the front lines as Ukrainian forces try to penetrate Russian defenses in occupied areas of southern Ukraine. One person was reported injured in Mykolaiv on Thursday after the city came under a “massive missile attack,” according to the region’s military chief.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during his evening video message on Thursday July 14.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the international community to officially recognize Russia as a terrorist state in his nightly address on Thursday in the wake of theVinnytsia attack.

“After that, no one can have any doubt that a Special Tribunal on Russian aggression against Ukraine is needed as soon as possible.”

Zelensky’s remarks come after missiles struck the city of Vinnytsia on Thursday. He said that among 23 people killed were three children under the age of 10.

The President called for the confiscation of “all Russian assets and funds in all countries of the world” in order to compensate “for the victims of Russian terror.”

According to Zelensky, a final number of casualties is still being clarified as “the debris clearance is ongoing” and “dozens of people are listed as missing.”

“One of the missiles destroyed the Neuromed medical center. There were people inside,” he said.

The President said that among the dead was a 4-year-old girl named Liza and added that her mother is “in critical condition at the moment.”

“Russia ended the girl’s life just at the time when a conference on Russian war crimes was taking place in the Netherlands, in The Hague,” Zelensky said.

Watch video:

Video Ad Feedback

78af6a39-52c7-4839-afae-9bf712554f58.mp4

01:16 - Source: cnn

Dmytro Butriy, the acting head of the Kherson region military administration, said 44 settlements in the largely occupied area have been liberated.

Butriy gave no timescale. AUkrainian offensive in Kherson began in Mayand has since recovered a number of villages, but no towns of any size.

Butriy said at a news briefing that thesettlements were still suffering as they were under constant Russian bombardment.

Butriy alleged the Russians had shot civilian cars in convoys as they tried to leave the region. CNN has previously reported on the shelling of convoys of civilian vehicles as they have tried to leave Russian-occupied areas.

Butriy also claimed “there were times when civilians were discovered dead with traces of torture.”

Other Ukrainian officials have said it’s increasingly difficult for people to leave through the Russian checkpoint at Vasylivka, with people spending several days waiting to get through.

The aftermath of a suspected Ukrainian strike is seen using the US supplied HIMAR missile system on a Russian weapons depot in Russian occupied southern city of Nova Kakhovka in Kherson, Ukraine, on July 11, 2022.

There’s a new and potentially very significant factor in theUkrainian conflict: the Ukrainians’ ability to userecently supplied Western systems to hit Russian command posts, logistical hubs and ammunition dumps a long way beyond the front lines.

In the past week, there have been enormous explosions in several occupied areas in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. The available evidence, from satellite imagery and Western analysts, is that the targeting has been highly effective.

For months the Ukrainian military pleaded for long-range precision artillery and rocket systems from Western partners. Now they have them and are deploying them to considerable effect in both the south and east of the country.

Best-in-class is the US-supplied HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, but the Ukrainians have also received M777 howitzers from both the US and Canada, and Caesar long-range howitzers from France.

In addition, the UK has committed to providing M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), which are more powerful than HIMARS, but it’s unclear when Ukraine will complete training on the system and deploy it.

The HIMARS’ versatility is in its name: the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Its mobility makes it harder to target and it can be crewed by just eight soldiers. The rockets supplied to Ukraine have a range of 70 to 80 kilometers (about 50 miles). And their GPS guidance systems make them extremely accurate.

Read more here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Thursday allowing the government to introduce special economic measures to support the Russian armed forces during “counter-terrorism and other operations” outside the country.

As the special measures get adopted, companies will not be able to refuse government contracts and employees will have to work at night and on holidays.

The government also received the right to temporarily reactivate mobilization capacities and facilities and the right to unbook the material assets of the state reserve.

Although the Russian government continues to reject framing the conflict in Ukraine as a war, the new measures effectively mean the country is reshaping its industry in support of the ongoing invasion.

On Thursday, Putin also signed additional laws that include tougher measures for individuals or entities considered foreign agents by Russia, andexpanding criminal liability for defection to high treason.