Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russia launches airstrikes into Kyiv and warns of further attacks – live

An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol has said that the shortage of drinking water has now reached a critical level.

Petro Andrushenko said people had to register to get drinking water and could only get it every two days.

Basic infrastructure and services like water, gas and electricity are yet to be restored to the city after the prolonged siege from Russian forces as they tried to take it over.

According to CNN, Andrushenko said: “The amount of water was small before, but now it has decreased altogether. It is necessary to register in the queue … In the future, the temperature will rise, the water level will fall, and the water will be less.”

He said that water being provided is “very conditional drinking water” which needs boiling.

He added that he feared illnesses could break out in the south eastern city because of the amount of rubbish and dead bodies buried in shallow graves.

“We expect cholera [or] any viral epidemic related to the gastrointestinal tract. As a result of unsanitary conditions, this can happen. The worst thing is that such a basic thing as dysentery in the current conditions and with the dysfunctional medical system, lack of drugs, lack of laboratories and everything we are used to, lack of vaccines in Mariupol … Even dysentery can kill tens of thousands.”

Away from the conflict, but linked to the invasion, Ukraine are due to kick off against Wales shortly for the right to play at this year’s men’s football World Cup in Qatar.

Their recent playoff game against Scotland, which was won by Ukraine was originally due to take place in March, but was delayed by the war.

My colleague Will Unwin will be bringing you live updates with kick-off a few minutes away.

Earlier today, in his weekly address from St Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Pope Francis called for “real negotiations” to end the “increasingly dangerous” war.

“I renew my appeal to the leaders of nations: please do not lead humanity to destruction,” the 85-year-old said.

US congress member Victoria Spartz has been on a two-day visit to Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, being pictured with the governor of the region, Viacheslav Chaus.

• President Vladimir Putin said Russia would strike new targets if the US started supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles, the Russian state Tass news agency reported on Sunday.
• Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said a Russian cruise missile flew “critically low” on Sunday morning over an important nuclear power plant.
• As of this morning, 262 children have been killed and 467 injured, according to the latest figures from Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.
• Control 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.
• Ukraine’s air force and the Kyiv mayor have said 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 in an attack that targeted railway infrastructure in Kyiv.
• 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
• Ukraine’s gas transit system operator has said the volume of Russian gas nominations at Sudzha transit point has totalled 40.08 mcm for 6 June.
• Britain’s Ministry of Defence says Ukraine has counterattacked in the contested city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, “blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower”.
• France is in talks with the United Arab Emirates to replace Russian oil purchases, which will stop after the imposition of a European Union ban on Russian crude after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister.

Ukrainian police on Sunday shared video showing the aftermath of Russian shelling in the city of Lysychansk, in the Luhansk region. The video shows damaged administrative buildings, residential buildings and roads.

Police said the headquarters for distributing humanitarian aid had been burned to the ground. They said more than 40 people had been living permanently in the building but no information on casualties was provided.

Luke Harding

Luke Harding and Isobel Koshiw in Bakhmut have the following dispatch from Ukraine:

In eastern Ukraine there was intense fighting on Sunday all across the Donbas frontline. Ukrainian forces deployed their existing Smersh multiple launcher rocket system near the city of Bakhmut. Sepia streaks were visible in the sky as rockers were fired at Russian army positions.

Another – or possibly the same – Smersh system was seen on Sunday morning on the road between Slavyansk and Bakhmut. Ukrainian army sources admitted their Smersh MLRS were older than the modernised version used by Russia, and had a range of just 40kms.

There was no evidence this weekend that the advanced MLRS promised by the Biden administration had reached the eastern theatre. Armoured personnel carriers, ammunition trucks and ambulances could be seen on the roads, as well as battered civilian vehicles painted in military green.

There was also a spectacular 220mm 2S7 heavy artillery piece, nicknamed Godzilla. It was mounted on a long lorry.Doctors in Bakhmut’s military hospital said the battle for the Donbas had become a grinding artillery war, seven weeks after Vladimir Putin abandoned his attempt to seize Kyiv.

Most of the soldiers brought in for treatment were suffering from shrapnel wounds, they said, with relatively few bullet injuries. Outgoing artillery could be heard near continuously, as well as the odd burst of unexplained gunfire. Most of the city’s 100,000 residents have fled. The city is 10km from the frontline.

Denis Babenko, a pastor turned soldier, now evacuating civilians, said morale on the Ukrainian side was high. “We have soul but we don’t have the arms. They have the arms but no spirit or motivation. To win this war we need more heavy weapons.”

Ukraine’s gas transit system operator has said the volume of Russian gas nominations at Sudzha transit point has totalled 40.08 mcm for 6 June.

More soon…

Columns of smoke rise over Kyiv after airstrikes early on Sunday. Missiles hit eastern areas of the Ukrainian capital and injured at least one person, according to the city’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko. Russia’s defence ministry said the strikes had targeted tanks and other armoured vehicles on the outskirts of the city.

Ed Vulliamy has written a column about why he is supporting Ukraine in this year’s Fifa World Cup, despite his Welsh heritage.

On Sunday evening, every football fan in the world – apart from the Welsh – will be joined by many others who do not even care for the game in rooting for the national team of battered and besieged but resilient Ukraine as they face Wales for a place in the World Cup in Qatar later this year.

Watching here in St Davids, Pembrokeshire, even I, with a substantial quotient of Welsh DNA, will be wearing my official Ukraine yellow football shirt with “Malinovskyi 8” on the back.

You can read the article here:

Dan Sabbagh

Dan Sabbagh reports from Kyiv that Russia launched airstrikes into Kyiv for the first time in five weeks on Sunday, claiming it had destroyed western-supplied tanks – while the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned more targets would be struck if weapons deliveries continued.

Perhaps signalling the new approach, Putin told Rossiya state television that Russia would hit fresh targets in Ukraine if the US delivered the longer-range rockets that it had promised to Kyiv last week.

If such missiles were supplied, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting”, said Putin, who is believed to be closely involved in military decision-making. The Russian leader did not specify what would be struck, although logistics points would be amongst the most logical targets.

Russia has been irritated by the US decision to supply Ukraine with Himars truck mounted multiple-launch rocket systems, with missiles that have a range of about 20 to 40 miles, greater than anything in Kyiv’s armoury.

You can read more of the reporting below:

Russia’s strike on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, has been the first attack in over a month on the city. Ukrainian officials have said that a counterattack in the east had retaken half of the city of Sievierodonetsk.

Reuters reports:

Dark smoke could be seen from many miles away after the attack on two outlying districts of Kyiv. Moscow said it had hit a repair shop housing tanks sent from eastern Europe.

Ukraine said Russia had carried out the strike using long-range air-launched missiles fired from heavy bombers as far away as the Caspian Sea – a weapon far more valuable than the tanks Russia claimed to have hit.

At least one person was hospitalised but there were no immediate reports of deaths from the strike – a sudden reminder of war in a capital where normal life has largely returned since Russian forces were driven from its outskirts in March.

“The Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today*s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal – kill as many as possible,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak wrote in a tweet.

Ukraine’s nuclear power operator said a Russian cruise missile had flown “critically low” over the country’s second largest nuclear power plant.

The attack was the first big strike on Kyiv since late April, when a missile killed a journalist. Recent weeks have seen Russia focus its destructive might mainly on frontlines in the east and south, although Moscow occasionally strikes elsewhere in what it calls a campaign to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure and block Western arms shipments.

Matthew Cantor has spoken to Lee Zion, a journalist in Minnesota who plans to fly to Europe to help Ukrainians “in any way he can”.

Lee Zion is preparing to head to Ukraine this summer.

“I have gotten all my shots. I have started putting personal possessions into storage, giving other things away. I’ve adopted out two cats,” he said. “And minor things – I’m trying to learn the language. I can at least communicate some basic needs. Like ‘me want cookie,’” he said.

For four years, Zion has worked seven days a week at a small-town Minnesota newspaper. But now, disgusted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he plans to fly to Europe and help the Ukrainians in any way he can.

You can read more here:

Maya Yang and Leonie Chao-Fong have a summary on what we know on day 102 of the invasion which you can read here:

Simon Tisdall has said Nato has ensured that the Ukraine conflict will continue by not standing up to Russia.

Nato’s reluctance to seize the initiative, rather than passively reacting to Russian actions, is unfathomable, too. Proposals for a no-fly zone and safe havens in western Ukraine are repeatedly rejected as too risky. So dare to try something else! Nato has the muscle and means. It could do much more to stop the systematic killing of civilians and push Russia back, as previously argued here.

Left to fight alone, Zelenskiy pleads for heavy weapons but his pleas still often go unmet or responses are delayed. “We need to get serious about supplying [Ukraine’s] army so that it can do what the world is asking it to do: fight a world superpower alone on the battlefield,” says US Gen Philip Breedlove, formerly Nato commander in Europe. He’s right.

You can read more here:

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 experienced by several explosions early on Sunday.

Ukraine’s air force and the Kyiv mayor have said 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 in an attack that targeted railway infrastructure in Kyiv. The mayor, Vitaly Klitschko said at least one person was taken to hospital; no deaths were immediately reported.

Reuters reports:

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

The missiles were the first to hit the capital since late April when a Radio Liberty producer was killed when a Russian missile hit the building she lived in.

According to preliminary data, Russia launched missiles from Tu-95 aircraft from the Caspian Sea,” the Ukrainian air forces said in a statement.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called on the west to impose more sanctions on Russia to punish it for the strikes and to supply more weapons to Ukraine.

The Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today*s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal: kill as many as possible,” he wrote.

The mayor of the historic town of Brovary some 12 miles (12km) from Kyiv’s centre, urged people to remain inside their houses as there had been reports of the smell of soot coming from the smoke.