According to Ukrainian Health Minister VIktor Liashko, 1,218 Ukrainian health facilities have been damaged, including 540 damaged hospitals, 173 of which were totally destroyed. The leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner said Sunday that his troops had taken an eastern Ukrainian village a few kilometres from the key city of Bakhmut which Moscow has been trying to capture for months. Read our live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
04:15am: Russia says its troops on frontline in Ukraine advanced 2 km to west in four days
Russian troops have managed to advance 2 km (1.24 miles) to the west in four days along the frontline in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, citing a statement by the Russian Defence Ministry.
“The Russian servicemen broke the enemy’s resistance and advanced several kilometres deeper into its echeloned defence,” the agency cited the report.
“In four days the front moved 2 kilometres to the west.”
There were no details which part of the large frontline, encompassing several Ukrainian regions in the country’s south and east, has moved.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports.
4:33 pm: Over 1,200 health facilities damaged since start of war, says Kyiv
Since the beginning of the conflict, 1,218 health facilities have been damaged, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko told news outlet Ukrinform in an interview. A total of 540 hospitals were damaged, 173 of which were totally destroyed, he said, adding that their reconstruction would require nearly one billion euros.
2:28pm: One civilian killed in Russian shelling in south-eastern city
A 53-year-old woman was killed on Sunday morning after Russian forces shelled an apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Nikopol, the regional governor said. He added that an 87-year-old woman was also wounded in the attack, which he described as an artillery strike.
Nikopol sits across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after they invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Galina Danilchenko, the Russia-installed mayor of the Ukrainian city Melitopol in south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, said on Saturday one civilian died and two people were injured in overnight shelling by Ukrainian forces.
11:29am: Russia continues to shell Ukraine amid grinding push in east
Russian forces over the weekend continued to shell Ukrainian cities amid a grinding push to seize more land in the east of the country, with Ukrainian officials saying that Moscow is having trouble launching its much-anticipated large-scale offensive there.
One person was killed and one more was wounded on Sunday morning by the shelling of Nikopol, a city in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhii Lysak reported. The shelling damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment facility.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, one person was wounded after three Russian S-300 missiles hit infrastructure facilities overnight, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
11:29am: Olympic chief Bach shares ‘grief, human suffering’ of Ukrainian athletes
Olympic chief Thomas Bach said Saturday that he shared the “grief and human suffering” of Ukrainian athletes, stressing that if it was not up to individual governments to decide who takes part in international sporting competitions.
This statement follows Ukraine’s threat to boycott the Paris Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete and rally like-minded countries to its cause. The President of Ukraine said the IOC was on the “wrong side of history” and afraid of Russia’s reaction.
Ukrainian athletes, Bach said on the sidelines of the World Ski Championships, “know how much we share their grief, their human suffering and all the effort we’re taking to help them”.
Bach added: “It is not up to governments to decide who can take part in which sports competitions because this would be the end of international sport competitions and of world championships and Olympic Games as we know it.”
9:45am: NATO chief Stoltenberg plans to leave office in October
Long-serving NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg has no plans to extend his mandate for a fourth time and expects to be replaced in October, the military alliance said Sunday.
“The mandate of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been extended three times and he has served for a total of almost nine years,” spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.
“The Secretary General’s term comes to an end in October of this year and he has no intention to seek another extension of his mandate.”
9:35am: Neutral Austria slammed for granting visas to sanctioned Russian lawmakers
Austria has come under heavy criticism for granting visas that will allow sanctioned Russian lawmakers to attend a Vienna meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The issue highlights the delicate balancing act the European country has engaged in while trying to maintain its longstanding position of military neutrality during the war in Ukraine. The Austrian government has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
After securing a promise of scores of modern battle tanks, including the US M1 Abrams, German Leopard 2 and British Challenger 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Kyiv officials have been urging allies to send fighter aircraft.
“Today, Wagner’s assault units took the town of Krasna Hora,” Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement.
