Here are the key events on day 1,235 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Sunday, July 13:
Fighting
- Ukrainian officials said Russian air attacks overnight on Saturday killed at least two people in the western city of Chernivtsi and wounded 38 others across Ukraine.
- The raids also damaged civilian infrastructure from Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast to Lviv, Lutsk and Chernivtsi in the west.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence said it attacked companies in Ukraine’s military-industrial complex in Lviv, Kharkiv and Lutsk, as well as a military aerodrome.
- The United Nations Human Rights monitoring mission in Ukraine said that June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured.
- In Russia, a man was killed in the Belgorod region after a shell struck a private house, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Politics and diplomacy
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told visiting Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov that his country was ready to “unconditionally support” all actions taken by Moscow in Ukraine.
- Earlier, Lavrov held talks with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, in Wonsan, and they issued a joint statement pledging support to safeguard the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of each other’s countries, according to North Korean state media.
- Lavrov also warned the United States, South Korea and Japan against forming “alliances directed against anyone, including North Korea and, of course, Russia”.
- Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, said his government hoped to reach an agreement with the European Union and its partners on guarantees that Slovakia would not suffer from the end of Russian gas supplies by Tuesday. Slovakia has been blocking the EU’s 18th sanctions package on Russia over its disagreement with a proposal to end all imports of Russian gas from 2028. Slovakia, which gets the majority of its gas from Russian supplier Gazprom under a long-term deal valid until 2034, argues the move could cause shortages, a rise in prices and transit fees, and lead to damage claims.
- Russia blamed Western sanctions for the collapse of its agreement with the UN to facilitate exports of Russian food and fertilisers. The three-year agreement was signed in 2022 in a bid to rein in global food prices.
Weapons
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was “close to reaching a multilevel agreement” with the US “on new Patriot systems and missiles for them”. Ukraine was stepping up production of its own interceptor systems, he added.
