Russian forces advance on town named after New York

Russian forces have advanced into the southwestern suburbs of New York, a town in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Ukrainian and Russian sources said that Moscow’s forces have taken up positions on Petrovskyi Street, which is roughly half a mile from the centre of the town.

Ukraine’s general staff confirmed that fighting had taken place within New York, also known as Niu York, in its mid-afternoon situational report.

On Saturday, Ukrainian media reported that soldiers in the area were complaining of a lack of mechanised support, and that that had led to Russian advances into the town.

The attack is understood to be part of a larger Russian offensive aimed at capturing the coal-mining city of Toretsk, which is around six miles north of New York.

Toretsk is also facing a Russian assault from the east, where the Ukrainian military has confirmed that fighting is ongoing in the city’s outskirts.

Russia continues to make incremental gains across the front. On July 4, Ukraine’s army confirmed it had retreated from a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in eastern Donetsk.

New York was established by German Mennonite settlers in 1892. It is said to have taken its name from the birthplace of a wife of one of the founders: New York City, USA.

The town was known as Novgorodske from 1951-2021, but changed its name in a bid to distance itself from the Soviet era.

06:26 PM BST

Today’s live coverage has ended.

Today’s live coverage has ended. Here’s a roundup of the day’s events:

• Russian forces advanced towards the centre of New York, a town in Donetsk.

• Russia said it would respond to Ukrainian attacks on its territory carried out with Western weapons.

• Moscow said it had destroyed two Ukrainian Patriot missile launchers — Ukraine said they were decoys.

• A pregnant woman was taken to hospital after a Russian strike on Kherson.

• A Ukrainian drone strike hit an ammunition dump in Russia’s Voronezh region.

06:01 PM BST

Pregnant woman injured in Russian attack on Kherson, officials say

A pregnant woman has been taken to hospital after being injured in a Russian strike on the city of Kherson, local officials have said.

The Kherson regional administration said: “Russian forces have once again targeted residential areas of Kherson. Korabelnyi district came under fire.

“Houses have been damaged. A casualty has been reported. An ambulance crew took a pregnant woman, 32, to hospital, who was suffering from symptoms of poisoning caused by combustion fumes.

“She is currently under medical supervision and in a satisfactory condition.”

The attack also reportedly destroyed the café Lito, which was said to have been an “integral” part of life in the city.

04:33 PM BST

‘SBU behind Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil depots’

Ukraine’s security service (SBU) was behind overnight drone attacks on two oil depots in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region, Ukrainian media has reported, citing a police source.

“Yesterday, the Russians couldn’t extinguish the massive fire all day, which started as a result of a nighttime drone attack on the oil depot near the Pavlov community in Krasnodar Krai,” the source said.

Earlier, Russian new outlets reported that the drone strikes had started large fires and damaged a communication tower on the night of July 6.

Ukraine has ramped up strikes on Russia’s oil industry in recent months in a bid to drive up fuel prices and limit Moscow’s ability to supply its forces on the frontline.

03:56 PM BST

Russia ‘will respond’ to Ukrainian attacks carried out with Western weapons

Russia will respond to Ukrainian attacks on its soil carried out with the use of Western weapons, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has said.

“The president [Vladimir Putin] has said that we would respond. And I am convinced that you will see it in the foreseeable future,” Russian news agency Tass quoted the foreign minister as saying.

“They — the United States and Nato — keep on saying that they are not at war with Russia. This is not a brave face on a bad situation, that’s what I’ll say,” Lavrov added.

The US has authorised Ukraine to use its weapons to strike within Russian territory, but only on Russian forces that are attacking or preparing to attack Ukrainian forces.

03:38 PM BST

Pictured: Russians show alleged Storm Shadow missile debris

03:27 PM BST

Pokrovsk sees heaviest fighting of the day, Ukrainian military says

The Pokrovsk front has seen the heaviest fighting of the day, the Ukrainian military has said.

In a statement, the military said that Russian forces attacked the region 27 times on Sunday. It added that 19 of these attacks had been repelled, while eight were ongoing.

The military also emphasised that its forces in Pokrovsk had shot down a Russian Su-25 attack jet (see our post at 2:51pm).

Across the entire frontline, 78 clashes with Russian forces were recorded.

Pokrovsk is a small Donetsk city that lies around 37 miles east of Avdiivka, which Russia captured in February. The frontline is currently around 18 miles from the city’s suburbs.

03:07 PM BST

Pictured: Ukrainian farmers collect grain between trenches

02:51 PM BST

Ukraine shoots down Russian Su-25 jet, military says

Ukrainian forces on the Pokrovsk front have shot down a Russian Su-25 attack jet, a military spokesman said.

In a post on social media, the military said: “On the Pokrovsk front, our Ukrainian servicemen shot down a Russian Su-25 aircraft that was firing at the positions of the [Ukrainian] Defence Forces.”

The aircraft is “now burning in the steppes of Ukrainian Donbas”, the post added.

The Su-25 is a Soviet-era, single-seat, jet designed to provide close air support for ground forces. The Russian air force operated over 100 of the aircraft prior to the invasion of Ukraine, although around 30 are believed to have been shot down since then.

Ukraine also uses Su-25 jets, and was reported to possess around 40 of them in February 2024.

02:32 PM BST

Ukrainian oligarch ‘flees country using forged documents’

A Ukrainian billionaire has fled the country using forged documents, Ukrainian media has reported.

Citing sources within Kyiv’s prosecutor general’s office, Ukrainska Pravda (UP) said that Hennadii Boholiubov, a co-founder of Ukrainian bank PrivatBank, travelled to Poland on the night of June 23-24 via train using false papers.

According to UP, Mr Boholiubov made the trip after discovering that Ukraine’s economic security bureau intended to open an investigation into financial misconduct within PrivatBank.

UP also reported that a Ukrainian border guard who assisted the businessman in crossing the border was taken into custody on July 6.

02:18 PM BST

Watch: Alleged Russian strikes on Ukrainian Patriot missile launchers

Russia’s ministry of defence says the footage shows the destruction of two Ukrainian Patriot launch systems. Ukraine says that Russia hit decoys.

02:11 PM BST

Orban promises more ‘surprise meetings’ after Putin visit

Victor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has promised more “surprise meetings” after visiting Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Moscow on Friday.

“You mentioned the warheads, but you know, the territory, the people, the whole enormous geographic treasury, what they have. So it’s a real empire. A man who rules a real empire,” Mr Orban said of his meeting with Putin.

The Hungarian prime minister said the trip to meet Putin was planned in the strictest secrecy.

More “surprise meetings” could take place next, Mr Orban added, but did not specify who with.

01:35 PM BST

The race to save stolen Ukrainian children held by Russia

Joe Barnes today reports on how activists are racing to free Ukrainian children taken by Russia — before they turn 18 and are lost in Moscow’s adult penal system.

You can read the full story here. 

11:49 AM BST

Russia says it has captured a village in Donetsk

Russia has captured a village in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Moscow’s defence ministry said.

“The Russian Federation has liberated the settlement of Chigai in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Tass, a Russian state-owned news agency, quoted the ministry as saying.

Chigari is an alternate Russian name for the village of Pivdenne, a frontline settlement west of Russian-controlled Horlivka.

Ukraine has not yet commented on the Russian claim.

11:07 AM BST

Russia says it destroyed Patriot missile launchers, Ukraine says they were ‘mock-ups’

Russian Iskander ballistic missiles destroyed two Ukrainian Patriot missile launchers in the Odesa region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

The attack took place near the port of Yuzhne and also destroyed a radar station, the ministry added.

Ukraine, however, said that Russia had hit decoy launch sites.

Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of the Ukrainian air force, shared Russian footage of the attack on social media and said that his air force personnel had “successfully conducted passive defense measures”.

“Thanks to everyone who helps with quality mock-ups of aircraft and air defense systems. The enemy has fewer Iskanders, and more mock-ups will arrive,” he added.

10:27 AM BST

Russian attacks on Ukraine kill 8, injure 16

Russian attacks on Ukraine killed 8 people and injured a further 16 over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian authorities said.

In Kherson, four people were killed in a spate of attacks on 17 settlements, the regional governor said.

In Donetsk, one person was reportedly killed in the town of Niu-York and another in Ukrainsk.

A 65-year woman was killed in Dnipropetrovsk, the regional governor reported.

While in Kharkiv, a 47-year-old man was killed after Russian forces struck the village of Odnorobivka, according to the area’s governor.

10:09 AM BST

Ukraine shoots down 13 Russian drones, air force says

The Ukrainian military shot down 13 Russian Shahed drones launched at the country overnight, Kyiv’s air force said.

It also said that Russia fired two Iskander ballistic missiles, but did not confirm if they had been intercepted by Ukrainian air defence.

Shahed drones are Iranian-developed, unmanned “kamikaze” weapons that can be fitted with a warhead of up to 50kg and have a range of 1,240 miles.

They are typically launched in swarms and are flown into targets where they detonate on impact.

09:55 AM BST

Pictured: The funeral of a British volunteer in Kyiv

Peter Fouche, 49, from Fulham, died on June 27 after being badly injured “in combat against Russian forces”.