Ukraine war briefing: ‘Massive shelling’ of Kherson as Russia targets cities across Ukraine | Ukraine

Russian forces carried out “massive shelling” in the city of Kherson, the head of the regional military administration said on Friday. The assault targeted the central Dnipro district and lasted about an hour, Roman Mrochko said on Telegram. “Miraculously, no one was hurt.” The post included footage of collapsed and heavily damaged buildings. Mrochko said damage to infrastructure meant the water supply in the area might be affected but that restoration work was ongoing.

Ukrainian air defences shot down five cruise missiles and 11 drones targeted at cities across Ukraine overnight to Friday, the commander of the country’s air forces said. The missiles were fired from the Saratov region of southern Russia and downed over the Ukrainian regions of Khmelnytskyi, Sumy and Cherkasy, Lt Gen Mykola Oleschuk said on Telegram. He added that 19 drones in total were fired and 11 were shot down over Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Kherson and Sumy. He said the remaining eight drones were lost but were probably only dummy drones intended to overload the air defences.

Three civilians were injured by a mine in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv. The regional military administration said it occurred in the village of Staritsa, about 46km (28 miles) from Kharkiv city and just a few kilometres from the Russian border. The people wounded were two men aged 18 and 63 and a woman aged 43, it said on Telegram. Other statements from the administration have warned of mine clearances taking place in other areas along the Russian border.

The Russian defence minister and his US counterpart held a phone call where they discussed lowering the risk of “possible escalation”, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday. The call between Andrei Belousov and Lloyd Austin, which was initiated by Moscow, comes as tensions between the two sides flare over Washington’s plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, a decision the Kremlin warned could spell a return to cold war-style confrontation.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to travel to the UK next week to address European leaders who are meeting to discuss Ukraine, European security and democracy. The Ukrainian president will also make his first visit to Ireland on Saturday morning when he touches down there for a meeting with the Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris. Ireland is expected to offer more support to Ukraine’s efforts to return an estimated 20,000 children who have been forcibly relocated to Russia and Belarus.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry dismissed an allegation by a Russian official on Friday that Kyiv was planning to stage attacks on the country’s own hydropower dams in order to blame Russia for the assault. The ministry described the statement as a new intimidation tactic designed to mislead.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor has called on the international criminal court (ICC) to prosecute Russia over a missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday. The strike was one of a number across Ukraine that killed 38 people, including four children, and injured hundreds. “For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv [are] worth lifting to the ICC,” Andriy Kostin, the prosecutor general, told Reuters.

Any decision by western countries to allow Ukraine to use weapons they have supplied to strike further into Russian territory would be a “dangerous escalation”, the Kremlin warned. “The main thing is that these missiles are already hitting our territory,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “As for increasing this distance, this is pure provocation – a new, very dangerous escalation of tension.” Use of the weapons is currently limited to strikes on Russian forces and positions that are launching attacks on Ukraine, but multiple world leaders including the Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have said the restrictions should be relaxed.

Russia’s decision to open a new front in the Kharkiv region has led to its average daily casualties reaching its highest level since the start of the conflict, the UK Ministry of Defence said. Its latest intelligence update, posted to X, said the figure reached 1,262 in May and 1,162 in June, and that total casualties over the two months were about 70,000. Casualties would remain similarly high over the next two months as Russia tried to “overmatch Ukrainian positions with mass”, it said.

Russia’s state-owned telecoms provider said YouTube would be slowed down due to “technical problems”. Rostelecom’s announcement came amid reports of plans by Russian authorities to block the service altogether.