Russia attacked positions in eastern Ukraine as it tries to encircle Ukrainian forces in the Donbas and fend off a counteroffensive around the city of Izium, Reuters has reported.
The most intense fighting appeared to be around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium, where Russia said it had struck Ukrainian positions with missiles.
Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said its troops had repelled 17 attacks on Sunday and destroyed 11 pieces of Russian equipment. The command of Ukraine’s air force said Ukrainian forces downed two helicopters, two cruise missiles, and seven drones.
Russia continued to target civilian areas along the entire front line in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, firing at 23 villages and towns, the task force added.
Reuters was not able to independently confirm the reports. Russia denies targeting civilians.
If Ukraine can sustain pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines, it will be harder for Moscow to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas.
Ukraine’s military also acknowledged setbacks, saying Russian forces “continue to advance” in several areas in the Donbas region.
In western Ukraine near Poland, missiles destroyed military infrastructure overnight on Saturday and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials said.
Another 10 civilians were wounded in the southern region of Mykolaiv, the regional council said, without providing details.
There was also no letup on Sunday in Russia’s bombardment of the steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell into Russian hands, the Ukrainian military said.
Brightly burning munitions were shown cascading down on the steel works in a video posted by a pro-Russian separatist commander.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “very difficult and delicate negotiations” were going on to save Ukrainians in Mariupol and Azovstal.
In port city, some residents ate and talked outside their burnt out apartment building, which was shelled and caught fire in early April.
“I was in the kitchen when the smoke appeared,” one resident named Natalya said. “I started carrying out my belongings, saving what I could.”
She said three neighbours had died in the fighting.
“We could not bury them because of the shelling. Each day we’ve been putting a person into a grave, but we could not cover it up with soil because of the shelling.”
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Russia’s offensive in Donbas had stalled and Ukraine could win the war, an outcome few military analysts predicted at the outset of the conflict.
Stolenberg told reporters on Sunday:
Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned.
It follows moves by Finland and Sweden to apply to join Nato. Both countries have maintained strict policies of neutrality then non-alignment since the end of the second world war, viewing Nato membership as a provocation of Moscow.
Nato and the United States said they were confident both countries would be accepted into the alliance and that reservations from Turkey, which wants the Nordic countries to halt support for Kurdish militant groups present on their territory, could be overcome.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Calla Wahlquist and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
Here are some of the key developments overnight, including Sweden announcing its intention to follow Finland in applying to join Nato. Nato’s security chief, Jens Stolenberg, has said the alliance would look to provide both countries with interim security guarantees while the applications are processed.
Sweden has indicated it will follow Finland in applying for Nato membership. The two countries’ move abandons decades of military non-alignment triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and would redraw the security map of Europe.
In apparent retaliation, the Kremlin has pulled the plug on electricity supplies to Finland, with which it shares a 1,300km (800 mile) border.
Nato pledged open-ended military support for Ukraine on Sunday. At a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Berlin, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock said it would provide military assistance “for as long as Ukraine needs this support for the self-defence of its country”.
British intelligence revealed that Russia may have lost as much as a third of the invasion force, as more than 400 Russian soldierswere estimated to have been killed or wounded last week trying to cross the Donets river.
Ukraine’s joint forces task force said its troops repelled 17 attacks on Sunday and destroyed 11 pieces of Russian equipment. They reported the most intense fighting around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium.
Ukraine also said Russia fired on 23 villages and towns in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russia denies targeting the villages.
Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky has warned that the military situation in Ukraine’s south-eastern Donbas region is “very difficult” as analysts say Russian president Vladimir Putin has his sights on annexing southern and eastern Ukraine in the months ahead.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had carried out “high-precision” missile strikes on four artillery munitions depots in the Donetsk area in the east of Ukraine. The ministry also claimed airstrikes had destroyed two missile-launching systems and radar, and 15 Ukrainian drones around Donetsk and Lugansk.
The first Ukrainian battalion reached the Russian border in the Kharkhiv region on Sunday.
Ukrainian authorities are conducting at least 10 active rape investigations involving Russian troops, and are calling for other victims to come forward.
Kalush Orchestra, the band that won Eurovision last night for Ukraine, is auctioning off the statuette to raise funds for the Ukrainian army and Ukraine. The win has lifted spirits around Ukraine.
Zelenskiy has warned that the war in his country risks triggering global food shortages and has urged international intervention to prevent global famine. Before the invasion, Ukraine supplied 12% of the planet’s wheat, 15% of its corn and half of its sunflower oil.
A cyberattack on the Lviv city council website resulted in stolen data that ended up published in Telegram channels linked to Russia. This happened the same weekend Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups on the Eurovision song contest.
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