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Ukrainian authorities are investigating the attack in Dnipropetrovsk
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Ukrainian authorities have launched an investigation after a Russian missile struck and killed several elite Ukrainian soldiers at an awards ceremony.
Ukraine’s Operational Task Force East confirmed that an attack took place on Saturday in Dnipropetrovsk but did not specify how many soldiers in the military formation had been killed.
Dmytro Sviatnenko, a Ukrainian journalist, said in a post on Facebook that his brother – an elite drone operator – was killed during the ceremony.
“He and his comrades were gathered on the parade ground to be awarded. They gathered the best. The best pilots and infantrymen of the brigade. In order of command. In open terrain. Ballistics flew in. The story of negligence repeated itself,” Mr Sviatnenko wrote.
“He endured hell in Krynky, Kurakhove, Marinka, Krasnohorivka … He was killed by Russians. But not on the battlefield. Deep in the rear,” he added.
Four civilians, including an 11 year old and a 14 year old, were also killed in the same missile strike.
The Ukrainian military has said its defences around Pokrovsk city in Donetsk are holding, denying claims from Russia that its troops are in full control of any district of the city.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Pokrovsk remained under severe pressure, though Russian troops had made no gains in the past day. He said up to 300 Russian servicemen had infiltrated the city.
Russia said on Monday that its troops had advanced into Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub that they have been trying to capture for over a year.
The Russian defence ministry said its soldiers were destroying what it described as surrounded Ukrainian formations near Pokrovsk’s railway station and industrial zone, and had entered the city’s Prigorodny area and dug in there.
“The invaders continue to attack in small groups of up to five soldiers, without using armoured vehicles,” the operation task force responsible for Ukraine’s eastern front line said on Facebook.
Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said Ukrainian forces had thwarted an attempt to cut off a supply route from Rodynske, to the north.
North of Pokrovsk, however, Ukraine has recorded recent gains near Dobropillia. Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said his forces had stepped up pressure there with the aim of forcing Russia to divert its focus away from Pokrovsk.
All flights are currently grounded at Brussels Airport following a drone sighting.
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One person was killed and 11 have been injured, including two children, following Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.
This is according to Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting chief of the regional military administration, who was providing an update on Facebook.
Russians attacked the Mykolaivka hromada [area] in the Synelnykove district with a missile and a drone, Mr Haivanenko said.
A 65-year-old woman was killed and eight were injured, including a 15-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl.
A further three men were injured in attacks on the region’s Nikopol district.
Russia struck civilian energy and port infrastructure in a massive overnight drone attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, its governor said on Tuesday.
“Despite the active work of air defence forces, which destroyed most of the enemy targets, there were hits on civilian port and energy infrastructure facilities,” Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said that rescuers quickly extinguished the fires and there were no casualties.
Italy summoned Russia’s deputy ambassador on Tuesday to protest at what it said were “vulgar” remarks by Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who linked the collapse of a tower in Rome to Italy’s military support for Ukraine.
A Romanian worker was trapped under the rubble after part of a medieval tower near Rome’s Colosseum gave way on Monday. He was later extracted alive, but subsequently died in hospital.
With the rescue operation still underway, Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel that as long as the Italian government “wastes its taxpayers’ money” on backing Ukraine, the local economy, and its towers, would continue to collapse.
Foreign minister Antonio Tajani denounced her post as “disturbing” and “unacceptable”, adding: “Italy will not alter its foreign policy stance or its principles in response to reckless verbal attacks”.
In a statement later posted on Facebook, the Russian Embassy in Rome expressed its condolences for the death of Romanian worker Octav Stroici.
It added that Moscow had raised concerns with Italy over what it called an “aggressive, deplorable anti-Russian campaign” in the Italian media, triggered by Zakharova’s earlier comments.
Russian and Ukrainian troops fought battles on Tuesday in the ruins of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub in eastern Ukraine that Moscow has been trying to capture for over a year.
Ukraine’s military said fierce fighting was under way in a part of the city that was key for Kyiv’s frontline logistics. It said additional special forces had arrived there, and more weapons and equipment were being sent.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its soldiers had cleared 35 buildings of Ukrainian troops. It also said that Russian forces were squeezing surrounded Ukrainians near the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, about 100 miles (160 km) to the north.
The Independent was unable to verify the battlefield reports from either side. Ukraine has denied that its troops are encircled in either location.
But DeepState, an authoritative Ukrainian battlefield map, on Tuesday showed that Russian forces had pushed further into Pokrovsk and its environs, though it showed much of it still in grey, beyond firm control of either side.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urged the United States on Tuesday to remain open to supplying Kyiv with long-range weapons for its war effort against Russia.
Donald Trump has said the US will not be providing Kyiv with Tomahawks after months of suggesting he may do so.
While addressing a European Union summit from the Pokrovsk area of eastern Ukraine, Mr Zelensky also called for more Western sanctions on Russia – including on Russia’s gas and nuclear sectors – and said he wanted Ukraine to join the EU before 2030.
Membership of the European Union by 2030 is a realistic goal for some aspiring countries, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on Tuesday.
In its annual enlargement report, the EU said that Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine have all made significant advances this year in the path toward membership.
“Expanding the union is in our best interest,” Ms Kallas told reporters in Brussels.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is constantly working as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi said on Tuesday in Paris.
The agency is monitoring the compliance of the conditions for the temporary ceasefire around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, Mr Grossi said.
He added that there is an expanded interest in nuclear power around the world but investments and new projects must abide by non-proliferation rules.
The Zaporizhzhia power plant is currently under Russian occupation, after it took over the area in 2022.
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