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Ukrainian president mocked Putin’s goal to capture the Donbas region, saying Russian forces had already failed 15 times to do it
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Ukraine struck a satellite centre in the Moscow region being used to gather intelligence for Russian forces for the second time on Tuesday, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
In a post on Telegram, Zelensky said his forces had attacked the Dubna space communications centre some 500km from the Ukrainian border.
He said the site was used for reconnaissance and for coordinating the activities of Russia‘s forces in Ukraine. It also came under Ukrainian attack last week, the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Zelensky ridiculed Russia’s goal to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, saying that the attempt has been made by Russian forces 15 times and failed.
“Since the start of the full-scale war, the Russian army has been given as many as 15 deadlines for capturing our Donetsk region. Russia’s political leadership remains obsessed with Donbas. They have entertained this delusion – that they would fully capture Donbas – 15 times already,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.
Russian glide bombs killed two people and injured at least 15 in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said yesterday.
A drone strike on a minibus on Monday in Zaporizhzhia killed two men and a woman
Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Russian forces had deployed seven bombs over a 90-minute period in the city, a frequent target of Russian attacks.
Reuters Television footage showed emergency crews carrying the injured to safety and training hoses on blazing buildings.
Russian troops in some areas of the Ukrainian frontline can expect to live for between 20 to 35 minutes due to rising drone attacks, according to an estimate from Russian military bloggers.
The estimate, cited by Oxford historian Peter Frankopan in a report for Foreign Policy, lays bare the increasingly dangerous conditions for the Russian army as Ukraine evolves its drone capabilities.
Moscow has been accused of employing a ‘meat-grinder’ strategy, in which it sends vast numbers of troops to the Ukrainian frontline in an attempt to slowly grind down Kyiv’s heavily-fortified defences.
But with drones now dominating the war, Russia is losing men at a fast rate, with an average of 30,000 monthly casualties in 2026. Some estimates even suggest Russia is suffering eight men killed or wounded for every one lost by Kyiv.
Swedish defence equipment maker Saab signed a contract to deliver 16 Gripen E fighter aircraft to Ukraine in a deal worth about 24.6bn Swedish crowns.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the agreement reached with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson involved the purchase of 16 Gripen E aircraft and included technical support.
Saab said deliveries of the aircraft were scheduled for 2029-2030.
In remarks on the Ukrainian presidential website, Zelensky said deliveries of Gripen C/D aircraft would begin early in 2027.
Zelensky said he had discussed implementation of the agreement and broader defence cooperation with Swedish defence minister Pal Jonson during a meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday, including drone and missile-defence projects.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to find ways in which Russia can launch new offensive operations on Ukraine to capture Kyiv, said Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
These include Russian offensives launched from Belarusian territory to capture the Ukrainian capital and its surrounding areas, Syrskyi said.
“Considering recent events, I do not think that the leadership of Belarus will dare to provide the aggressor with its territory to use as a staging ground for conducting an offensive operation. At the same time, we are taking such an option into account,” Syrskyi said.
Another includes strike from the Russia’s bordering Bryansk region towards Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, which is the most probable scenario, he said.
We heard earlier from the American commander of Nato’s land forces in Europe, who spoke on Tuesday during the opening ceremony for an additional headquarters in the region.
“You’re ready to do more and following words with action, and the United States will be there alongside you,” US General Chris Donahue said at a ceremony in the Estonian town of Valga.
“That is how deterrence is built: Not with words from a podium, but with boots in the mud.”
Donahue, who will relinquish his post on Thursday, doubles as chief of the US Army in Europe and Africa.
NATO troops in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and in northern Poland, have until now come under the command of a single multinational headquarters based in the northwestern Polish city of Szczecin.
Romania has safely detonated drone fragments found in the southeastern village of Rachelu near the border with Ukraine, its defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The fragments landed on its territory during a Russian attack on Kyiv’s port infrastructure from April.
Romania, a European Union and NATO state which shares a long land border with Ukraine, has seen Russian drones breach its national airspace 15 times this year, the defence ministry said.
In May, one drone crashed into an apartment building and injured two people.
Turkish defence minister Yasar Guler has said the US is not seeking to leave the Nato alliance, which is adjusting to a shifting security landscape.
His comments came before Turkey will hosts 32 Nato leaders, as well as officials from the Gulf and Asia-Pacific region, on July 7-8.
The summit will come amid tensions within the alliance over burden-sharing, defence spending, and US complaints about allies’ lack of involvement in re-opening the Strait of Hormuz.
In written responses to questions, Guler said the summit would focus on bloc unity, evaluating allies’ increased defence spending, bolstering defence industry cooperation and increasing support for Ukraine. Ankara should be involved in European defence initiatives, he added.
“NATO continues to be an unparalleled and fundamental platform for Euro-Atlantic security and defence. We evaluate the period we are going through not as a crisis, but as a process of adjusting to the changing security environment,” Guler said.
He said the US had no intention of withdrawing from Nato, but that it wanted European allies and Canada to assume more responsibility for the security of Europe, which he said must include Ankara in its defence plans and initiatives.
North Korean troops have suffered more than 7,000 casualties while fighting alongside Russia, Ukrainian military intelligence.
The figures is significantly higher than previously reported by British and South Korean intelligence agencies, which estimated around 6,000 casualties between August 2024 and March 2025.
The updated figure, reported by Kyiv Independent, comes as Russia and North Korea deepen their military cooperation.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East are not “remote” threats.
“We see the horrendous human toll of these conflicts, which cuts across our values of justice and sovereignty, and that simple British impulse that bullies and dictators cannot be allowed to push people around,” Sir Keir said as the defence investment plan was revealed.
“We also know that these threats are not remote. We see foreign states targeting our nation as well.
“Thugs hired by foreign powers conducting violence, vandalism, and arson on our streets.
“Disinformation aimed at sowing division and stoking disorder, spreading lies and undermining our democracy.
“Russian ships targeting the underwater cables that carry the data on which modern life depends.”
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