Here are the key events on day 1,229 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Monday, July 7:
Fighting
- Russian forces launched missile and drone attacks on the eastern Ukrainian province of Donetsk, killing four people in the town of Kostiantynivka and another in nearby Druzhkivka, according to officials.
- Donetsk Governor Vadim Filashkin urged residents of the front-line towns to evacuate, emphasizing the dangers of staying due to the intense fighting and urging them to “evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine”.
- In other parts of Ukraine, large-scale Russian drone attacks resulted in injuries to three civilians in Kyiv, two in Kharkiv, and caused damage to port infrastructure in the central region of Mykolaiv, as reported by the governor of the area.
- In central Ukraine, a woman wounded in a Russian attack on the city of Poltava died in the hospital, increasing the death toll of the attack to three, according to local authorities.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence announced the seizure of the village of Piddubne in the Donetsk region and Sobolivka, near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region.
- Ukraine also launched drone attacks on Russia, injuring two civilians in Belgorod near the border and causing disruptions at airports in Moscow, including grounding flights to and from these locations.
- The Russian aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, stated that the Ukrainian attacks led to the grounding of at least 287 flights at airports in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday.
- According to the Russian Defence Ministry, air defences successfully shot down a total of 159 Ukrainian drones during nighttime and additional attacks before 2pm Moscow time (11:00 GMT) on Sunday.
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin later reported that Russian air defence units intercepted and downed six Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow.
Sanctions
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a new sanctions package aimed at targeting various Russian financial schemes, particularly those involving cryptocurrencies.
Politics and diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the BRICS summit in Brazil this week, due to warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is because Brazil, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, would be obligated to enforce the warrant.
- In a videolink address to the BRICS leaders, Putin stated the era of liberal globalisation is outdated and the future belongs to rapidly developing emerging markets, advocating for the increased use of national currencies in trade.
