Russian strikes in Donetsk and Kherson villages kill at least five
A fifty-three-year-old man and a thirteen-year-old boy have died as a result of a Russian aerial attack on Selydove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, the Donetsk regional prosecutor's office said.
According to local authorities, paramedics and rescuers managed to pull a 73-year-old woman from a damaged house. She sustained multiple injuries including a concussion.
The airstrike hit a residential area in the Pokrovsky District of Selydove at 21:30 local time, damaging 10 houses and a nearby shop, according to local authorities.
In the same region, Russian forces also hit the village of Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka.
Seven people were injured, including a 4-year-old child, according to Ukrainian National Police.
Local authorities claimed Russia hit the village with a high-explosive aerial bomb (ODAB-1500), causing damage to more than 100 houses, twelve cars and a church.
Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka is around 12 kilometres from Kramatorsk, one of the key Ukrainian-held cities in the Donetsk region.
The same weapons were reportedly used in the Beryslav district, in Kherson, where three people were killed and several others were wounded, including French volunteers.
Local authorities claim Russia is purposely terrorising the population there, even launching attacks on settlements that have already been severely damaged.
They also added that energy facilities keep being targeted.
Russia and Ukraine repel each other's attacks
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Tuesday in their latest updates on the conflict that 108 confrontations took place over the past 24 hours. The most tense situation remains in the Pokrovske direction, where Ukrainian armed forces repelled the Russian attack.
In the direction of Kharkiv, the Russian army's attack in the Volchansk region continued, while in the direction of Kupiyansk, Russian forces launched multiple attacks targeting Ukrainian positions, and the situation was brought under control.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a briefing released on Tuesday that its army repelled attacks from the Ukrainian army in multiple directions, including Kharkiv, Avdeyevka, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, destroyed Ukrainian armoured vehicles, self-propelled artillery guns and other equipment over the past 24 hours.
The Russian air defence forces shot down one Ukrainian Air Force's MiG-29 fighter jet and 39 unmanned aerial vehicles and intercepted several missiles, guided aerial bombs and rockets.
EU Defence Ministers discuss weapons for Ukraine
Defence ministers of the European Union (EU) member states met Tuesday in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss EU military aid for Ukraine. The bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov attended the meeting.
The ministers had differences in whether Ukraine should be allowed to use weapons sent by the EU or NATO against targets in Russia.
Borrell briefed the press after the meeting, saying that the EU's training mission of Ukrainian soldiers is proceeding smoothly, which will train 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of this summer as expected.
