Ukraine war: Russia strengthens troops - and attacks next strategic target

Created: 2022-06-29Updated: 2022-06-29 08:44

By: Helena Gries, Moritz Serif, Marvin Ziegele

After the rocket attack on a shopping center, Russia is in the pillory internationally.

In the Donbass, the Kremlin is targeting a new city: the situation in the news ticker.

• Mercenaries for the Russian Army

  : Ramzan Kadyrov sends four new battalions.

• Attack on shopping center

  : An air strike by Russia causes several deaths.

• Editor's note: You can read all the news about the Ukraine war in this news ticker.

  Some of the information comes from warring factions and cannot be directly checked independently.

+++ 8:00 a.m .:

According to a situation report, the Ukrainian army assumes that Russian troops are about to attack the city of Lyssychansk.

At the same time, the army is strengthening the battalion group in the region, the report says.

Lysychansk is considered a strategically important city, south of Sievjerodonetsk in the Donbass.

The information cannot be independently verified.

A soldier of the Ukrainian army.

(Archive photo) © Daniel Carde / Zuma Wire / dpa

Update from Wednesday, June 29, 6:15 a.m .:

In a surprising appearance before the UN Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Russia to be punished as a "terrorist state".

Russia must be excluded from the Security Council, said Selenskyj, who was connected via video to a meeting scheduled at short notice in New York on Tuesday.

Fighting continued into Wednesday night.

The Ukrinform news agency reported two rocket hits in the city of Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine.

A fire broke out in the south of the city.

Information about injuries and damage was not yet available.

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Both sides are currently trying to gain control of an important supply route for the heavily contested former city of Lysychansk.

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian military repelled a Russian advance on the village of Spirne along this road.

News about the Ukraine war: Russian troops arrest the mayor of Cherson

Lysychansk will continue to be constantly shelled with mortars and other artillery, the General Staff said.

Russian troops are already on the southern outskirts of the city.

Representatives of the pro-Russian separatists also reported fighting in the city.

Connections to the neighboring Donetsk region have been under constant fire for days.

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Russian occupation forces have arrested Igor Kolychayev, the elected mayor of the city of Cherson in southern Ukraine.

This was confirmed by the pro-Russian deputy chief of the military and civil administration in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, on Tuesday to the Ria Novosti news agency.

Kolychayev had openly called on the employees of the city administration to sabotage and Stremusov justified the arrest by ignoring the instructions of the new administration.

Ukraine War News: France Sends "Significant Quantity" of Armored Vehicles

+++ 21:42:

Ukraine gets armored vehicles from France.

According to the

, it should be a “significant amount”.

This was announced by France's defense minister.

Ukraine war: Russia launches next missile attack

+++ 19.30:

Russia launched a missile attack on the city of Dnipro.

According to Valentyn Retsnychenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, rescue workers are searching under the rubble for survivors.

In addition, bitter fighting is taking place in eastern Ukraine over the route from Lysychansk to Bakhmut - it is considered an important supply route for Ukraine.

+++ 18:03:

The White House is losing faith that Ukraine can regain all lost territories.

Even with new, heavy weapons, it can be difficult, officials told CNN.

Biden is also becoming increasingly pessimistic.

+++ 17.01:

After the destruction of a shopping center in Ukraine, the Russian military admitted to being responsible for the momentous air raid on the city of Kremenchuk.

The attack was aimed at several halls in which weapons and ammunition delivered from Europe and the USA were stored, the Russian Defense Ministry said in Moscow on Tuesday.

The detonation of the ammunition then caused a fire in the nearby shopping center.

While the ministry claimed the building was no longer in use, posts by local businesses on social media and online platforms suggest the opposite.

According to the Ukrainian authorities, the shopping center was fired upon and destroyed by a long-range Russian bomber with air-to-surface missiles.

More than 20 people were killed and around 60 injured.

According to the city administration, the management of the shopping center had ordered the air alarm to be ignored - which is why the building was not evacuated.

Now it is completely in ruins - and given the official 36 missing person reports, the number of victims could continue to rise.

Ukraine War: Kadyrov sends four new battalions to war

+++ 3:58 p.m

.: Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen head of state and important ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is setting up four new military battalions “with an impressive number of personnel”, reports the

news portal .

He wants to support the Russian troops during the Ukraine war.

Kadyrov said in a telegram posting on Sunday that the four battalions would be deployed in the Chechen Republic "very soon".

"The military contingent will consist only of Chechen men," Kadyrov said, according to an English translation in the post.

“They will replenish the composition of the troops of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.”

+++ 2.49 p.m .:

According to information from the Kiyv Independent news portal, Russia is trying to advance towards the city of Sloviansk.

Sloviansk is located in Donetsk Oblast and has around 100,000 inhabitants.

Russian troops are also trying to storm the village of Vovchoarivka near Lysychansk (Luhansk region) and the area around the oil refinery, according to the General Staff.

Ukraine war: Russia would halt offensive 'within a day'

+++ 1.35 p.m .:

According to the Kremlin, Russia would immediately end its offensive against Ukraine in the event of Kiev’s surrender.

"The Ukrainian side can stop everything before the end of today," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday.

For this, “an order to the nationalist units”, “to the “Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms” is necessary.

Kyiv must also meet all Russian conditions.

"Then it would all be over in a day."

+++ 11.46 a.m .:

The Russian Ministry of Defense first commented on the attack on a shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk in the Ukraine war.

On its Telegram channel, the ministry said that the Russian "Aerospace Forces carried out an attack with high-precision airborne weapons on hangars with weapons and ammunition from the United States and European countries," reports news channel CNN.

"As a result of the high-precision hit, western-made weapons and ammunition were hit, which were concentrated in the storage area for onward transport to the Ukrainian troop group in Donbass." missing.

Ukraine calls for UN meeting over mall attack - death toll rises

+++ 10.34 a.m .:

After the Russian rocket attack on a shopping center in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, the number of fatalities rose to at least 18 on Tuesday, according to the regional administration.

During the night, rescue service chief Serhij Kruk had spoken of 16 dead and 59 injured.

The rescue workers are still on duty around the clock.

According to Ukrainian sources, the shopping center was hit by Russian missiles on Monday.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "more than 1,000 people" were in the shopping center at the time of the rocket fire.

War News: Ukraine calls for UN meeting over mall attack 

+++ 9.36 a.m .:

Representatives of Ukraine have requested a UN Security Council meeting for Tuesday to discuss the recent Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian soil, reports the US news channel CNN.

A rocket attack on a shopping center in Ukraine killed several people and injured dozens.

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacekeeping Affairs will brief the council at the meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. ET, a UN spokesman told CNN.

First report from Tuesday, June 28, 7:15 a.m .:

Kiev – Russia is internationally pilloried after the rocket attack on a shopping center in eastern Ukraine with at least 18 fatalities in the Ukraine war.

The participants at the G7 summit in Elmau, Bavaria, spoke of a war crime and threatened Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin with consequences.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, more than 1,000 people were in the shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk during the attack.

After the rocket hit, the building was engulfed in flames and burned down except for the concrete pillars and metal structures.

The number of confirmed deaths rose again on Monday evening (June 27), according to the state emergency services.

Around 60 people were injured, half of them seriously, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said.

She also reported more than 40 missing person reports.

Ukraine conflict: Zelenskyj calls Russia "largest terrorist organization in the world"

Zelenskyy described Russia after the attack as "the largest terrorist organization in the world".

Everyone in the world should know that "if you buy or transport Russian oil, have contacts with Russian banks or pay taxes or customs duties to the Russian state, it means giving money to terrorists," said Zelenskyy.

The participants at the G7 summit in Elmau, Bavaria, also condemned the attacks in the Ukraine conflict: “Arbitrary attacks on innocent civilians are war crimes.

Russian President Putin and those responsible will be held accountable for this."

US President Joe Biden tweeted: "Russia's attack on civilians in a shopping center is cruel".

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on the sidelines of the G7 summit: "This appalling attack shows once again the level of cruelty and barbarism the Russian leader is capable of."

Russia's Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, described the attack as a "new Bucha-style Ukrainian provocation".

Moscow has always dismissed the well-documented killings of Ukrainian civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha by Russian troops as alleged staging.

Regarding Kremenchuk, Polyansky claimed on Twitter without further explanation that there were "too many noticeable discrepancies".

Ukraine war: explosions in the south - dead in attacks on Lysychansk and Kharkiv

Attacks are also said to have taken place in southern Ukraine.

Explosions were reported in the city of Mykolayiv early on Tuesday morning (June 28), Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich wrote in the Telegram news service.

Nothing is known about damage and casualties.

He called on residents to go to safe places.

According to the authorities, eight people were killed in a queue in front of a tank truck with drinking water in the Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in a Russian missile attack.

Another 21 were injured, wrote the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajdaj, to the Telegram news service.

According to Ukrainian regional commander Oleg Sinegubov, Russian shelling killed 5 civilians and wounded 22 others in the city of Kharkiv.

Sinegubow wrote on Telegram that five children were among the injured.

(hg/dpa)