Russia-Ukraine war: one killed as Kyiv hit by missile strikes; G7 leaders gather in Germany – live updates | Ukraine

The RIA agency quoted a pro-Russian separatist official as saying separatist forces had evacuated more than 250 people, including children, on Sunday from Sievierodonetsk’s Azot chemical plant.

The plant’s surrounding industrial area was the last part of Sievierodonetsk held by Ukrainian forces.

Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the same official as saying forces were advancing on Lysychansk across the river from Sievierodonetsk.

Lysychansk is now the last major city held by Ukraine in Luhansk, Reuters reports.

Ukrainian folk band DakhaBrakha and Eurovision 2016 winner Jamala performed together on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, sharing a message to “stop Putin”.

Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016, representing Ukraine, and was welcomed on stage as DakhaBrakha’s special guest for the performance on Sunday afternoon.

Jamala, full name Susana Alimivna Jamaladinova, told the PA news agency after the set: “We can stop this evil only if we are united, only if we are together.

“We are fighting for freedom, for equality … it’s my first time in Glastonbury and I see that freedom here.

“It’s a treasure to be human and to express yourself, and you even don’t know how important it is.”

On a weekend when Kyiv experienced its first Russian bombing in weeks, part of DakhaBrakha’s act featured an animation on a screen showing birds transforming into fighter jets.

Other images included Ukrainian tractors dragging Russian tanks, and crowds marching towards armoured vehicles adorned with the letter Z, a Russian pro-war symbol.

A leading historian of the outbreak of the first world war has urged admirers of his work among Germany’s political elite to stop drawing comparisons to the conflict in Ukraine, warning any parallels between 1914 and 2022 are flawed.

Cambridge academic Christopher Clark’s account of the complex logic behind each of the main actors’ entry into the global conflict, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, was an international bestseller after its publication in 2013. The book struck a particular chord in Germany, where it provided a counterview to a prevailing narrative of national war guilt and has sold more than 350,000 copies.

Kyiv’s deputy mayor, Mykola Povoroznyk, has an update on the victims of the attack on a nine-storey residential block in the city. He confirmed one person was killed and at least six wounded and said the missile struck near the site of a similar attack in late April.

About 400 metres away, a Reuters photographer saw a large fresh crater by the playground of a private kindergarten that had smashed windows. Some privately held storage garages in the area were completely destroyed.

Blasts were heard in other parts of Kyiv on Sunday, but these were the sound of air defence destroying other incoming strikes, the deputy mayor said on national television.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which denies targeting civilians.

A Ukrainian air force spokesperson said between four and six long-range missiles were fired on Sunday from Russian bombers more than a thousand kilometres away in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan that looks out on to the Caspian Sea.

Summary

Russian missiles struck near the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy on Sunday, killing one person and hitting a bridge that helps connect western regions with eastern battle zones, according to Reuters citing Ukrainian officials.

Cherkasy has been largely untouched by bombardment since the war started in February, but Russia has stepped up missile attacks across Ukraine this weekend.

“Today, the enemy launched missile attacks on the Cherkasy region. There are 2 strikes near the regional centre. One dead and five wounded. Infrastructure damaged,” said regional governor Ihor Taburets on the Telegram app.

He did not provide further details, but a presidential adviser told Reuters one of the missiles targeted a bridge across the Dnipro river.

“They are trying to limit the transfer of our reserves and western weapons to the east,” adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a message.

“It means that these kinds of transfers are going well and causing them major issues.”

He did not say how damaged the bridge was. Reuters could not independently confirm the report.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, says the Russia’s missile strikes against the city destroyed more than 220 apartments.

He also said the timing of the attack appeared to be “symbolic”.

Meanwhile, the G7 partners and spouses have gone for an alpine hike complete with nordic ski poles.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, says attacks by Russia on residential buildings in Kyiv show the importance of international unity in supporting Ukraine, AP reports.

Speaking after hosting the first session of the G7 summit, Scholz emphasised the unity of G7 on Ukraine. He said:

We can say for sure that Putin did not reckon with this and it is still giving him a headache — the great international support for Ukraine but of course also the Ukrainians’ courage and bravery in defending their own country.

That this is a brutal war that Putin is waging, we have now once again seen with rocket attacks on houses in Kyiv — that shows it is right that we stand together and support Ukrainians to defend their country, their democracy, their freedom of self-determination.

Scholz said that he and US President Joe Biden were of one mind about what needs to be done.

Scholz, who has faced criticism at home and abroad for perceived reluctance to send Ukraine heavy weapons, said that “Germany and the US will always act together when it comes to questions of Ukraine’s security.”

Thousands of anti-war protesters people have taken to the streets of Madrid ahead of a Nato summit later this week.

Amid tight security, leaders of the member countries will meet in Madrid between 29-30 June as the organisation faces the unprecedented challenge of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Nato is expected to consider the bid, opposed by alliance-member Turkey, for Finland and Sweden to join.

The Nordic nations applied in the wake of the Russian assault on Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the war a special military operation he says in part responds to the accession to NATO of other countries near post-Soviet Russia’s borders since the 1990s.

“Tanks yes, but of beer with tapas,” sang demonstrators, who claimed an increase in defence spending in Europe urged by Nato was a threat to peace.

“I am fed up (with) this business of arms and killing people. The solution they propose is more arms and wars and we always pay for it. So, no Nato, no bases, let the Americans go and leave us alone without wars and weapons,” said Concha Hoyos, a retired Madrid resident, told Reuters.

Another protester, Jaled, 29, said Nato was not the solution to the war in Ukraine.

Organisers claimed 5,000 people joined the march, but authorities in Madrid put the number at 2,200.

Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that the summit would also focus on the threat from Europe’s southern flank in Africa, in which he said Russia posed a threat to Europe.

“The foreign ministers’ dinner on the 29th will be centred on the southern flank,” he told El Pais newspaper.

Andriy Yermak, the head of office to Presisent Zelenksiy, has called on the G7 to respond to Russia’s missile attacks on Kyiv with more aggressive sanctions.

He tweeted that Russian gas as well as gold should be banned.

Yermak also called for naval assistance in the Black Sea, to help lift Russia grip on Ukraine’s ports.