The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said ahead of the EU-Ukraine summit next week Ukraine He had the unconditional support of the bloc and needed to win against Russian attacks to defend European values. “We stand by Ukraine without any condition or reservations. Ukraine is fighting for our common values, it is fighting for the respect of international law and the principles of democracy and that is why Ukraine must win this war.”
The governor of the region said that a Russian strike killed three people in a residential neighborhood of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka on Saturday. Another 14 people were wounded in the attack, which also destroyed four residential buildings and a hotel. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Russia carried out attacks on Konstantinivka with multiple rocket launchers.
Russia accused the Ukrainian army of intentionally bombing a hospital In a Russian-controlled region of eastern Ukraine on Saturday. It added that the raid killed 14 people and wounded 24 patients and medical staff. The Russian Defense Ministry said the strike hit a hospital in the Russian-controlled settlement of Novoydar and was carried out using the US-provided Himars missile launcher system. The Associated Press stated that these claims could not be independently verified.
Kyiv and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles and military aircraft., said a senior aide to the Ukrainian president, the Associated Press reported. Mykhailo Podolak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukraine’s supporters in the West “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply aircraft capable of providing cover for the armored fighting vehicles pledged by the US and Germany.
Ukraine said on Friday that its pilots would take about half a year to train to fight in Western fighter jets Like the American F-16s, While Kyiv intensifies its campaign to secure fourth-generation warplanes. Ukraine got a big boost this week when Germany and the United States announced plans to supply heavy tanks to Kyiv, which it now hopes the West will also offer long-range missiles and fighter jets.
North Korea on Saturday denounced US pledges to provide battle tanks, claiming that Washington has “further crossed the red line” to gain hegemony through proxy warfare, according to Reuters, citing the official media of the Central News Agency. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, made the remarks in a statement, saying that North Korea will “stand in the same trench” with Russia against the United States.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will hold a meeting with Lynn Tracy, According to the Russian Information Agency, the new US ambassador to Moscow early next week.
Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday doubled down on his efforts to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Olympics, saying that they would try to justify a war against Ukraine if they were allowed to compete. Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine will launch an international campaign to keep Russia out of the summer games in Paris. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that any attempt to remove Moscow from international sport over what she calls its own military operation in Ukraine is “doomed to failure.”
