live blog
Belarus and China are conducting a joint military exercise not far from the Polish border. The Kremlin denies responsibility for the attack on the Kyiv children’s hospital. All developments in the live blog.
According to the United Nations, the children’s hospital in Kiev was “very likely” attacked by a Russian missile. Video footage showed that the clinic was “directly” hit by a CH-101 cruise missile launched from Russia, said the head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell. However, a thorough investigation into the incident is required.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the children’s hospital in Kiev was hit by a missile from a surface-to-air missile defense system that Ukraine itself fired. It was a NASAMS missile, explained the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Maria Zakharova.
NASAMS is a modern surface-to-air missile defense system developed by the United States together with Norway.
Immediately before the start of the NATO summit in the US capital Washington, the German government is, according to information from Der Spiegel, internally wrangling for more money for further arms deliveries to Ukraine. According to the report, the Minister of Defense sees an additional need of four billion euros for the current year alone.
The magazine reports that the approximately seven billion euros earmarked in the current federal budget for supporting Kyiv have largely been used up or are contractually tied up. For the second half of 2024, only just under 200,000 euros are left for new deliveries. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has therefore asked Finance Minister Christian Lindner for additional funds.
According to Spiegel information, Pistorius wants to use the money to deliver more ammunition, urgently needed spare parts and possibly more Leopard 1A tanks to Ukraine. Finance Minister Lindner, however, has called on the federal government to be frugal.
The Berlin police have defended the fact that they did not allow speeches in Ukrainian at a Ukrainian demonstration in front of the Russian embassy. After this approach was criticized, the police wrote on the X platform that in order to protect freedom of assembly and ensure compliance with the associated rules, the police must be able to understand speeches and heckling.
In the preliminary talks, speeches in German and English were agreed upon, “since unfortunately no Ukrainian translation could be provided in such a short time.” However, in order to ensure a peaceful outcome, speeches in Ukrainian were also accepted in some cases.
Russia says it will closely monitor the course of the NATO summit. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed this. He pointed out that the transatlantic alliance had declared Russia an enemy that must be defeated. The Russian government considers NATO to be fully involved in Ukraine, Peskov told journalists.
The heads of state and government of the 32 NATO countries will meet in Washington on Tuesday for a three-day summit.
The Kremlin has vehemently denied the accusations that it attacked a children’s hospital in Kiev. “We continue to stress that we are not attacking civilian targets,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to Russian news agencies. “Targets of critical infrastructure and military targets that in one way or another contribute to the military potential of the Kiev regime are being targeted,” Peskov continued.
The Kremlin spokesman referred to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry that the destruction of the hospital was caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. Peskov did not provide any evidence for this.
A missing boy was found dead in the rubble of a damaged apartment building in Kiev last night. This was announced by the Ukrainian capital’s civil protection agency after the devastating Russian air strike. According to the latest figures, 27 people were killed, including four children, when several rockets and cruise missiles hit the city of three million. 117 people were injured.
There were further casualties in the Dnipropetrovsk region in the south. This means that Ukraine has suffered a total of at least 37 deaths and 170 injuries as a result of the latest attacks.
According to information from the Interfax news agency, the airports in the Russian cities of Volgograd and Astrakhan have resumed operations after temporary restrictions. As the Russian media had previously reported, flight operations had been restricted due to Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian regions.
Chinese and Belarusian soldiers have begun a joint anti-terror exercise in Belarus, just a few kilometers from the border with Poland. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense had announced the military maneuvers, which are scheduled to run until July 19, in advance. “The joint training will help to exchange experiences, improve cooperation between Belarusian and Chinese units and lay the foundation for further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint troop training,” the ministry said on its Telegram channel.
Initially, there were no details about the planned exercises. The exact number of Chinese soldiers involved is also unknown. The photos published by the Ministry of Defense in Minsk show a Chinese transport aircraft that can transport a three-digit number of soldiers.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, the airports in the Russian cities of Volgograd and Astrakhan have restricted their operations as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks on the region. The two southwestern Russian cities are about 375 kilometers apart.
The agencies had previously reported drone attacks on an oil depot in Volgograd. Fires are said to have broken out in the depot and a substation.
According to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, four people were killed and 20 others injured in nighttime Ukrainian attacks in the Russian border region of Belgorod. Residential buildings were also damaged, Gladkov said on social media.
Conflicting parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent source.
According to Russian sources, a fire broke out in a substation in the southern Russian region of Rostov as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack. “Two transformers caught fire,” said Governor Vasily Golubev via the Telegram short message service. Russian air defense shot down “numerous” Ukrainian drones. He did not give the exact number of drones used or repelled. The region bordering Ukraine has been the target of repeated attacks in the past.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemns the recent Russian missile attacks on densely populated areas in Ukraine and a children’s hospital in the capital Kiev. “Among the victims were the sickest children in Ukraine,” he said in Geneva. Shockingly, one of the attacks severely damaged the intensive care unit of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital and destroyed the dialysis department. “This is abhorrent,” said Türk.
US President Joe Biden has announced “new measures” to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses following Russian missile attacks on Ukraine that left 36 people dead. The US and its allies will announce this new support at a NATO summit in Washington this week, Biden said on Monday (local time). He described the missile attacks on Ukraine as a “terrible reminder of Russia’s brutality” in the war that began in February 2022.
After the attack on a children’s hospital in Kiev, several countries have appealed to the UN Security Council. The German government is hoping for further commitments to supply air defence systems to Ukraine at the NATO summit. Read the live blog from Monday.