Ukraine-Russia war – live news: Putin’s forces launch mass missile and drone assault on Ukraine’s energy grid

Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones on Saturday, damaging energy facilities in five regions across Ukraine, officials said.

Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo said the attack damaged energy facilities in the eastern Donetsk, southeastern Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, central Kyrovohrad region, and Ivano-Frankivsk region in the west.

“Today morning the Russians launched another strike on Ukrainian energy facilities. Since March it is already the sixth massive, complex, missile and drone attack against the civilian energy infrastructure,” Ukrenergo said.

Ukrainian air defence shot down 35 of 53 Russian missiles and 46 of 47 Russian drones, the air force commander said.

Since March, Russia has stepped up its bombardments of the Ukrainian power infrastructure, knocking out the bulk of the thermal and hydropower generation, causing blackouts, and pushing electricity imports to record highs.

Germany said on Friday that Ukraine could use weapons supplied by Berlin to defend itself against attacks launched from just inside Russia against the Kharkiv region, insisting this did not make it a party to the conflict.

Germany agreed with its allies that Kyiv may use the weapons to defend itself against strikes from positions in the immediately adjacent Russian border area, a government spokesperson said.

“We are jointly convinced that Ukraine has the right, guaranteed under international law, to defend itself against these attacks,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“To do so, it can also use the weapons supplied for this purpose in accordance with its international legal obligations; including those supplied by us.”

Forest fires have engulfed more than 3,700 hectares (9,140 acres) of forest in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region, the country’s State Emergency Service has said.

There were at least nine separate fires, most of which were started by Russian strikes, the State Emergency Service said. Six of the fires, encompassing around 2,300 hectares (5,680 acres) were contained.

Russian forces attacked the city of Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine, with two glide bombs overnight, injuring at least five people, the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office said.

The prosecutor’s office said that the two bombs hit a residential part of the city, wounding four men between the ages of 22 and 43 and one 40-year-old woman. The injured people received medical attention, the prosecutor’s office said.

Myrnohrad, which is located around 40 miles from the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk, is regularly targeted in Russian attacks.

South Korean defence minister Shin Won-sik has said that more evidence suggests weapons used by Russia in the war in Ukraine were illegally imported from North Korea.

“Military cooperation between Russia and North Korea” is escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula and “also affecting the battlefield in Europe”, Mr Shin said.

If North Korea continues to receive military technology transfers from Russia in return, a significant improvement in North Korea’s conventional military capability is an imminent risk, Mr Shin said.

Mr Shin was speaking during the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s biggest defence forum, under way in Singapore.

Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war on Friday, each sending back 75 POWs in the first such swap in the past three months, officials said.

The Ukrainian POWs, including four civilians, were returned on several buses that drove into the northern Sumy region. As they disembarked, they shouted joyfully and called their families to tell them they were home. Some knelt and kissed the ground, while many wrapped themselves in yellow-blue flags.

A fake news report that appeared on Poland’s national news agency saying that Prime Minister Donald Tusk was mobilizing 200,000 men starting on July 1 was probably the work of Russia-sponsored hackers and was designed to interfere with the upcoming European Parliament election, authorities said.

“Everything indicates that we are dealing with a cyberattack directed from the Russian side,” said Krzysztof Gawkowski, a deputy prime minister who also holds the digital affairs portfolio. “The goal is disinformation ahead of (European Parliament) elections and a paralysis of the society.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US politicians at a defence conference in Singapore on Saturday to discuss further assistance for Ukraine.

He said: “We talked about the frontline situation and military assistance, particularly additional systems and missiles to strengthen our air defense. We paid special attention to increasing sanctions against Russia.

“I thank the United States for its support and important decisions. I appreciate the significant bicameral and bipartisan support of Congress, President Joe Biden, and the American people.”

Created by Stepan Barna in the wake of the death on the front line of his older brother Oleh, its drone operators claim to have achieved more than 100 kills.

Read Askold’s piece in full here:

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky arrived in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue conference earlier on Saturday, where he planned to meet US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and discuss support for his embattled country in an address to delegates.

After arriving at the conference venue in a motorcade amid heavy security, Zelensky said in a statement on the social media platform X that he had come to gather support from the Asia-Pacific region for a peace summit planned for June 15-16 in Switzerland.

“Global security is impossible when the world’s largest country disregards recognised borders, international law, and the UN Charter, resorts to hunger, darkness, and nuclear blackmail,” the statement said, referring to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The statement said Zelensky planned to hold several meetings, including with Singapore’s president Tharman Shanmugaratnam and prime ninister Lawrence Wong, Timor-Leste president Jose Ramos-Horta, Austin, and Singaporean investors.

A US official said Zelensky and Ukrainian defence minster Rustem Umerov would meet Austin “to discuss the current battlefield situation in Ukraine and to underscore the US commitment to ensuring Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression”.