Russia-Ukraine war live: Dnipro mourns Russian missile attack on kindergarten in which five people die

Ukraine’s biggest domestic rival – corruption – will affect the country’s NATO membership, as Kyiv will be informed that it is the basis for possible accession to the European Union, officials said.

A senior US State Department official said NATO would ask Kyiv to take “additional steps” before progress could be made in accession talks, reported The Telegraph.

NATO leaders will meet in Washington for a summit from July 9 to 11. NATO’s official line is that Ukraine will join one day, but not while the country is at war. “Ukraine’s future lies in NATO,” leaders declared at the Vilnius summit last year.

Kyiv will be informed in writing of NATO’s latest position in the NATO communiqué, the source said, adding that this was a priority for “many of us here at the table.”

“We need to step back and appreciate everything Ukraine has done in the name of reform over the past two years and more,” they added.

“We would like to commend them for continuing to push forward with these reforms and we would like to talk about further steps that need to be taken, particularly in the area of ​​anti-corruption,” the source said.

Three Ukrainian drones attacked a substation near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and the nearby town of Enerhodar, the Russian-appointed management of the power plant said on Wednesday.

In a statement on Telegram, the plant’s management said eight employees were injured and the substation in southeastern Ukraine was damaged.

The Russian state news agency TASS had previously reported on Wednesday that the drones had hit the power plant itself.

A Russian missile and drone attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed five civilians and injured 47 others, including a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. The explosions shattered some windows of a shopping center and rained glass shards onto the street, photos released by local authorities show.

Mayor Borys Filatov said the broad-daylight attack also smashed the windows of two schools and three kindergartens. Debris hit the intensive care unit of a children’s hospital and a fire broke out in another hospital.

Volodymyr Zelensky released a video of the attack showing a trail of fire from a rocket racing over buildings in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city and debris being thrown into the air by the impact.

The attacks also wreaked havoc in other parts of Ukraine. In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, Russian artillery fire hit the village council building. One person was killed and two others injured, said regional head Oleh Suniehubov.

Elsewhere in the region, a Russian glide bomb hit a residential building in the village of Ruska Lozova, injuring at least two people. Others may be trapped under rubble, Syniehubov said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that Ankara can help lay a foundation for ending the war between Ukraine and Russia and that a peace that is fair to both sides is possible, the Turkish presidential office said.

The two heads of state also discussed the war in the Gaza Strip and ways to end the conflict in Syria, the Turkish head of state said in a statement after Erdogan and Putin met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan.

A survey of people in 13 NATO countries found that, on average, about six in ten people have a positive opinion of the Western military alliance, the Pew Research Center said on Tuesday.

The poll was released ahead of a NATO summit in Washington on July 9-11, which comes at a difficult time for the 75-year-old Western military alliance. NATO’s 32 member countries are adjusting their long-term plans and strategies to counter a more aggressive Russian President Vladimir Putin and respond to Ukraine’s need for sustained support against invading Russian forces.

Meanwhile, the re-election of Donald Trump, who has long spoken disparagingly of NATO allies and admiringly of Putin, is raising concerns among some NATO members about the future engagement of the alliance’s militarily and economically strongest country.

Russian dissidents living in the UK have reacted to the “deeply offensive” words of admiration for Vladimir Putin expressed by Nigel Farage and another Reform UK candidate.

Earlier, a former British defence attaché who was previously based in Moscow described Mr Farage and his party, currently third in the polls, as “deeply malign actors … working against the security interests of our country”.

When asked about the allegations, a spokesman for Reform UK burst into laughter and then said that Julian Malins, a Reform Party candidate who boasted last weekend about meeting Putin and said he seemed “very nice”, was simply a highly intelligent and “eccentric character”.