News and information from Ukraine

Reports from Ukraine. Day 853.

Russia has fired at least 2,400 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine since the beginning of June. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video address at the weekend. According to the Ukrainian president, almost a third of these bombs were aimed at Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, and its surroundings. Just on Saturday, June 22, the Kremlin bombed a residential area in central Kharkiv with four UMPB D-30 SN glide bombs – guided aerial bombs with a longer range than previous versions, in which a UMPK (Universal Gliding and Correction Module) conversion kit was attached to simple, unguided Soviet-era munitions. “In addition to the correction and planning modules, these bombs also have a small engine that increases their range,” aviation expert Anatoly Khrapchynskyi explained in a recent radio interview. These cheap and powerful weapons have caused enormous damage in northeastern Ukraine.

The bomb attack in Kharkiv on June 22 killed three people and injured at least 52, including children. the public prosecutor’s office said. Two of the dead were men, the third was a woman who was killed at a bus stop. Parts of a residential building were also destroyed in the attack.

Russian forces shelled the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine on June 24.said regional military governor Vadym Filashkin. At least four residents were killed and 34 others injured in the attack. Two Iskander-M hypersonic missiles were apparently used as weapons, destroying one house and damaging about 16 others. Filashkin described the attack on his social media channel Telegram as “one of the largest enemy attacks on civilians” in recent times. He warned that there were simply no safe zones left in Donetsk Oblast. “Take care of yourselves! Evacuate!” he demanded.

Satellite images confirmed the success of a June 22 attack by the Ukrainian military on a drone storage facility in southern Russia. The short video was released by the Ukrainian Navy, which conducted the operation jointly with the Security Service of Ukraine, and shows before and after images of the facility used by the Russian military in the Krasnodar region. to store a large number of Iranian-made Shahed drones. In addition to destroying military equipment used to terrorize Ukraine, the attack also killed an unspecified number of instructors and trained personnel responsible for operating the unmanned aerial vehicles, the Navy said.

The Council of the European Union finally adopted a 14th sanctions package against Russia on June 24, additionally targeting its value-added sectors, including energy and finance. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell called the decision “the next blow against Putin’s regime and those who continue his illegal, groundless and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine.” The package was agreed after months of debate based on German objections to some of the proposed measures. Among other things, the package prohibits the transshipment of Russian liquefied natural gas on EU territory for onward transmission to countries outside the EU and prohibits the use of the “System for the Transfer of Financial Messages” (SPFS) – Russia’s counterpart to the international interbank network SWIFT – to facilitate payments. It also prohibits EU political parties, non-governmental organizations or media service providers from accepting funding from the Russian state and its proxies.

Cultural front.

St. Martin’s Press publishes a book of wartime testimony by the late Ukrainian writer and human rights activist Victoria Amelina in February 2025, the publisher announced. The volume, “Looking at Women Looking at War – A War and Justice Diary,” features accounts by Ukrainian women about their experiences since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The heroines include prominent lawyer Evhenia Zakrevska, Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matvhiichuk, and librarian Yuliia Kakulia-Danyliuk, who helped find the war diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a famous Ukrainian poet who was tortured and murdered by occupying forces. Victoria Amelina, who compiled the volume, was tragically killed last summer at the age of 37 in Russian shelling of a restaurant in Donetsk Oblast. As a member of the Ukrainian human rights organization Truth Hounds, she crisscrossed the country to document war crimes committed by Russia. Her debut novel “November Syndrome” was voted one of the ten best publications of 2014 in Ukraine.

Battlefield Ukraine: From independence to war with Russiaa new book by Ukraine expert Adrian Karatnycky, was published this month. The book covers Ukraine during the period of the country’s rise after the collapse of the Soviet Union and up to the current full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. It is the first comprehensive English-language account of Ukraine’s recent history by an author who is intimately familiar with Ukraine’s identity, international context, and the intricacies of Ukraine’s cultural and historical developments.

By Daria Dzysiuk, Karina Tahiliani