The US president met with his family at Camp David, after a disastrous debate performance last week led to calls for him to drop out of the election
Joe Biden’s family have urged him stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.
One person was killed and at least nine others injured in Kharkiv; a 14-storey apartment building in Kyiv was set on fire after Russia strikes. What we know on day 859
One person was killed and nine others including a baby were injured in a Russian strike on a post office in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, local authorities said. “A man, a post office employee, was killed,” the head of Kharkiv’s regional administration, Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram. The city of Kharkiv has been regularly targeted by Russian troops in recent months, but military analysts say the frequency has dipped since the US authorised Ukrainian use of its weapons on certain Russian targets.
In Kyiv’s Obolon suburb, the local military administration said falling fragments from a Russian missile started a fire and damaged balconies on a 14-storey apartment building. Emergency services, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said five female residents were treated for stress, and mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 residents had been evacuated. The head of the military administration of Kyiv region said missile fragments had also fallen outside the capital, causing injuries and damage, though no details were provided.
Drone footage from Ukraine’s military has shown what appears to be bodies in a civilian area in the embattled eastern town of Toretsk, which has come under heavy Russian bombardment in recent days. The attacks in the war-torn Donetsk region have prompted a scaled-up evacuation effort by Ukrainian rescue services. Local officials said that powerful Russian glide bombs have also been used in the town. Glide bombs are heavy Soviet-era bombs fitted with precision guidance systems and launched from aircraft flying out of range of air defences.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a post on Telegram, said Russia had used more than 800 glide bombs on Ukrainian targets in the past week. He issued a fresh plea in his nightly video address for better weapons systems. “The sooner the world helps us deal with the Russian combat aircraft launching these bombs, the sooner we can strike – justifiably strike – Russian military infrastructure … and the closer we will be to peace,” he said.
Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Metropolitan Daniil – who experts see as pro-Russian in a church traditionally considered very close to Moscow – as its new leader. Daniil supported the Kremlin in a lengthy video message published in 2023. The Bulgarian patriarch is elected for life unless he himself decides to step down.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report
President cites daily strikes in appeal to allies; Russian attack on Donetsk villages kills four while five dead in Ukrainian strikes on Russian village. What we know on day 858
Russian forces fired missiles at the town of Vilniansk, outside the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing seven people and injuring 31 others on Saturday, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated his appeal to allies to provide Ukraine with more long-range weapons and enhanced air defences to stop what he said were daily attacks on his country. The prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said two missiles were fired on the town in Ukraine’s south-east, damaging infrastructure, a shop and residential buildings. Emergency services put the death toll at seven, including two children, and said eight of the 31 injured were also children. Firefighters had put out blazes in several buildings and completed rescue operations.
Zaporizhzhia’s regional governor, Ivan Fedorov, said the Vilniansk strike was “yet another dreadful terrorist act against the civilian population”. It occurred in “the middle of the day, a non-working day, in the town centre, where people were out relaxing, where there were no military targets”, he said in a video posted on Telegram. Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram its missiles had struck a nearby area in the Zaporizhzhia region where it said Ukrainian trains unloaded arms and military equipment, killing soldiers and destroying armoured vehicles and missiles. Neither side’s battlefield accounts could be independently verified.
Russian attacks on frontline villages in the Donetsk region in the east killed four people, Ukrainian officials said. Three were in the village of Zarichne, the region’s head, Vadym Filashkin, said on social media. Another person, a resident of the frontline village of New York, “also sustained fatal injuries”, Ukraine’s general prosecutor said later.
Ukrainian forces shelled parts of southern Russia’s Kursk region throughout Saturday after carrying out an overnight drone attack on a village which killed five people, including two children, the regional governor said. Alexei Smirnov posted on Telegram that the five fatalities occurred in a house in the village of Gorodishche, east of the regional centre of Kursk. Two family members were being treated in hospital. A video posted on Smirnov’s Telegram channel showed him at a destroyed house amid piles of rubble and building materials.
Ukraine and Russia said priests were among the dozens of captured soldiers and civilians they had exchanged earlier this week. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests taken captive in Moscow-occupied Berdiansk were handed back to Ukraine thanks to the mediation of the Vatican. Russia said a high-ranking Ukrainian Orthodox cleric was handed over to Moscow along with two other priests. Moscow and Kyiv exchanged 90 prisoners of war and some civilians each earlier this week.
Rescuers in Dnipro said several residents remained missing after at least one person was killed and 12 wounded, including a seven-month-old girl, after a Russian strike destroyed the top four floors of the apartment block in central Ukraine on Friday evening.
Volunteers work to herd Atlantic white-sided dolphins found Friday in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, into deeper water
More than 100 dolphins have become stranded in the shallow waters around Cape Cod on Friday in what an animal welfare group is calling “the largest single mass stranding event” in the organization’s 25-year history.
A group of Atlantic white-sided dolphins were found Friday in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, about 100 miles south-east of Boston, in an area called the Gut – or Great Island at the Herring River – which experts have said is the site of frequent strandings, due in part to its hook-like shape and extreme tidal fluctuations.
Police say another seven injured amid clashes with demonstrators in Essen, where party is meeting after best ever EU election result
Two police officers have been hospitalised after clashes with hooded protesters outside the congress of Germany’s far-right AfD, as the party met weeks after its record European Union election result.
About 1,000 police were deployed in the western city of Essen on Saturday, where demonstration organisers said 50,000 protestors marched towards the congress. The police have not yet provided figures.
Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, says prosecutor, as president again rejects claims of ‘self-coup’ to boost popularity
A Bolivian former army chief accused of leading a failed coup attempt has been given six months “preventive detention”, a top prosecutor said on Friday, as the president again denied the attack was a “self-coup” designed to boost his flagging popularity.
General Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, state prosecutor Cesar Siles said. Zúñiga has said he was following an order from the president, Luis Arce, following Wednesday’s fleeting insurrection in La Paz. In the moments before he was detained, the ex-army chief claimed: “The president told me the situation was fucked and that he needed something to boost his popularity.”.
Infant among six injured, with at least one dead and more trapped in building in central Ukraine; 10 Ukrainian civilians freed from Russia and Belarus jails in Vatican-mediated deal. What we know on day 857
A Russian missile strike hit a nine-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring six others, officials said. The death toll would likely rise as more people remained trapped in the building, where four upper storeys collapsed as a result of the attack, said the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. A photo posted on Telegram by the governor, Serhiy Lysak, and other images on social media showed a badly damaged building that had smoke rising from a gaping hole in its upper storeys. A seven-month-old infant was among the injured, Lysak said. Three people were in severe condition.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 10 civilians including a politician and two priests taken prisoner in Russia and Belarus had been freed in a deal mediated by the Vatican. Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners throughout their two-year conflict but the release of civilian prisoners is rarer. “We managed to return 10 more of our people from Russian captivity,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. It was not immediately clear if the release was part of an exchange deal involving Russian prisoners held in Ukraine. Some of those released had been in prison since 2017, he said, arrested in Russian-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine that at the time were run by Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of the settlement of Rozdolivka in eastern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian military said heavy fighting was raging in areas around the settlement. The Russian ministry said on Friday that Russia’s “southern” military grouping had taken up what it called more favourable positions after pushing Ukrainian forces out of the settlement. Rozdolivka is in the Donetsk region, the focal point of Russia’s slow advance across eastern Ukraine. It lies north of Bakhmut and Soledar, two localities brought under Russian control last year.
The Ukrainian military’s general staff said Russian forces had launched 19 attacks in a broad sector that included Rozdolivka. “Our soldiers resolutely held their defences and repelled 15 of the assaults,” the evening report on Friday said. “Four armed confrontations are continuing.” The battlefield accounts from either side could not be verified.
The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with $150m worth of weapons and ammunition, including Hawk air defence interceptors and 155mm artillery munitions, two US officials said. The weapons aid package was expected be unveiled on Monday, they said on Friday, declining to be named. The administration is responding to Ukraine’s desperate requests for air defence support as Russia has pounded Ukrainian energy facilities in recent weeks via aerial attacks.
Vladimir Putin said Russia should start producing short- and intermediate-range missiles that were previously banned under a now-defunct arms treaty with the US. The Russian president was referring to missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (300-3,400 miles) that were banned under the cold war-era intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty. Washington withdrew from the deal in 2019, citing Russia’s failure to comply. The Kremlin said at the time that it would abide by a moratorium on production if the US did not deploy missiles within striking distance of Russia. In a televised address to his top security officials on Friday, Putin said the US had started using such missiles in training exercises in Denmark and “we need to react to this”.
Russia’s defence minister has ordered officials to prepare a “response” to US drone flights over the Black Sea, the ministry said, in an apparent warning that Moscow may take forceful action to ward off the American reconnaissance aircraft. The Russian defence ministry noted a recent “increased intensity” of US drones over the Black Sea, saying they “conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by western countries for strikes on Russian facilities”.
The International Monetary Fund’s executive board has voted to approve a $2.2bn payout for Ukraine under an existing loan programme, and lowered its growth outlook following “devastating” Russian attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure. The much-needed funds would be used for “budget support” and bring the total amount disbursed under the 48-month loan agreement to about $7.6b, the IMF said on Friday.
Justice department announces $10m reward for information on 22-year-old Amin Timovich Stigal, who remains at large. What we know on day 855
A Russian has been charged with conspiring to hack and destroy computer systems and data in Ukraine and allied countries including the US, the US justice department said on Wednesday, and announced a $10m reward for information. Before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Amin Timovich Stigal, 22, who remains at large, targeted Kyiv’s government systems and data with no military-related role, the department alleged. Computer systems in the US and other countries that provided support to Ukraine were targeted later, it alleged.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, 15 months after his arrest in the Russian city on espionage charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny. The 32-year-old was arrested in March 2023, while on a reporting trip to Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, with authorities claiming without offering any evidence that he was gathering secret information for the US.
The EU is expected to sign a security agreement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday, pledging to keep delivering weapons, military training and other aid to Kyiv for years to come. The agreement will lay out the EU’s commitment to help Ukraine in nine areas of security and defence policy – including arms deliveries, military training, defence industry cooperation and demining, according to a draft seen by Reuters.
European Union countries agreed a sanctions package against Belarus on Wednesday, EU diplomats and Belgium said, to try to close off a route to avoiding restrictions on Russia. “This package will strengthen our measures in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including combating circumvention of sanctions,” Belgium, which holds the EU presidency until the end of June, said on X.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made an unannounced visit to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine to bolster morale among troops, amid continuing advances by Russian forces. The Ukrainian president recorded a video address against the backdrop of Pokrovsk, a city with a prewar population of about 61,000 that has experienced some of the most intense fighting during the 28-month-long full-scale invasion. Zelenskiy made the trip alongside Brig Gen Andriy Hnatov, the newly appointed commander of the joint forces.
During the visit, Zelenskiy signalled that he was getting tough on officials he suspects are shirking their duties. He said that back in Kyiv he would speak to “officials who must be here and in other areas near the frontline – in difficult communities where people need immediate solutions.” He continued: “I was surprised to learn that some relevant officials have not been here for six months or more. There will be a serious conversation, and I will draw appropriate conclusions regarding them.”
Five Lithuanians were wounded when they came under fire in eastern Ukraine as they delivered aid to troops, officials and team members said Wednesday. The volunteer workers were in a car that was shelled on Monday in Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a colleague Valdas Bartkevicius told AFP. The region’s governor reported that five people were killed and dozens wounded in Russian strikes on Pokrovsk on Monday.
Representatives of Russia’s and Ukraine’s human rights offices held a meeting for the first time during an exchange of prisoners of war on Tuesday, Kyiv said. The two countries each released 90 captured soldiers in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates, the latest in more than 50 prisoner exchanges that have taken place throughout the war. But it was the first time Russia had agreed to hold a direct meeting between human rights representatives during the exchange, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told AFP.
Nato’s 32 nations on Wednesday appointed outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte as the alliance’s next head. Rutte will take over from secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on 1 October after major powers – spearheaded by the US – wrapped up his nomination ahead of a summit of Nato leaders in Washington next month.
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