Here is the situation on Tuesday, June 4, 2024.
Fighting
- Three people, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed and three injured in Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine. The boy was among two fatalities in the village of Mykhailivka. The other death was reported in Slobozhanske, southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, following a rocket attack.
- Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russia launched at least 10 attack drones from the Belgorod border region on Monday.
- Kyiv warned of more power cuts following large-scale Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants and energy infrastructure. “After six massive attacks on the power grid, there is a significant power shortage,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy said on social media.
- Russian air defence units intercepted 20 Ukrainian drones in southern Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional Governor Alexei Smironov. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
- Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was not safe to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine while war raged around it. The plant, Europe’s biggest, was occupied by Russia shortly after the war began.
Politics and diplomacy
- The White House said Vice President Kamala Harris will represent the United States at the June 15 Swiss-organised global peace summit on the war in Ukraine promoted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- China, which claims to be neutral in the Ukraine war but has deepened its relationship with Moscow, denied accusations by Zelenskyy that it was trying to pressure other nations from attending the peace summit.
- A group of about 20 Russian women, some with young children, knelt outside the Ministry of Defence in Moscow to demand their husbands and sons drafted to Ukraine be allowed to return home, and that authorities impose limits on how long soldiers can serve before they can be granted leave. Russia dismissed the women as “foreign agents”.
- Poland’s Minister of Interior Tomasz Siemoniak said 18 people had been arrested over the past six months on various allegations of pursuing hostile activities or planning sabotage on behalf of Russia and Belarus.
- Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had added more United Kingdom “establishment figures”, journalists and experts to its list of people barred from entering Russia over their alleged “hostile” actions.
Weapons
- Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani said Italy will send a second SAMP/T air defence system to Ukraine. The system, also known as MAMBA, is a Franco-Italian battery that can track dozens of targets and intercept 10 at once. It is the only European-made system that can intercept ballistic missiles.