That said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before an EU-Ukraine summit next week Ukraine had the bloc’s unconditional support and had to prevail against Russian attacks to defend European values. “We stand by Ukraine without any ifs or buts. Ukraine is fighting for our common values, it is fighting for respect for international law and for the principles of democracy, and that is why Ukraine must win this war.”
The regional governor said three people were killed in a Russian attack on Saturday in a residential area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka. Fourteen other people were injured in the attack, which also damaged four apartment buildings and a hotel. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Russia has carried out attacks on Konstantynivka with several rocket launchers.
Russia accused the Ukrainian military of targeting a hospital in a Russian-held area of eastern Ukraine on Saturday. A strike was said to have killed 14 people and injured 24 patients and medical staff. The attack hit a hospital in the Russian-held settlement of Novoaidar and was carried out using a US-supplied Himars missile launch system, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The claims could not be independently verified, the AP reported.
Kyiv and its western allies are in “accelerated” talks on the possibility of arming Ukraine with long-range missiles and military aircraft, says a top aide to the Ukrainian president, AP reported. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine’s supporters in the west “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply aircraft capable of providing cover for the armored fighting vehicles that the United States and Germany have pledged.
Ukraine said Friday it would take its pilots about half a year to train to fight in Western fighter jets like US F-16s, while Kyiv ramps up its campaign to secure fourth-generation fighter jets. Ukraine received a huge boost this week when Germany and the United States announced plans to supply heavy tanks to Kyiv, which now hopes the West will also supply long-range missiles and warplanes.
North Korea on Saturday denounced US commitments for main battle tanks, which claimed Washington would “further cross the red line” to win hegemony through a proxy war, Portal quoted a report by state media KCNA as saying. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong made the remarks in a statement saying North Korea will “stand in the same ditch” as Russia against the United States.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will hold a meeting with Lynne Tracy, the new US ambassador in Moscow early next week, the RIA news agency reported.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday stepped up efforts to bar Russian athletes from participating in the 2024 Olympics, and said they would try to justify the war against Ukraine if they were allowed to compete. Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukraine will launch an international campaign to keep Russia out of the summer games, which will be held in Paris. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that any attempt to oust Moscow from international sport over its so-called special military operation in Ukraine was “doomed to fail.”