What has happened in the last few hours?
Here is the main war news at 12 noon on the 479th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Ukraine calls for “long-range and high-precision weapons” to step up the counteroffensive. Ukraine claims it regained the offensive initiative in the war while Russia remains on the defensive. However, Kiev needs weapons with a longer range, up to 200 kilometers, to consolidate the progress of the ongoing military operation, Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Gavrilov claimed.
Russia claims to have repelled an attack on the Druzhba pipeline. Authorities in Russia’s Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine said they repelled a drone attack on a pumping station of the Druzhba pipeline on Saturday.
Corpses and Russian looting: occupied Kherson after the retreat of the Nova Kakhovka waters. The subsidence of the floods caused by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine on June 6 shows the scale of the tragedy in the territory occupied by Russian forces. As they bury the drowned that emerge in the flooded areas, neighbors denounce looting. “Many have drowned, the morgues are full,” complains a neighbor from a town in Kherson province.
Ukrainian soldiers drop drone bombs: “I see you. I want to kill you.” The Thor unit, taking part in one of the most intense battles of the counteroffensive in the Mala Tokmachka area, fights the invader with surveillance systems and long-distance attacks.
Durão Barroso: “The EU is emerging from its geopolitical youth.” The former President of the European Commission (2004 to 2014) José Manuel Durão Barroso (Lisbon, 67 years old) sees the European Union as “resilient” and leaving its “geopolitical youth”. The conservative politician received EL PAÍS this Friday at the IE University headquarters in Madrid, where he attended the Concordia Europe Summit 2023.