Ukraine war: Buildings burn after renewed Russian air attacks
One of the strikes hit a residential block in the southern city of Odesa, causing a fire on its upper floors. Rescuers said five people were rescued from burning apartments - including the woman who later died. At least another six people were wounded. The eastern city of Pavlohrad was subjected to what Serhiy Lysak called a "hellish night and morning". He said there had been "explosion after explosion" caused by drone and missile strikes, adding it had been the biggest-scale attack on the city to date. Targets reportedly included industrial sites, a fire department, a clinic, a school, and a cultural institution.Zelensky wrote of "important infrastructure" being damaged there. A missile plant is based in Pavlohrad, and the city has been struck in the past by Russia.Russia's defence ministry said it struck military-industrial enterprises that produce components for missiles and drones overnight, but did not specify where.
Is Ukraine's new drone scheme gamifying war?Ukrainians unimpressed by Trump's 50-day ultimatum to Putin
The north-eastern city of Sumy was also attacked. Zelensky said critical infrastructure had been damaged, cutting power to several thousand families. There have also been strikes - including with guided bombs - on another town in the region, Shostka, which lies less than 50km (30 miles) from the Russian border. Officials said a "targeted hit" there had caused a fire. They did not say what had been struck. Unverified video footage posted online purportedly of the incident shows a fierce fire and billowing clouds of grey smoke.Zelensky once again stressed the importance of bolstering air defences, both in terms of supplies from allies, but also producing them in Ukraine, including more interceptor drones. The Trump administration recently moved to free up weapons supplies, even if some of these - including much-needed Patriot air defences - will be paid for by other Nato allies.
Russia said it shot down more than 70 Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday, most of them over the regions of Rostov, Moscow and Bryansk. The acting governor of Rostov, Yuri Slyusar, said the attack had been massive, affecting areas close to the border with occupied parts of Ukraine. Houses, he said, were damaged by what he said had been falling debris, and several settlements suffered temporary power cuts. Slyusar said one railway worker had been injured, and rail traffic disrupted. Several supply routes into Ukraine run through the area.Meanwhile, on the front lines, Russian forces continue to attack one of their key objectives - the town of Pokrovsk in the eastern region of Donetsk. Late on Friday, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, acknowledged it faced increasing pressure, but insisted its defence was "steadfast". He said Russia had been trying to get to the city with small groups of soldiers attacking for sabotage and reconnaissance purposes, claiming one such group had been destroyed. Russia has been trying to encircle the Pokrovsk for months.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
37 minutes ago
- Reuters
Ukraine's Catholics tend to faithful driven out by Russian occupation
ZAPORIZHZHIA, July 24 (Reuters) - About 25 miles (40 km) from a slowly advancing Russian frontline, a community of Ukrainian Catholics is tending to people exiled from occupied territory to the country's eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Church members deliver humanitarian aid to Ukrainian troops and villages near the frontline and nuns offer comfort to families and especially children fleeing the war. "When kids come, especially little ones, they feel safe and cling to us, needing hugs and warmth. New kids always need that embrace," said Sister Lukia Murashko, the mother superior at Zaporizhzhia's Order of Saint Basil the Great monastery. The monastery provides a cheerful environment adorned with Ukrainian flags and greeting cards from soldiers. In June, Sister Lukia and two other nuns made a cake for the 15th birthday of Evhen, a boy who fled the occupied city of Melitopol with his mother and now lives in a drab hostel in Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a Ukrainian denomination loyal to the Vatican named for its rites similar to eastern Orthodox churches, has over 4 million followers in Ukraine and is the country's largest branch of Catholicism. Orthodox Christianity remains the most popular religion but has declined during the past decade amid tensions over ties to Moscow. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has grown and its followers now make up 12% of the population, according to a 2024 study by the Razumkov Centre, a Ukrainian think-tank. Catholicism is traditionally predominant in Ukraine's West, but has been growing in the East of the country, much of which Russia claims as its own, including lands it occupied in 2014 and in the 2022 full-scale invasion. Moscow does not control Zaporizhzhia city and it has become a centre for internally displaced Ukrainians from occupied territories. With membership growing, the wooden St. Volodymyr chapel is getting an extension in the city, where Roman Catholicism also has a small presence. During a visit in June, about two dozen faithful and three priests in gold-brocade vestments observed a Divine Liturgy conducted by Father Andriy Bukhvak in the chapel, most of them among the displaced. After Russia occupied most of Zaporizhzhia region in 2022, it installed an administration that banned the Ukrainian Catholic Church and Catholic charities in a December 6, 2022 decree, saying they worked in the interests of foreign intelligence services and stored weapons. The decree accused parishioners of participating "in riots and anti-Russian rallies in March-April 2022." The office of the Russia-installed governor of the occupied area of Zaporizhzhia region did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment. Father Oleksandr Bohomaz, 36, served in Melitopol, a coastal city in Zaporizhzhia region, for nine months after Russia took the town on March 1 that year along with two other priests, caring for four parishes and faithful who could not flee after authorities cracked down on the church there, he said. "We travelled around, serving as much as possible until they eventually deported us," he told Reuters. During his time under occupation, he said, the authorities stormed church services, collecting fingerprints from worshippers. In December 2022, he was interrogated and taken to a checkpoint where he was told to cross to the territory under Ukrainian control. Other Catholic priests in the Zaporizhzhia region suffered harsher treatment. In November 2022, Russia's troops raided a Greek Catholic church in Berdiansk, a city about 100 km along the coast from Melitopol. Two priests, Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta, were arrested on illegal weapons charges. They were not freed until a June 2024 exchange of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners, according to a December 2024 report by the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The church denied the weapons charges. Religion has become intertwined with the war. In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill has given his blessing to the invasion of Ukraine, which he calls a Holy War Last August, Ukrainian authorities banned the branch of Ukrainian Orthodox Church loyal to Moscow and in 2023 placed its leader, Patriarch Pavlo, under house arrest. The International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance (IRFBA), a U.S. State Department-backed initiative of 43 countries promoting freedom of religion, has accused Russia of widespread religious persecution in Ukraine. In a February report, IRFBA said Russian troops had killed 67 clergy of various denominations since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, without giving specifics. IRFBA said more than 630 religious buildings had been damaged during the Russian occupation, including 596 Christian churches. Reuters was unable to independently verify IRFBA's claims, which have been repeated by Ukrainian officials. Russia's Foreign Ministry has described the alliance's reports as based on partisan and biased information, and said any actions were taken in accordance with the law. The Ukrainian Catholic Donetsk Exarchate, the body of the church in much of East Ukraine, has operated in exile in Zaporizhzhia since 2014. Out of 77 parishes, 36 are under control of the Russian authorities, it said. Stepan Meniok, 75, who was the bishop heading the Donetsk Exarchate until his retirement in 2024, said that when Russia-led separatists took over the eastern city of Donetsk in 2014 they drove him from the diocese's seat. He settled in Zaporizhzhia. "Many displaced people pass through here, and I've heard countless stories of loss: property, lives," he said, adding he hoped for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Father Bohomaz said Russian authorities saw the Ukrainian Catholic church as a threat because it was outspoken against the occupation. "We see our people being beaten, killed, robbed, and destroyed," he said. "We stand with the people."
The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Protests against weakening anti-corruption agencies continue in Ukraine
Update: Date: 2025-07-24T07:54:01.000Z Title: Morning opening: Protests against weakening anti-graft agencies continue in Ukraine Content: After another nights of protests in Kyiv and across Ukraine, the country's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a new bill to strengthen the rule of law in Ukraine in what my colleague Luke Harding described as an apparent attempt to assuage popular anger at his decision to weaken the powers of two independent anti-corruption agencies. The move comes amid growing criticism also coming from Ukraine's main international partners, including the EU, Germany and France. In a nightly video address, Zelenskyy sought to deflect criticism by promising a new presidential bill. It would guarantee the independence of anti-corruption institutions and at the same time ensure there was 'no Russian influence', he said. 'Of course, everyone has heard what people are saying these days – on social media, to each other, on the streets. It's not falling on deaf ears,' he added. But the apparent concession left protesters unimpressed, Luke noted. The controversy comes at a politically particularly tricky moment for Ukraine and could derail the progress it has been making with international partners on getting more aid. Elsewhere, I will be looking at the EU-China summit with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen openly talking about the relations being at 'an inflection point' and at a meeting of German and French defence ministers at Europe's largest ammunition maker, Rheinmetall, in the town of Unterlüß in northern Germany. I will bring you all key updates from across Europe today. It's Thursday, 24 July 2025, it's Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live. Good morning.
Economist
42 minutes ago
- Economist
Volodymyr Zelensky has made a strategic blunder
UKRAINE'S WAR effort depends not only on courage and weapons, but on trust: the trust of its own citizens, and that of its Western backers. That compact is now at risk. On July 22nd the Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed a bill that would place the country's two main anti-corruption bodies—NABU, which investigates wrongdoing, and SAPO, which prosecutes it—under the control of the presidency. This was not the work of rogue MPs. It was orchestrated from the top by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. It passed with large numbers of votes from the president's own Servant of the People party. The law is a direct threat to the international support that has sustained Ukraine through the war. At home, it has drawn the first anti-Zelensky protests since the invasion.
