Ukraine's war enters its 490th day, with two Russian missiles striking the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing at least four people and injuring 42. At least two people were killed in Russian attacks elsewhere in the Zaporizhia and Donetsk regions, according to Ukrainian officials.
The United Kingdom's defence ministry reported that Ukrainian airborne forces made small advances in the east from the village of Krasnohorivka, near Donetsk city, marking one of the first occasions in which Ukrainian forces recaptured an area occupied by Russia since 2014.
The Ukrainian government reprimanded Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko over the operation of air raid shelters in the capital and dismissed the heads of two districts under the Kyiv military administration. Russia began tactical fighter jet exercises over the Baltic Sea, the country's defence ministry said, a day after Moscow said its jets had scrambled to intercept UK military planes over the Black Sea.
A United Nations mission in Ukraine expressed grave concern about the summary executions of more than 70 Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces. The UN agency documented 864 cases of arbitrary detention by Russian troops, many of which amounted to enforced disappearances. China's envoy to the European Union suggested Beijing could back Ukraine's effort to reclaim its 1991 territorial integrity, which includes Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Pope Francis's peace envoy to Ukraine began a visit to Russia, with Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi spending two days in Moscow to promote a solution to the current tragic situation and find ways to achieve a just peace.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged South Africa to help end the war in Ukraine, stating that Russia's war of aggression has not only brought terrible suffering to the people of Ukraine but has also slashed a wound that reaches far beyond Europe, worsening the food and energy crises in many parts of the world and many parts of Africa. The UK's foreign minister, James Cleverly, said the UK would continue to push for Sweden's speedy accession to NATO, as its membership bid has been held up by Turkey and Hungary.
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