The mayor of Donetsk appointed by Russia, Alexei Kulemzin, accused Ukraine in a post on social networks for today's shelling of the city of Donetsk, in which three people were killed, Reuters reports.
Ten people were wounded, including a boy born in 2012, Kulemzin said on his Telegram channel.
Kulemzin also said that a number of buildings were damaged in several city districts, including a bus station, a hospital, a store and some residential buildings.
Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused Russian forces of attacking rescue teams with repeated rocket attacks on residential buildings. The aim of the first attack, they said, was to force rescue teams to come to the scene, while the second strike was carried out to injure or kill the rescuers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video that Ukraine will retaliate against Russia in the Black Sea to ensure that its waters are not blocked and that it can import and export grain and other goods, Radio Free Europe reports.
The message comes days after Ukrainian naval drones loaded with explosives damaged a Russian warship near a major Russian port and hit a Russian tanker.
"If Russia continues to dominate the Black Sea, outside of its territory, and block or shoot us again, launch missiles at our ports, Ukraine will do the same," Zelensky said, saying that it was about defense.
"We don't have that many ships. But they should clearly understand that by the end of the war they will have zero ships, zero," he added.
He called on Russia to stop firing missiles and drones at Ukrainian ports and to allow trade, in comments made at a briefing with journalists from Latin American countries.
The number of attacks in the Black Sea has increased on both sides since Moscow pulled out of an agreement last month that allowed Ukrainian grain exports through a shipping hub during Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Ukrainian special services thwarted an attempt by Russian hackers to penetrate the combat information system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the SBU security service announced on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Ukraine has reported an increase in Russian attempts to hack the computer systems of the Ukrainian government, armed forces and energy sector since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Russia has repeatedly denied such accusations.
"As a result of complex measures, the SBU exposed and blocked the illegal actions of Russian hackers who tried to penetrate Ukrainian military networks and organize intelligence gathering," the SBU said on the Telegram messaging app.
The service said the hackers tried to gain access to "sensitive information about the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces, the location and movement of the defense forces, their technical support."
The SBU said responsibility for the attack lay with a sophisticated Russian hacking team known in the cybersecurity research community as Sandworm.
Cyber specialists discovered that the hackers planned to use Ukrainian military tablets to spread the virus in the combat system, the SBU said.
US President Joseph Biden's administration will announce today that it is sending a new arms aid package to Ukraine worth $200 million, US officials told Reuters.
The new package includes mine-clearing equipment, anti-tank weapons, guided missiles of the GMLRS multi-barrel rocket system, as well as anti-tank missiles and other equipment.
The United States of America (USA) has officially approved the delivery of the first batch of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, said the representative of the US military, Doug Bush.
According to CNN, Bush said that the tanks should arrive in Ukraine by the beginning of autumn.
"They are ready. Now they have to get to Europe and then to Ukraine, along with all the things that go with them," Bush said, according to CNN.
He said that, in addition to the tanks, the USA will supply Ukraine with ammunition, spare parts, fuel equipment, as well as means for repairs.
(MINE)
At least eight people were killed when two Russian rockets hit a building in Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine, last night, Ukrainian officials said.
In that area, the Russian army claims to be making progress in recent days.
In the attack, five civilians were killed and 14 were wounded, the head of the Donetsk military administration, Pavlo Kirilenko, wrote via Telegram. He added that according to their knowledge, two employees from the state rescue service and one soldier were killed, while nine policemen, one local administration official and one soldier were wounded.
Agence France-Presse journalists in Pokrovsk saw rescue workers working around a heavily damaged five-story building, evacuating the wounded from the ruins, and lowering residents stuck in apartments using large ladders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier that Russia had hit a residential building and that unfortunately there were victims.
Zelenski published a video in which people can be seen coming out of the ruins of a five-story building, which lost its top floor in the impact.
Pokrovsk had 60.000 inhabitants before the war.
"It's time to say good night, but the rescue operation continues. Today we are overwhelmed with sadness, anger and tears," the military administration of Pokrovsko wrote on Facebook.
The military authorities of the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine separately reported that two civilians, one man and one woman, were killed in a Russian attack last night on the village of Kruglyakivka, in which two men were killed in shelling the previous night.
Russia announced yesterday that it had advanced towards Kupyansk, a city in eastern Ukraine located about 150 kilometers from Pokrovsk, in a zone that Ukrainian forces recaptured from the Russians in September, and which has been under Russian offensive for the past few weeks.
In mid-July, Ukraine admitted that it was in a defensive position in the region of Kupyansk, where the Russian army began its offensive, and Moscow has since reported that it is slowly gaining ground.
(BETA)
War in Ukraine - 532th day.
The United States praised China's participation in a Ukraine rally in Saudi Arabia, calling it "productive" in an effort to portray Russia as isolated.
"We believe that China's presence has been productive," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, adding: "We have long believed that China can play a role in ending the war in Ukraine if it agrees to play a role that respects Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty."
About 40 countries attended talks on Ukraine in Jeddah on Saturday.
Among them are new powers such as India and Brazil, which did not side with Kiev, but did not support the Russian invasion either.
Moscow was not invited.
Two senior US officials, President Joseph Biden's security adviser Jake Sullivan and Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, met separately in Jeddah with Beijing's envoy to Ukraine Li Hui.
China has been providing diplomatic support to Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, except for military aid, but it has also stepped up its diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Ukraine.
(BETA)
Bonus video:
