kyiv records new gains in its counter-offensive

• Ukrainian forces have advanced up to 2 kilometers in several directions but face heavy resistance, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said overnight, summarizing the situation on the front lines. She said the army conducts both offensive and defensive operations, with some success despite Moscow’s air and artillery superiority.
• The Russian army admits that fighting is underway on the southern front in Ukraine and half-acknowledges, for the first time, having ceded territories. “In the area of ​​the Vremivka salient, the most active fighting is taking place in the districts of the localities of Rivnopil and Urojaine”wrote the Russian defense ministry on Friday, claiming to have repelled five attacks there in the past twenty-four hours with the help of its aviation and artillery.
• Germany will deliver “immediately” 64 additional Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Kyiv, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Friday, on the second day of a NATO meeting in Brussels. He is “crucial to increase support for Ukraine” in a context “hard fighting”said Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, welcoming “new contributions proposed by the allies”.
• Volodymyr Zelensky again ruled out any negotiations with Moscow. “Today I made it clear during our meeting that any negotiation with Russia now, when the occupier is on our land, means freezing war, freezing pain and suffering”declared the Ukrainian president after a meeting in kyiv with a delegation of African mediators on Friday.
• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier called on Ukraine and Russia to ‘de-escalate’. “Today, while we were here, we heard about missile attacks and this type of hostilities is not good for promoting peace”, he said. The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down six Kinjal ballistic missiles, six cruise missiles and two drones in the kyiv region.
• ” The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus », Vladimir Putin announced on Friday. “These are just the first. By the end of the summer, the end of the year, we will have completed this work”continued the Russian president at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, broadcast live on television.
• The United States has “no reason” to change its nuclear posturedespite the deployment of Russian nuclear warheads in Belarus, reacted the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken. “We see no indication that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon”he added.
• The Atlantic Alliance will not invite Ukraine to join at the Vilnius summit on July 11-12but wishes to organize on this occasion the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine Council in the presence of the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of the organization.

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