Ukraine war latest: Russia advancing on key city after Ukraine hits Putin's 'pride and joy' in underwater strike

NATO fully supports Trump's efforts to end Ukraine war, Rutte says

NATO fully supports Donald Trump's efforts to "stop the bloodshed with a just and lasting peace" in Ukraine, its secretary general has said.

Speaking in Brussels ahead of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group later today, Mark Rutte said the group will "focus on continued support for Ukraine as it fights back against Russian aggression".

The former Dutch prime minister added: "NATO's support for Ukraine is not about prolonging the war, it is about ensuring Ukraine can defend itself now and prevent any future aggression."

Ukraine invited to NATO summit

Rutte also said Ukraine is invited to a NATO summit in The Hague in three weeks, which he said will focus on a "huge increase" in defence spending and where the Ukraine war will be discussed.

Trump has been pushing for an end to the war, with Ukraine accepting a US-proposed ceasefire the Kremlin has effectively rejected. Vladimir Putin has made it clear any peace settlement must be on his terms.

NATO response to Russian attack would be 'devastating'

Rutte said NATO's reaction would be "devastating" if Putin attacked the alliance.

"We are always prepared for every eventuality, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin should know if he will try, that our reaction would be devastating. And he knows," he said.

Escalation risk 'going way up' after Ukraine struck Russian bombers, Trump envoy says

Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy has said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was "going way up" after Kyiv's forces used drones to strike nuclear-capable bombers at several airbases deep inside Russia.

Ukraine attacked airfields in Siberia and Russia's far north over the weekend, striking targets up to 4,300km (2,670 miles) from the front lines.

"I'm telling you, the risk levels are going way up - I mean, what happened this weekend," Keith Kellogg told Fox News.

"People have to understand in the national security space: when you attack an opponent's part of their national survival system, which is their triad, the nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don't know what the other side is going to do.

"You're not sure."

Kellogg said the damage to the Russian bombers was less important than the psychological impact on Russia, and he was particularly concerned by unconfirmed reports of a Ukrainian attack on a naval base in northern Russia.

Speaking about the talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on Monday, Kellogg said Kyiv had come up with a "very reasonable position" but Moscow had come with a "very maximalist position", and the aim now was to "try to bridge that".

Ukraine war casualties near 1.4 million, study says

The total number of casualties in the Ukraine war is nearing 1.4 million, a study has found.

Nearly one million Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the war, while around 400,000 Ukrainian troops have also been killed or wounded, according to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

It warned the casualty figures are difficult to estimate, but said it was based on the latest data and estimates from several sources, including the UK and US governments.

The centre said Russian forces have advanced an average of 50 metres a day in areas such as Kharkiv, "slower than during the Somme offensive in World War I, where French and British forces advanced an average of 80 metres per day".

UK pledges to deliver 100,000 drones to Ukraine

The government has pledged to supply 100,000 drones to Ukraine by the end of the current financial year in April 2026 - a tenfold increase.

On Monday Sir Keir Starmer's government endorsed the independently-produced Strategic Defence Review, which called for a more lethal, tech-driven military.

The government said unmanned aerial vehicles had transformed the way wars are fought and it plans to learn from Kyiv's more than three-year battle against Russian invasion, during which drone warfare has transformed the battlefield.

The £350m drone package is part of a broader £4.5bn military support initiative for Ukraine, the government said.

Defence Secretary John Healey will make the announcement at the 50-nation Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Brussels.

"The UK is stepping up its support for Ukraine by delivering hundreds of thousands more drones this year and completing a major milestone in the delivery of critical artillery ammunition," he said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

As well as the drone deliveries, the government said it has completed the shipment of 140,000 artillery shells to Ukraine since January, and will spend a further £247m training Ukrainian troops this year.

NATO drills are part of preparations for potential clash with Russia, Moscow's deputy foreign minister says

NATO drills in the Baltic are part of the alliance's preparations for a potential military clash with Russia, Moscow's deputy defence minister has said, according to the TASS news agency.

"We assess NATO's military activity as part of preparations for military clashes with Russia," Alexander Grushko said.

"If we look at the focus of these exercises, the concept, the structure of the deployment of forces, the forces themselves, their quality, the tasks that are formulated for these exercises, then this is a fight against a comparable adversary," he added.

NATO's annual exercise in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it - BALTOPS - is taking place later this month.

Russian forces advancing on key city

Russian forces have widened the frontline in Ukraine's northeast as its soldiers captured another village yesterday, bringing the region's capital within the range of frontline drones.

The push towards the city of Sumy, the administrative centre of the Sumy region, comes after Kyiv hit Russian strategic bombers and the Crimean Bridge in recent days.

Russia's defence ministry said its forces took control of Andriivka after capturing several other villages in recent days, while Kyiv said Russian artillery attacks on the city of Sumy killed four people and injured 28.

"The situation in the border area of ​​Sumy region remains complex, dynamic, but controllable," the head of the military administration, Oleh Hryhorov, said on Facebook.

"The Russian army is constantly shelling border villages, hitting residential buildings, farms, and civilian infrastructure facilities." 

Ukrainian commander who resigned over Russian strike on training camp given new role

Mykhailo Drapatyi has been appointed commander of Ukraine's joint forces after submitting his resignation as ground forces commander, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced.

Drapatyi had resigned on Sunday after a Russian missile strike killed at least 12 Ukrainian soldiers at a training camp in the Dnipro region.

"This is a conscious step dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy at the 239th training ground, which resulted in the deaths of our soldiers," the commander wrote on Facebook after the attack.

But today, he was summoned to a meeting with Zelenskyy.

"I reported everything that is currently known about the tragedy at the training ground. About every step - who was there, who was responsible for the people, who had to act," he wrote on his Telegram.

"I explained to the head of state the reasons for my decision. The president listened, supported and suggested focusing on the main thing - the war, the front, victory."

Zelenskyy has said another commander, whom he has not identified, would take charge of land forces.

Firing at the enemy in Kharkiv

In Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast, Kyiv's troops have been firing at Russian positions.

Russian troops have recently expanded in the region after Vladimir Putin's promise to create a buffer zone along the border that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks hitting Russian soil.

And the Kremlin continues to intensify pressure on Ukraine as it advances into the northeast of the country, with reports that troops are gearing up for a summer offensive.

Power restored to at least 700,000 residents in southern Ukraine after drone strikes

Emergency crews have restored power to at least 700,000 residents across a swathe of southern Ukraine controlled by Russian forces, officials report, a day after Ukrainian drone attacks knocked out electricity substations.

We reported earlier that Ukrainian attacks were said to have triggered power cuts in swathes of Russian-controlled territory in the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (see post at 7.50am).

There was said to be no impact on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.

Now, Russia's energy ministry has said Telegram: "Thanks to the coordinated work of power engineers, the power supply to all customers has now been fully restored."

Russia has claimed parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and is now trying to capture the rest of those regions.

It claims the move is about security and securing the future of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers there.

Ukraine has said it is land grab by Moscow and has vowed to retake the lost territory.

Analysis: Ukraine's message to Putin is 'we can do this' after three big attacks

Ukraine has "thought through a campaign of guerilla action against Russia", our military analyst Michael Clarke says after three separate attacks. 

On Saturday Ukraine targeted two railway bridges in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk, causing them to collapse.

The day after, Ukraine launched dozens of drone attacks on Russian air bases, destroying bombers and jets.

And this morning, Ukraine hit Kerch Bridge, which links Russia to Crimea, in an underwater explosion after an operation that took months.

"Ukraine is showing Russia 'we can do this'" with these attacks, Clarke says.

"Ukraine has thought this through - whether it be successful or not we don't know - but they have thought through a campaign of guerilla action against Russia."

Trump not informed of Ukrainian bomber attack in advance

In Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has answered questions on the war in Ukraine at her latest press briefing.

She was asked why Donald Trump has been silent on Ukraine's weekend drone strikes on Russian long-range bombers and whether the attacks show Volodymyr Zelenskyy "had some cards" in the war after all. That wording refers to the Oval Office showdown when the US president told the Ukrainian leader he "does not have any cards".

Dodging the first part of the question, Leavitt said Trump "remains positive on the progress that we've seen" in the four months since he came to office, which culminated yesterday in Ukraine and Russia meeting for direct talks in Istanbul.

"But he [Trump] is also a realist and he realises these are two countries that are at war," she added. "He's working hard to solve this conflict."

Asked if Trump approved Ukraine's decision to strike nuclear-capable bombers, she said: "I would like the president to speak on that himself."

She was also asked if Trump was informed about the attacks, to which she replies: "He was not."

Over the weekend, Ukraine launched an unprecedented attack on Russia's long-range bombers.

Kyiv officials said the attack on Sunday damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, including the remote Arctic, Siberian and Far East regions more than 4,300 miles from Ukraine.

Ukraine invited to NATO summit

Ukraine has been invited to the upcoming NATO summit this month, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

The Netherlands is scheduled to host a summit of NATO leaders in The Hague between 24-25 June and further military and political support for Ukraine is expected to be a key topic at the summit

On the summit, the Ukrainian leader has said: "We were invited to the NATO summit. I think this is important."

Zelenskyy did not specify who would be representing Ukraine at the event.

Zelenskyy has been calling on NATO to offer security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace deal with Russia.

He has also been pushing for Ukraine to join the defence alliance and even said he is willing to give up his presidency for it.

But Moscow has said the conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards.

Russia restarts Kerch Bridge crossings after Ukraine's attack

The Russian authorities say road traffic on the Kerch Bridge has restarted after a Ukrainian strike closed the crossing to Crimea for hours today. 

As we've reported, the Ukrainian security service, known by its acronym SBU, released a video showing an explosion that damaged the foundations of the bridge, which links Russia and illegally annexed Crimea.

The SBU said it detonated 1,100kg of explosives on the seabed overnight in an operation that took several months to set up. 

It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia's invasion in 2022.

Earlier today, a Telegram account associated with the bridge said traffic resumed across it as of 9am local time, before later being suspended again.

Russia can't restart Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant 'any time soon'

Russia will not be able to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant any time soon, the UN's nuclear safety chief has said after satellite images suggested Moscow intends to link the facility to its own grid.

IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said the Russians had "never hidden the fact" that they want to restart the plant in southeastern Ukraine, a week after a Greenpeace report found Moscow was building new electricity lines for the plant.

Speaking to Reuters in Kyiv, Grossi said water would have to be pumped from the nearby Dnipro River for the plant, which is shut down, to be restarted.

"We are not in a situation of imminent restart of the plant. Far from that, it would take quite some time before that can be done," he said, adding the plant's machinery, which has not been operating for three years, would have to be thoroughly inspected before any restart.

Satellite images in the report showed construction to the west of Berdyansk in the Zaporizhzhia region and north of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine.

Greenpeace said it had identified Russian engineers constructing an electricity high voltage power line for the nuclear plant.

The site, Europe's biggest nuclear plant, was taken over by Russia in March 2022. Ukraine and experts say any attempt by Russian technicians to restart the plant would be dangerous because they are not certified to operate it.

'Russia is trying to disrupt the peace process' - ISW

Yesterday, Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for a second round of peace talks but made no strong progress towards ending the war. 

The two sides only reached an agreement about prisoner of war exchanges during their one-hour negotiations.

At the table, the Russian side also presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin's terms for ending hostilities.

And Ukraine's defence minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response.

Looking at the talks, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) notes that Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, stated that Russia proposed a two-to-three-day ceasefire on unspecified areas of the front to allow both sides to retrieve bodies from the battlefield.

The US-based thinktank says Russia's refusal to give Ukraine its memorandum with its terms for a peace settlement before the meeting "ensured that the meeting was largely unproductive and further protracted the negotiation process". 

"ISW continues to assess that Russia is trying to disrupt the peace process and prolong the war in order to make additional battlefield gains," the thinktank adds.

Russia targeting rescuers, Ukraine minister says

Russia is targeting Ukrainian rescuers, one of Kyiv's ministers has claimed.

Ihor Klymenko said that from 26 May to yesterday, rescuers were attacked "about a dozen times" in the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Dnipro, Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

He described "one of the most cynical attacks" that took place yesterday morning.

"In Stepnohirsk, Zaporizhzhia region, after the kamikaze drones struck the fire department, the occupiers targeted the rescuers who were evacuating the wounded," Klymenko said.

Of the rescuers, 12 were left injured.

-SKY NEWS