The Russian Defense Ministry said that Defense Minister Shoigu is inspecting Russian units in Ukraine, while the Ukrainian army announced the arrival of warships and boats from the United States of America to help protect the country's coasts in Odessa on the Black Sea, while the capital, Kyiv, is subjected to Russian missile bombardment that has resulted so far. About killing one person and injuring others.

The Ukrainian army reported the arrival of 6 warships and 18 boats from the United States of America to help protect the Ukrainian coast in Odessa on the Black Sea.

For its part, the Ukrainian Army Staff said that its forces bombed with US HIMARs missiles the enemy targets inside Ukrainian territory, and broadcast scenes of what it said was the beginning of the process of using the HIMARS system inside Ukrainian territory, without specifying the location and nature of those targets.

The Ukrainian Southern Operations Command also said that its forces carried out a successful ambush targeting Russian forces in the southern Zaporozhye region, killing 300 Russian soldiers.

The Ukrainian forces confirmed their continued progress towards the Russian outposts in the Zaporozhye countryside.

The mayor of Kyiv said that there are people stuck in buildings bombed by the Russian army in central Kyiv (Reuters)

Kyiv bombing

On the other hand, four explosions rocked Kyiv, coinciding with missile shelling on the Chevchen-Kivsky district, which extends from the city center to northwest of the capital, hours before the opening of a summit of the Group of Seven major industrial countries in southern Germany with the participation of US President Joe Biden.

The mayor of the city told Al-Jazeera that there were people stuck inside the buildings that were bombed, and that the authorities were trying to rescue them, but without knowing their condition.

He added that "ambulances and rescue workers are at the site and operations are underway to rescue and evacuate residents in two buildings" in the neighborhood.

Agence France-Presse correspondents stated that an apartment complex near the city center was hit, which led to a fire and the emission of a large cloud of gray smoke.

This neighborhood was bombed by two Russian missiles last April, killing a woman.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, considered that the Russian strike that targeted the capital in the early hours of Sunday morning was aimed at "intimidating the Ukrainians" before the NATO summit in Madrid between 28-30 June and also a few days before the NATO summit. It opens Tuesday, with Biden also in attendance.


Call to leave Mykolaiv

In a radio interview, the Ukrainian Mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevich, appealed to all residents of the city to leave immediately if they want to survive, adding that the city is subjected to Russian bombardment on a daily basis and that cluster bombs constitute about 80% of the munitions used by the Russian army.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian army reported that the southern province of Mykolaiv was hit by nine missiles fired from the Crimea.

The army did not provide any details about the targeted locations and the nature of the losses.

In turn, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that "more than 300 Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries and 35 heavy weapons units" were "liquidated in one day in the Mykolaiv region."

Street battles in the city of Lyschansk

On the other hand, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said that street battles are taking place in the city of Lyschansk, adjacent to the city of Severodonetsk, which Moscow took control of on Saturday after the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces, while the Group of Seven, at its summit today in Germany, is expected to impose additional sanctions on Russia due to the war on Ukraine. .

And the pro-Russian separatist Luhansk forces announced that Russian forces had stormed Lyschansk, which is separated only by a river from Severodonetsk, and engaged in street battles with Ukrainian forces.

Al-Jazeera correspondent in Ukraine said that the battles and exchanges of shelling between the Ukrainian and Russian forces are continuing in the vicinity of Lyschansk and on the road between Bakhmut and Lysechansk.

Sergei Gaidai, governor of Lugansk Province, stated that Ukrainian forces repelled the ongoing Russian attack on Lyschansk from the southern axis.

Russian forces continue their attacks on Lyschansk (Reuters)

transformed by battle

The fall of Severodonetsk - which was inhabited by more than 100,000 people but is now a ghost town - is Russia's biggest victory since completing its control over the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine last May, and this represents a shift in the battlefield on the fronts of the Donbas region.

Russia now hopes to maintain pressure and seize more territory on the opposite bank of the Seversky Donets River, while Ukraine hopes that the price Moscow paid for capturing the devastated city will make Russian forces vulnerable to a counterattack in the coming weeks.

armament of Belarus

In another context, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country will deliver "in the coming months" missiles capable of carrying nuclear shipments to Belarus.

At the beginning of a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Saint Petersburg, Putin said that the missiles were "Iskander-M".

In comments that could further strain relations between Moscow and the West, the Russian and Belarusian presidents said they wanted to modernize Belarusian aviation to make it capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Previously, Ukraine had accused Russia of trying to drag Belarus into the ongoing war in Ukraine, after 20 Russian missiles were launched on Saturday at targets in northern and western Ukraine.

Russian missiles targeted the Chernihiv border province between Ukraine and Belarus, and the authorities of the Zhytomyr province in central Ukraine said that some of those Russian missiles hit military facilities in the vicinity of the province, killing at least one soldier.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that the Russian missile attack launched from Belarus "is directly related to the efforts made by the Kremlin to drag Belarus to participate in the war on Ukraine."

The killing of "mercenaries"

On the other hand, the Russian army said that it killed about eighty "Polish mercenaries" in shelling and destroyed 20 armored vehicles and eight multiple rocket launchers with high-precision weapons fire on Megatex Zinc Factory in Konstantinovka in Donetsk.