Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv under Russian drone attack with apartment building hit

A mass drone attack struck several districts of Kyiv early on Tuesday, causing injuries and damage, said officials in the Ukrainian capital. “Enemy drones are coming over the city from three directions. There is also the danger of missiles,” posted the mayor, Vitali Klitschko. One strike damaged the top floor of an apartment block and non-residential areas in the Solomianskyi district near the city centre, putting six out of the 11 injured in hospital. Rescue teams went to strikes in three other districts of Kyiv and air defence units were in operation.

“Russia is continuing its war on civilians,” said Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said there was a fire in Darnytskyi district on the eastern edge of the capital. “This is a very difficult night,” he wrote, adding that there had been power cuts in some areas. In Russia, the defence military said 51 Ukrainian drones attacked the border Belgorod region over three and a half hours late on Monday.

Europe should not restart buying Russian gas even if there is peace in Ukraine, according to the EU’s energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen. The European Commission aims to ban EU Russian gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports by the end of 2027. Jorgensen said “in my view if there is peace in Ukraine we should still not restart Russian gas imports”, Reuters news agency reported.

Jorgensen said EU countries and companies would not be offered compensation but would be legally safe in breaking their contracts with Russia. “We have a very clear opinion from the legal team of the commission, stating that since this will be a prohibition, a ban, the companies will not get into legal problems. This a force majeure,” said Jorgensen, meaning the ban was outside their control.

North Korean troops have sustained more than 6,000 casualties fighting for Russia against Ukraine – more than half of the about 11,000 soldiers initially sent to the Kursk region by Kim Jong-un’s regime, according to the British defence ministry.

Zelenskyy on Monday said that he wanted to discuss buying US weapons with Donald Trump, adding that getting them for free was not on the agenda. Zelenskyy was in Vienna before travelling to the G7 summit in Canada; however, Trump left the G7 on Monday early, citing the situation in the Middle East. Earlier, Zelenskyy said he wanted to discuss with Trump “the defence package that Ukraine is ready to buy”.

“I can’t imagine and I don’t want to imagine … how to live without and fight without the help of the United States,” Zelenskyy continued. “I think we all have to work to make sure that the alliance between America and Europe doesn’t fall apart.” Zelenskyy said he viewed the G7 summit as a “very important” opportunity to see “what kind of pressure we can all exert to stop [Vladimir] Putin, so that he stops the fire, stops the war … we will discuss frozen Russian assets with the leaders, and we will also discuss sanctions”.

Trump has shied away from imposing further sanctions on Russia – on Monday saying “I’m waiting to see whether or not a deal is signed”, of which there has been no sign. He also wants Russia readmitted to the G7. Trump said over two weeks ago that he would know in about two weeks whether Putin is “tapping him along” and not genuine about peace negotiations.

The Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer, says Ukraine’s daring Operation Spiderweb will make military commanders across the world rethink national security. On 1 June, Ukraine launched a daring attack on Russian air bases, inflicting billions of dollars of damage to warplanes using inexpensive drones smuggled in on top of lorries.

Russia has returned 1,245 more bodies to Ukraine, Kyiv said on Monday, the final stage of a deal to repatriate more than 6,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement on a large-scale exchange of prisoners and the bodies of killed soldiers – the only visible result from two rounds of direct talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The Ukrainian defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said Kyiv had received more than 6,000 bodies in total over the past week.

The Ukrainian interior minister, Igor Klymenko, accused Russia of “deliberately complicating the identification process … Bodies are returned in an extremely mutilated state, parts of [the same] bodies are in different bags,” he said, and Ukraine also “received bodies of Russian soldiers mixed with those of Ukrainians”.

Zelenskyy said Moscow had offered to swap Ukrainian children it has kidnapped for Russian soldiers held prisoner by Ukraine. “Russians proposed this: we give them their soldiers, and they give us children,” he said. “It is simply beyond comprehension and beyond international law, but it is in their spirit,” he added, calling the idea “madness”. Hundreds of children have been forcibly taken by Russia during its invasion, and Ukrainian negotiators handed a list of some of their names to Moscow’s delegation at the talks in Istanbul.

In Vienna, Zelenskyy said that he and the Austrian president, Alexander Van der Bellen, spoke about an eventual Austrian contribution to Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, including clearing landmines, energy cooperation and food security. The Austrian president said his country was militarily neutral but “it is not so politically”. Austria had good relations with Russia before the invasion of Ukraine, and still has some economic links, but ties have deteriorated over the past three years. Austria’s far-right opposition FPOe party, which is polling first in voter surveys, criticised Zelenskyy’s visit.