Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow warns foreign citizens to leave Kyiv after threatening more revenge attacks – UK Times

At least six people, including four children, have died in a fire that broke out in a private house in Russia’s Omsk region, local officials said.

Omsk lies in southwestern Siberia, about 2,200km (1,370 miles) ​east ‌of Moscow.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

Ukraine reburied the repatriated remains of divisive military figure Andrii Melnyk, who worked with Nazi Germany to fight against Soviet rule, yesterday.

The ashes of the 20th-century Ukrainian military figure and his wife Sofiia Fedak-Melnyk were exhumed last week from Luxembourg and sent to Ukraine.

Their remains were reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv yesterday in a ceremony attended by president Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials.

“Today we all see that the Ukrainian idea can overcome what once seemed absolutely insurmountable,” Zelensky said, speaking at the reburial ceremony.

“Now, when we are on Ukrainian soil, under our Ukrainian flag, to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, paying due tribute to our Ukrainian heroes, we feel in our hearts everything that Ukrainians were forced to go through, everything our people had to endure,” he said.

Ukraine says it used Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian military targets in the occupied Luhansk region yesterday.

“Ukraine used Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles to successfully destroy an important enemy command-and-control and communications post in the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk (Oblast),” a statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

“This strike underscores the strategic foresight, unity of planning, and deliberate actions that prove no position of the Russian aggressor is safe on Ukrainian soil,” the General Staff said.

Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 155 miles (250km). The French call it Scalp.

Powered by a turbo-jet engine, the 1,300kg Storm Shadow travels at speeds of more than 600mph, is just over five metres long and has a wingspan of three metres.

Russia had blamed Britain after a Ukrainian strike using the same kind of missile targeting a vital munitions factory in March. The attack reportedly killed seven people.

Kyiv said it hit one of Russia’s “most important military factories”, the Kremniy El plant in the border city of Bryansk using the British-supplied missile.

Ukraine had made little progress in talks with the United States on expanding production of missile defences and was ⁠working with Europe to solve the matter, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Unfortunately, there has been no progress for a long time with America regarding the expansion of anti-ballistic missile production,” he said in his nightly video address.

“We are ​trying ⁠to accelerate this work in Europe, the production of our own anti-ballistic systems on the ⁠continent in sufficient quantities,” he said.

Zelensky said Ukraine was continuing to talk to the United States on how it can help Ukraine and that US leadership was vital.

He thanked French president Emmanuel Macron for ‌his role in developing systems and ‌said Europe was instrumental in providing financial help for Ukraine to acquire weapons.

“Europe is helping us financially. But the leadership of the United States is also very much needed. Today it is very, very important to say this,” he said.

He added that Ukraine was grateful for US expertise and that it was “very important that there are results. The same applies to diplomacy. We expect new diplomatic measures ‌with representatives of the President of the United ​States of America”.

Ukrainian forces have achieved stronger battlefield results this year and managed to stabilise parts of the front despite major Russian attacks, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Everything is not simple. We are actively defending ourselves, but this year we have achieved greater results than before,” Zelensky said.

The war-time president said Ukraine has strengthened its battlefield positions through drone operations, long-range strikes and technological innovations.

He added that Ukraine’s claims have been indirectly confirmed by criticism and complaints from Russian military bloggers.

“It is especially pleasing when this is clearly confirmed even by the whining of the so-called Russian ‘war correspondents,’” Zelensky said.

The head of the EU mission in Kyiv said the 27-nation bloc was “not going anywhere” after Russia issued a warning message, asking foreigners to leave the Ukrainian capital.

Russia has threatened to launch “systematic strikes” on targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres, a day after one of its heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the war.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, on a phone call with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, also pressured the US to evacuate staff from its embassy.

Katarina Mathernova, the head of the EU mission, said the Russian warning sought to sow panic.

“Russia wants ‌fear. Panic. Isolation of Ukraine. It will not work,” she said on social media. “The EU ‌is not going anywhere. We are staying in Kyiv. We are staying with Ukraine,” she said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a decree providing debt relief to new Ukraine war recruits and their families, the Kremlin said late on Monday, as Moscow seeks to boost its army.

People who signed a contract with the Russian defence ministry from 1 May and/or their spouses are free from their debts of up to 10 million roubles (£103,791) if a legal claim to collect those debts was in force before that date, the decree posted on the Kremlin’s website said.

The recruits will have to join the military to fight against Ukraine in Putin’s “special military operation” for at least one year, it added.

The law adds to a variety of support measures for Russian fighters in the war, from big payouts to preferable admissions for higher education, as the Kremlin seeks to boost its forces.

Putin also signed a decree indefinitely extending rental rights for state land for those fighting in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.