Here are the key events on day 1,224 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, July 2:
Fighting
- A Ukrainian drone attack on an industrial plant in Izhevsk, in central Russia, killed three people and injured 35 others, regional Governor Alexander Brechalov said in a post on Telegram.
- The drone struck the Kupol Electromechanical Plant, which produces air defence systems and drones for the Russian military, an unnamed official with Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, told the Associated Press news agency.
- A Russian attack on a vehicle evacuating civilians from Pokrovsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killed one person and injured a policeman, police said.
- The Ministry of Defence in Moscow said that 60 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight over several regions, including 17 over Russian-occupied Crimea, 16 over Russia’s Rostov region and four over Russia’s Saratov region.
- Ukraine’s Air Force said on Tuesday that Russia launched 52 Shahed and decoy drones at the country overnight.
- The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday that it has been informed of a drone attack last week near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that damaged several vehicles near the site’s cooling pond.
Weapons
- Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov announced a new joint weapons production programme with members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), an alliance of about 50 countries. The programme would offer “a special legal and tax framework” to help establish new factories, “both on Ukrainian territory and abroad”, Umerov said in a post on social media.
- The Pentagon has reportedly halted some shipments of air defence missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine over concerns that US stockpiles are too low, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two unnamed sources. The Pentagon did not immediately comment on the report.
- A Russian-British dual national appeared in a London court on Tuesday, charged with sending cryptocurrency for pro-Russian separatist militias in eastern Ukraine to buy weapons and military equipment.
Politics and diplomacy
- French President Emmanuel Macron called for a ceasefire in Ukraine in his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022.
- A Kremlin statement said that Putin reminded Macron that “the Ukrainian conflict is a direct consequence of the policy of Western states”.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “no one is delaying anything here”, after US envoy Keith Kellogg accused Russia of “stall[ing] for time” on ceasefire talks, “while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine”.
- Peskov added: “We are naturally in favour of achieving the goals that we are trying to achieve through the special military operation via political and diplomatic means. Therefore, we are not interested in drawing out anything.”