Ukraine war briefing: Russia pounds power grid with seven killed in biggest energy attack in months | Ukraine

Zelenskyy visited a military command post near the town of Lyman near the eastern frontline and praised what he said were gains against Russian forces ‌during a counteroffensive. Ukrainian forces had recaptured 176 sq km (29.3 sq miles) of territory since the start of the operation, he said. “A serious ‌operation, important in many ways for our ‌defence overall and in Donbas in particular,” Zelenskyy wrote, referring to eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which Russia aims to capture in its entirety. Zelenskyy said the operation had ‌prevented Russian forces from breaking through the rear of defensive lines around Sloviansk ​and Kramatorsk, part of the network of “fortress cities” Ukrainian forces are defending.

Ukraine is urging the US to impose sanctions on several Russian entities it says are helping develop Moscow’s Rassvet satellite network as a domestic alternative to SpaceX’s Starlink, its acting ⁠ambassador said. Denys Sienik, ⁠deputy chief of mission ​at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, said Russia was rapidly expanding the Rassvet satellite network and that its goal to start operations in 2027 would pose grave risks to Ukraine. Kyiv planned to issue its own national sanctions against the entities linked to the ​network, Sienik said, adding: “If these entities are not sanctioned, it ‌will actually make this program possible for ‌Russia and that will be a gamechanger.”

Papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi discussed humanitarian issues in the Ukraine war in ⁠talks with Russian officials and visited Ukrainian prisoners of war, Russia’s foreign ministry said. Zuppi’s three ⁠days of talks ⁠coincided ​with an appeal by Pope Leo to Russia and Ukraine to sit down and discuss how to ⁠end the four-and-a-half-year war. The pontiff also decried national leaders who he said were “beginning to speak about nuclear weapons ⁠and wars that are becoming ever more destructive”. The foreign ministry said ​on Wednesday that Zuppi also discussed conditions in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region, where Ukrainian officials said Kyiv’s military used drones last weekend to deliver ‌food and medicine to civilians.