Ukraine updates: Russia launches fresh strikes on Kyiv, Lviv

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine's military was accomplishing all the tasks set out in its operations in Russia's Kursk region.

"It is very important that absolutely all the tasks set out in our Kursk operation are being accomplished," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address after referring to reports from the front presented by Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Ukraine launched an unprecedented cross-border offensive into Russia's Kursk region last month. Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Lithuania has summoned a representative of the Russian Embassy in Vilnius over the heavy Russian airstrikes on Ukraine. 

During the conversation on Wednesday, the Lithuanian side expressed "strong protest" against Russia's "intensified shelling of Ukrainian civilian objects," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Lithuania's Foreign Ministry noted that rockets and bombs hitting educational institutions, hospitals, and residential areas demonstrate Russia's desperation and complete disregard for human life and international humanitarian law," the statement read.

In a statement, Lithuania once again called on Russia to immediately cease its invasion and reiterated that it would do everything possible to further strengthen its support for Ukraine.

Belarus has detained an alleged Japanese spy operating in the country, state television reported.

It said the alleged agent was caught filming military infrastructure and trying to uncover details of Chinese investment in Belarus, as well as the situation on the border between Belarus and Ukraine.

State television broadcast images of what it said was the Japanese spy's confession. "My actions could be dangerous for Belarus," he was filmed saying in broken Russian.

Belarus is a close ally of Moscow, with President Alexander Lukashenko allowing Russia to invade Ukraine through its territory.

A German citizen sentenced to death in Belarus for espionage was exchanged last month in a large-scale prisoner swap between the United States and Russia. 

Deputy US national security adviser Jon Finer met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials in Kyiv.

"While in Kyiv, Mr. Finer has had the opportunity to meet with President Zelenskyy and other key Ukrainian officials to coordinate on our strategic planning over the remainder of President Biden's term," said White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett.

Among other things, Finer received an update on the progress of the Kursk incursion. 

“We have used these meetings to discuss US assistance for Ukraine’s military, economy, and energy system, among other areas, and we will use the outcomes of these meetings to advance the president’s policy to support Ukraine until they prevail in this war," Savett said.

While Zelenskyy has pressured the United States to let Kyiv strike military targets deep inside Russian territory, the official said the Ukrainians did not focus on using US long-range missiles deeper inside Russia.

Germany’s military put the first Iris-T air-defense system into service in its own territory. 

Several such systems have been delivered to Ukraine with a view of them intercepting Russian rockets, drones and missiles. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this comes as a response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

"Russia has been massively rearming for many years, especially in the field of rockets and cruise missiles," Scholz said at the inauguration ceremony at a base in Todendorf, close to the city of Hamburg.

Scholz said the system is part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, which also includes long-range defenses against ballistic missiles.

The seven people killed in a Russian drone and missile attack in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv included four members of the same family, local officials said.

Mayor Andrij Sadovyi said a man had lost his wife and three daughters, aged 7, 18 and 21, in the attack.

"In the center of Europe, Russia is eliminating Ukrainians by (killing off) entire families. The Russians are
killing our children, our future," Sadovyi said on social media.

Earlier, the mayor had said three children had been killed in Wednesday's attack.

Russia denies targeting civilians during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but thousands of Ukrainian non-combatants have been killed in the 2 1/2 years of war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has once more said that an ongoing government reshuffle is meant to give his country a much-needed boost as it fights against the Russian invasion.

"We need new energy today, and these steps are related only to the strengthening of our state in different directions," Zelenskyy told media.

A number of ministers, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, have handed in their resignations ahead of the reshuffle, the biggest in Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-fledged attack on its neigbor 2 1/2 years ago.

The Ukrainian Parliament on Wednesday accepted the resignations of a deputy prime minister, the strategic industries minister and two other ministers amid a major government reshuffle, lawmakers said on the messaging app Telegram.

However, the highest-profile resignation request — that of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba — had not been considered by the end of the sitting, they said.

Kuleba has achieved a high degree of international recognition with his impassioned pleas to Western allies to provide effective help to his country amid the Russian invasion.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has spoken highly of the cooperation with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, after the latter submitted his resignation on Wednesday.

"Long conversations on night trains, at the G7, on the front lines, in Brussels, in front of a bombed-out power plant. There are few people I've worked as closely with as you,@DmytroKuleba," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"You put the people of your country before yourself," she went on, wishing Kuleba "all the best."

"We shall meet again when peace and freedom finally has returned to all of #Ukraine," Baerbock wrote.

Russia said on Wednesday that its forces had seized — or, in the terminology used by the Kremlin, "liberated" — another village near the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region.

The village now reported to have been captured is Karlivka, which is some 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Pokrovsk, a city under the control of Ukrainian forces.

"Units of the Center grouping of troops have completely liberated the village of Karlovka," the Russian Defense Ministry said, using the Russian name for the village.

Russian forces have accelerated their advance in the region in recent weeks, despite an incursion by Kyiv's troops into Russia's Kursk region undertaken partly to force Moscow to redeploy troops away from the area.
 

A mission at the International Monetary Fund has begun a fifth review of its its four-year $15.6 billion (€14.1 billion) lending program to Kyiv.

A successful review would enable Ukraine to secure $1.1 billion in new financing in the coming months, officials have said.

Ukraine has received about $98 billion in financial aid from its Western partners since the start of the war, Finance Ministry data showed, with the IMF a key lender.

Ukraine is spending about 60% of its total budget to fund its army as it fights against the Russian invasion. It needs financial support from its Western allies so it can pay pensions and wages to public sector employees and finance social and humanitarian programs.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko is expected to retain his position amid the current government reshuffle, analysts and lawmakers said.

Marchenko has previously said Ukraine still lacks about 500 billion hryvnias ($12 billion) to fund its defense for the rest of the year.

The mayor of the western city of Lviv, Andriy Sadovy, says seven people, including three children, have died in Russia's early morning attack on the city.

More than 20 are reported to have been injured in the missile and drone strikes. 

Earlier reports spoke of three fatalities.

In the wake of the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeated his call for permission to use Western long-range weaponry against military targets within Russia.

"Everyone who persuades partners to give Ukraine more long-range capability to respond to terror fairly is working to prevent exactly these kinds of Russian terrorist strikes on Ukrainian cities," Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has put in a resignation request amid an imminent larger government reshuffle, Ukraine's parliamentary speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk, said on Wednesday

Stefanchuk said the resignation request would be discussed by lawmakers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said changes to the government were being undertaken to strengthen it and achieve the results needed by Ukraine.

Four other Cabinet ministers submitted their resignations to parliament late on Tuesday, according to the speaker's office.

A Russian attack on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv overnight killed at least three  people and wounded at least 25 others, the governor of the Lviv region has said, updating an earlier death toll of two.

"Unfortunately, we have a third dead person as a result of the night attack on Lviv. According to initial information, this is a 14-year-old girl," Maksym Kozytskyi wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

"The number of injured increased to 25," he wrote.

Kozytskyi said there were several children among the injured.

Last week, Lviv's energy infrastructure was hit by Russian strikes, causing power outages in the region. The city, popular with tourists because of its picturesque historic city center, has otherwise largely been spared the worst of the fighting during Russia's invasion.

Ireland's premier Simon Harris is set to visit Ukraine on Wednesday where he will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

"I want to see first hand and with my own eyes the impact of war on the continent of Europe," Harris said.

Harris will also announce €43 million ($47.5) in aid for Ukraine, with a focus on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction efforts.

Of that, €36 million will be delivered by Irish Aid to partner organizations while €7 million will go toward European Investment Bank projects.

"We have been unequivocal and steadfast in our support for the people of Ukraine and this additional funding continues to demonstrate that commitment," Harris said.