Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 857

As the war enters its 857th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, July 1, 2024.

Fighting

• One employee was killed and nine people injured, including an eight-month-old baby, after Russian glide bombs struck near a postal warehouse operated by private company Nova Poshta in northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said rescue teams were combing the site for as many as nine people still thought to be trapped under burning wreckage.
• The number of injured from a Russian attack on the town of Vilniansk in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region rose to 36, as the region marked a day of mourning for the seven people killed.
• Ukraine’s military released drone footage showing what appeared to be bodies in a civilian area of the eastern Donetsk town of Toretsk, which has seen heavy Russian bombardment in recent days prompting mass evacuations.

• Russian-appointed officials in parts of Donetsk that Moscow occupies said that two children were injured in Ukrainian shelling, while Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said four of its staff had came under shelling as they attempted to put out a fire in the Kremlin-occupied local capital, also called Donetsk.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had taken control of the villages of Spirne and Novooleksandrivka in Donetsk, and improved their position around the front line in the area. Ukraine’s General Staff said in its daily update on the battlefield situation that “heavy fighting” was taking place in the area around the villages, but did not report any losses.

Weapons

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had dropped more than 800 glide bombs in Ukraine in the past week, and appealed to Western countries to further relax restrictions on the use of weapons against military targets inside Russia. Glide bombs are heavy Soviet-era bombs fitted with precision guidance systems and launched from aircraft flying out of range of air defences.