Russia and Ukraine traded attacks that resulted in casualties overnight and on Sunday, officials on both sides say.
Two people were injured and dozens of residential and other buildings were damaged in a Russian missile attack on kyiv overnight, according to the head of the regional administration.
Of the three missiles launched by Russia, Ukrainian air defense systems destroyed two over the kyiv region, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app.
Falling debris injured two people who did not require hospitalization, Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Kiev region administration, said on Telegram. He added that six multi-story residential buildings, more than 20 private houses, as well as a gas station and a pharmacy were damaged.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces destroyed drone facilities in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, its navy reported on Telegram.
Satellite images confirmed the destruction of storage depots, training facilities and drone checkpoints in the region, located east of the Crimean peninsula, he said, releasing photographs as evidence.
Ukraine attacks
On Sunday, Russian authorities said people were killed in Ukrainian attacks.
Two people, including a two-year-old boy, were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Russian-controlled Sevastopol, the city's Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram, adding that 22 people suffered various shrapnel wounds. gravity.
In the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that one person was killed and three injured after Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian city of Graivoron.
At least 30 drones were destroyed over the western Russian region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram. No damage was reported.
Russia's air defense systems also destroyed drones over the Smolensk region, Vasily Anokhin, governor of the region in western Russia, said on Telegram.
guided bombs
On Saturday, guided bombs from Moscow ripped through an apartment building in Ukraine's second-largest city, killing three people, wounding 52 and prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to call for more help to confront the growing such threat. of weapons.
“This Russian terror by guided bombs must and can be stopped,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “We need firm decisions from our partners that will allow us to stop Russian terrorists and Russian military aviation right where they are.”
Later, in his late-night video address, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had used more than 2,400 guided bombs against Ukrainian targets in June alone, with about 700 of them aimed at Kharkiv.
Russia has increasingly relied on relatively inexpensive guided bombs, delivered from afar and posing fewer risks to its forces in its war in Ukraine.
Decisions on nuclear weapons
Samual Ramani of the Royal United Services Institute told Al Jazeera from London that Russia has surprised the world by stepping up its attacks in spring and summer, rather than winter.
“The prevailing assumption in the West was that the Russians would repeat the attacks they carried out in winter 2022 and winter 2023,” he said. “But they didn't and they took everyone by surprise.”
On Sunday, Andrei Kartapolov, head of the defense committee of the lower house of Russia's parliament, was quoted by state news agency RIA as saying his country could reduce the decision-making time stipulated in the official policy for the use of weapons. nuclear.
“If we see that challenges and threats are increasing, it means that we can correct something in [the doctrine] about the timing of the use of nuclear weapons and the decision on their use,” Kartapolov said, according to RIA.
Russia's 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out when its president would consider using a nuclear weapon: broadly, in response to an attack using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction or conventional weapons “when the very existence of the state is threatened.” ”.
