Ukraine Update…252 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…Russia rocket attacks on Cities again

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

• In addition to strikes in Kyiv, officials across Ukraine said their local air defenses had been engaged, that targets had been struck and warned residents to seek shelter from attacks. In southern Mykolaiv, officials said a third wave of rockets had been unleashed Tuesday afternoon and in western Lviv, which has avoided the worst of the conflict, the city’s mayor said there had been explosions and part of the city was without power.
• In his G-20 address, Zelensky demanded the full withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine as a necessary condition for any “real” end to hostilities, alongside nine other demands he made of Moscow, including guarantees for food and energy security and freeing Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians.
• Zelensky likened the liberation of Kherson to the 1944 Normandy landings that set the stage for the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, telling the G-20 summit: “It was not yet a final point in the fight against evil, but it already determined the entire further course of events. This is exactly what we are feeling now.” Zelensky visited Kherson on Monday days after Russian troops withdrew from the strategic southern city.
• Most G-20 countries are expected to sign a strong condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday morning to offer an assessment of G20 talks. “It’s going to be a very strong statement,” the official added, “really isolating Russia, making clear that their war is causing immense consequences and suffering around the world.” The official would not address which countries have signed on to that language.
• Western leaders are unfairly trying to blame the conflict on Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, referring to the summit’s draft declaration. “The West added there the phrase that many delegations condemned Russia — we added that there were also alternative points of view,” he told reporters at the summit, which he attended in place of President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration official did not say whether China was among those siding with Russia in arguing against a condemnation.

• Russia is redeploying some troops to the Henichesk area of Kherson, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. “It is well positioned to coordinate action against potential Ukrainian threats. … Above all, it is currently out of range of Ukrainian artillery systems which have inflicted heavy damage” on the Kremlin’s forces, the ministry said.
• The U.S. Army awarded over half a billion dollars’ worth of contracts to Lockheed Martin to produce Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, known as GMLRS, to replenish the U.S. arsenal, the Pentagon said. The surface-to-surface missile system, which has a range of approximately 50 miles, has been a centerpiece of the advanced military assistance that the United States has been giving to Ukraine.
• A senior U.S. official claimed to be unaware “at this stage” of any Ukrainian operation crossing the Dnieper River, the war’s new front line after Kherson’s liberation. Speaking on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the Pentagon, the official could not say with absolute certainty, however, that every last Russian has left the western side of the Dnieper. The official cited media reports indicating that some small bands of troops loyal to Moscow might have stayed behind.
• Russia “intensified offensive operations” in the eastern Donetsk region and unsuccessfully tried to seize territory in the northeastern part of the Kharkiv region, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The think tank said late Monday that the Kremlin was claiming gains in Donetsk in an effort to divert attention from its pullback from Kherson….

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