Ukraine Update…915 Days of the Russian Conflict….The Drone War continues…

• A Russian bomb attack on Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv hit a residential building and a playground, killing seven people and injuring at least 77 more, local authorities said. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said a 14-year-old girl was among the dead. The death toll from the attack climbed to seven when a woman’s body was recovered from the rubble. About 20 of the injured were in severe condition, said the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. Ukrainian authorities said the attack involved five aerial guided “glide bombs” launched from planes in Russia’s Belgorod region. Zelenskiy has renewed a call on western allies to allow Ukraine to use long-range western weapons to attack Russian military airbases. “A strike … would not have happened if our defence forces had the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft where they are based,” Zelenskiy said. “There is no rational reason to restrict Ukraine’s defences.”

• Russia said Ukraine fired cluster munitions on the city of Belgorod and its suburbs, killing at least five people and wounding 37 civilians, including at least six children. “One woman and four men died of their wounds on the spot before an ambulance arrived,” regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. He posted a video showing a house on fire. The state-run Tass media agency posted pictures of a road in Belgorod strewn with debris and twisted metal. There was no independent confirmation or comment from Ukraine, which maintains that it does not target civilians in Russia.

• Zelenskiy has fired the head of Ukraine’s air force a day after it emerged that a recently delivered F-16 jet crashed during the week, killing the pilot. “I have decided to replace the commander of the air forces … I am eternally grateful to all our military pilots,” Zelenskiy said in an evening video address, without giving a reason for the dismissal of Mykola Oleshchuk. Zelenskiy spoke of the need to “protect” the lives of those defending the country. Mariana Bezugla, a member of a parliamentary defence committee, had earlier claimed the plane was shot down by friendly fire. Reuters cited a US official stating the plane did not appear to have been hit by Russian fire, and the crash may have been caused by mechanical failure or pilot error.

• Ukraine has called on Mongolia to arrest Vladimir Putin when he visits on Tuesday. The Russian president is due to travel to Mongolia, a member of the international criminal court (ICC). The ICC has a warrant out for Putin’s arrest over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

• Russia’s military said its forces had captured three villages in eastern Ukraine, where it is advancing even as Kyiv mounts its own assault on Russian territory. In a briefing published on its Telegram page, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized settlements in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions.

• Ukraine’s top commander said Kyiv’s forces had advanced about a mile in Russia’s western Kursk region in the previous 24 hours. Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces took control of two square miles more of Russian territory.

• A group of Russian armed volunteers was being set up in Kursk to “ensure security”, officials said. Kursk’s governor, Alexy Smirnov, said on Telegram that the new detachments would be tasked with “not only ensuring security, but also participating in life support in resettled areas in order to support the remaining people in this difficult time”.

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said corruption investigations into Russian defence officials involved “serious charges” that would lead to court trials, Reuters reports. A military court in Moscow has placed Pavel Popov, a former deputy defence minister, in detention on suspicion of fraud in the latest of a string of corruption probes of officials tied to former defence minister Sergei Shoigu….

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European Union (EU) member state officials continue to express divergent views about Ukraine’s ability to use European-provided weapons to strike military targets in Russia.