Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had visited two cities very close to one of the most active front lines between his country’s troops and Russian forces, where a regional official said the situation had worsened for the Ukrainian side.

FIGHTING

* Ukraine’s position “worsened a little” in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, but Kyiv’s forces defended their positions against Russia in an industrial zone as heavy fighting raged, the regional governor said.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he had travelled to Lysychansk, south of Sievierodonetsk, and Soledar, two cities very close to some of the most intense fighting.

* Explosions were heard in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said in a post on the Telegram messaging service on Monday.

* Russian forces were pushing towards Sloviansk and had struck rail infrastructure in Kyiv on Sunday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in a Twitter update on Monday. Russia had said the Kyiv air strikes hit tanks and other armoured vehicles provided to Ukraine by European countries.

* The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region said on Monday that the border village of Tyotkino had come under fire from Ukraine.

* A Russian state media journalist on Sunday said Russian Major General Roman Kutuzov had been killed in eastern Ukraine, adding to a string of high-ranking military casualties sustained by Moscow.

* Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said a Russian cruise missile flew “critically low” on Sunday morning over a major nuclear power plant.

* Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

DIPLOMACY AND WEAPONS

* Russia should not close the U.S. embassy despite the crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine because the world’s two biggest nuclear powers must continue to talk, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow was quoted as saying on Monday.

* Britain said it would supply Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems that can strike targets up to 80 km (50 miles) away.

* Putin said earlier that Russia would strike new targets if the West supplied longer-range missiles to Ukraine.

* A visit to Serbia by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been cancelled after countries around Serbia closed their airspace to his aircraft, a senior foreign ministry source told Russia’s Interfax news agency on Sunday.

ECONOMY

* Russian aluminium producer Rusal has filed a lawsuit against global miner Rio Tinto, seeking to win back access to its 20% share of alumina produced at a jointly owned refiner in Queensland.

* Russia’s sanctions against Gazprom Germania and its subsidiaries could cost German taxpayers and gas users an extra 5 billion euros ($5.36 billion) a year to pay for replacement gas, the Welt am Sonntag weekly reported, citing industry representatives.

* Lavrov said on Saturday that Western sanctions would have no effect on the country’s oil exports, predicting a big jump in profit from energy shipments this year.

* Russia’s national wealth fund (NWF) jumped in value to $197.7 billion as of June 1 from $155.2 billion a month earlier as proceeds from 2021 oil revenues were transferred to the fund during May, the finance ministry said.

QUOTE

* “As I understand it, the Russian government has mentioned the variant of severing diplomatic relations,” U.S. Ambassador John J. Sullivan told Russia’s state TASS news agency. “We can’t just break off diplomatic relations and stop talking to each other.”

($1 = 0.9326 euros)

(Compiled by Himani Sarkar and Philippa Fletcher)