Day 475 since the start of the war: Russian forces are said to be shooting at fleeing citizens. Putin honors injured soldiers. All information in the news blog.

5.30 am: According to official information, a residential building in the southeastern city of Kryvyi Rih was bombed in new Russian attacks on Ukraine. „There are dead and wounded,” Serhiy Lysak, the military governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, wrote on Telegram early on Tuesday. The head of the local military department, Alexander Welkol, had previously reported that a footprint had fallen on a five-story building, and wrote that there might still be people under the rubble.

A state of air alert has also been declared in several other regions of Ukraine. Authorities there said the Russians fired cruise missiles again, including at the capital, Kiev. There, however, their air defense shot down all enemy flying objects. Reports of drone strikes were received from the eastern city of Kharkiv.

4.11 am: According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian air strike in the Kiev region was repulsed. Military officials said that Ukrainian air defense systems destroyed all missiles targeting the capital. „There is no information about casualties or damage yet,” Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military department, said in the Telegram news app.

2.13 am: The United States is concerned about possible arms sales from North Korea to Russia. A US State Department spokesperson said that despite the contrary statements by the government in Pyongyang, North Korea delivered a shipment of weapons including infantry and rocket missiles to the Wagner mercenary group in November 2022. „We are concerned that the DPRK plans to supply Russia with more of military equipment. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the official name of North Korea. The United States said in March that Russia was trying to get more weapons from North Korea in return for food aid. They imposed sanctions on an individual who allegedly tried to broker North Korean weapons for Russia. North Korea seeks closer ties with the Kremlin and defends Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

12:10 a.m.: Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke in principle of security guarantees for Ukraine. „We need something like that. And we need it in a very concrete way,” he said before meeting French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Andrzej Duda in Paris.

11:47 PM: According to „RTL Direkt”, Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) announced more military aid to the country on the back of reports of the destruction of Leopard 2 tanks in Ukraine. The radio quoted the minister as saying, „We will not be able to replace every tank that has stopped working now. But what we are doing (…) we will continue to supply Leopard 1 A5 tanks that have been repaired from July.” According to him. „By the end of the year that will be more than 100.” Unfortunately, destroying weapons and tanks and killing people is part of the nature of war. That is why our support for Ukraine is so important.”

11:06 PM: After recapturing several villages in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the success of previous offensive strikes against Russia’s armed forces. „Thank you to our men for every Ukrainian flag returning to its rightful place in the villages of the newly liberated regions,” Zelensky said in his video message, which was distributed in Kiev on Monday evening. „The battles are tough, but we are making progress and that is important.”

„The enemy’s losses are exactly what we need,” the Ukrainian president continued. Ukrainian control was expanded, especially around the city of Bakhmut, which was declared occupied by Russia at the end of May. The meeting with the command of the troops was about military successes, but also about the question of where reinforcements were needed at the front in order to break through the Russian defenses.