Russia is trying to make Kharkiv “a frontline city”, Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, has said.
The situation north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, remains difficult as Russian forces have been trying to get closer to shell the city again, the official told Ukraine’s national television.
Meanwhile, the head of Nato has warned that the war in Ukraine could last for years.
“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of the military alliance, was quoted by Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper as saying.
04:00 PM
What happened today
Thanks for following today’s live blog.
Here are the key developments from today:
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Russia is trying to make Kharkiv “a frontline city”, Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, said.
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Jens Stoltenberg, the head of Nato, warned that the war in Ukraine could last for years, adding: “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine”.
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A fuel storage depot in the eastern Ukrainian town of Novomoskovsk exploded, killing one and injuring two, after earlier being hit with three Russian missiles, the head of the regional administration said in an online message.
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Germany will take emergency measures to ensure it meets its energy needs after the drop in supply of Russian gas, including increased use of coal, the government said.
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A Ukrainian MP said that the situation “is not getting easier on us”, as she discussed the ongoing fighting in the east of the country.
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Authorities continued evacuations from Lysychansk, across a river from Severodonetsk, local governor Sergiy Gaiday said.
03:53 PM
Germany resorts to coal amid Russia gas supply cuts
Germany has announced emergency measures to ensure its energy needs after a drop in Russian gas supplies, including reverting to coal in what it called a “bitter but indispensable” step.
“To reduce gas consumption, less gas must be used to generate electricity. Coal-fired power plants will have to be used more instead,” the economy ministry said in a statement.
The move comes after Moscow turned up the pressure on Western allies by sharply reducing flows of natural gas in its pipelines to western Europe, driving up energy prices.
Gazprom said the supply reductions via the Nord Stream pipeline are the result of repair work, but EU officials believe Moscow is punishing allies of Ukraine, where Russian forces launched an invasion in February.
03:51 PM
Russia blames Ukrainian rebels for bombing in Kherson that injured prison chief
Ukrainian rebels attempted to assassinate a local prison boss in Russian-held Kherson, the city’s puppet government has said.
Ukrainian media reported on Saturday that Yevhen Sobolev, who heads a prison in Kherson, was injured when a bomb attached to a tree went off as he parked his car.
A video posted on Saturday showed Mr Sobolev’s white luxury car mangled from an explosion that was so powerful, it caused the windows of a nearby apartment block to shatter.
Vladimir Saldo, head of the Russian occupation administration in Kherson, on Sunday blamed the attack on the Ukrainian government.
Our Russia correspondent Nataliya Vasilyeva has the full story here.
03:00 PM
Submarine hunter planes needed as ‘expansionist’ Russia ramps up spy operations on UK borders
Britain needs to expand its arsenal of submarine hunter planes by a third to combat Russian spy operations on our borders, senior RAF commanders have warned.
Russia is carrying out more submarine patrols in the North Atlantic than during the Cold War, with sightings “doubling” in the past 10 years, they said.
The UK has nine P-8 Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA), costing £120 million apiece, to protect our nuclear-armed submarines and track enemy vessels.
Wing Cdr Ben Livesy told The Telegraph that unless the Government increases the MPA fleet to 12, Britain’s ability to launch a “credible response” against an “aggressive” and “expansionist” Russia “will be tested to the limit”.
Doing so will place the UK on a par with Australia and India, with 12 MPAs each, but still far behind the US, which boasts 128.
My colleague Max Stephens has the full report.
02:44 PM
Italian foreign minister accuses own party of ‘immaturity’ over Ukraine
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on Sunday accused his own 5-Star Movement party of undermining government efforts to support Ukraine and weakening Rome’s standing within the European Union.
His outburst could signal an imminent schism in the group he once led, with 5-Star officials due to meet later on Sunday to consider Di Maio’s position following other recent broadsides.
The internal party feuding also creates problems for Prime Minister Mario Draghi as he faces an important vote in parliament on Tuesday over Ukraine, with some 5-Star members looking to limit Italy from sending further weapons to Kyiv.
In a statement, Mr Di Maio said the government had to defend the values of democracy and freedom, adding that while everyone wanted peace, Russian President Vladimir Putin was pursuing war.
Against this backdrop, he said 5-Star leaders were attacking him with “hatred” and causing trouble for the government with its European partners, adding:”[This is] an immature attitude that tends to create tensions and instability within the government”.
There was no immediate comment from 5-Star leader, former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, Reuters said.
01:47 PM
How Ukraine gave Putin a bloody nose – and rewrote the future of air power
More than 100 days into the war, Russia still doesn’t have air superiority, writes Gareth Corfield.
When Russia’s army rolled over Ukraine’s borders in the final week of February, every piece of informed analysis said the Eastern European nation had little hope. Russia’s army was far larger and better equipped, and its air force was among the largest in the world.
Four months later, all of that conventional wisdom has gone out of the window as air combat has stubbornly refused to conform to pre-war wisdom. Russia’s air force has suffered 10pc casualties: by some estimates, half of the combat aircraft it deployed for the Ukrainian invasion have been shot down or otherwise destroyed.
Western thinking about the future of air combat previously focused on the role of technology, drones and AI, almost to the exclusion of all else. As radars and missiles became ever more sophisticated, and populations’ ability to accept casualties shrank, so the future lay with autonomous aeroplanes fighting aerial wars on the behalf of humanity.
Yet this line of thought has only crumbled since the morning Putin ordered an invasion of his neighbour. Now, post-Ukraine, the future of air combat is set to look very different to what was expected, teaching nations of the dangers of relying solely on technology.
Read the full piece here.
01:16 PM
Russia-Ukraine war: The latest pictures
12:31 PM
Russia has assured Hungary of continued gas shipments , foreign minister says
Russia has promised to continue gas shipments to Hungary and that Gazprom will fulfil its contractual obligations to the country, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview on public service radio on Sunday.
In Russia’s response to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine, state energy giant Gazprom has cut supplies to Denmark’s Orsted and to Shell Energy for its contract to supply gas to Germany.
It also cut supplies to Dutch gas trader GasTerra along with Bulgaria, Poland and Finland for refusing to make payments for Russian gas in roubles under a new rouble scheme.
Mr Szijjarto said that Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller and Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak had both assured him in a phone call that the company would fulfil its obligations towards Hungary set out in its contract, Szijjarto said.
The minister did not say when the phone call took place. The foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
12:19 PM
Russia claims its eastern attack is ‘developing successfully’
Russia said on Sunday that its offensive against Seeverodonetsk in eastern Ukraine was proceeding successfully after it took control of a district in the outskirts of the city.
“The offensive in the Severodonetsk direction is developing successfully,” Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a video statement.
He said the settlement of Metyolkine, on the eastern outskirts of the city, had been taken.
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation continue to strike military targets on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.
Konashenkov said long-range Kalibr cruise missiles struck a command centre in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing Ukrainian generals and officers, including from the general staff.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the details or toll of Russia’s strikes on Ukraine.
11:27 AM
Russia says it struck Kharkiv tank repair plant with Iskander missiles
Russia’s Iskander missiles struck a Kharkiv tank repair plant in Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry has said.
The ministry also said it had destroyed 10 howitzers and up to 20 military vehicles in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv that had been supplied by Western countries over the past 10 days.
11:12 AM
Ukraine shares figures of latest Russian armed forces losses
11:00 AM
Watch: Zelensky vows to tackle world food crisis
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10:34 AM
Evacuations continuing from Lysychansk, governor says
Authorities continue evacuations from Lysychansk, across a river from Severodonetsk, local governor Sergiy Gaiday has said.
Evacuations from Severodonetsk have not been possible for days, after a last bridge across the river connecting it to Lysychansk was blown up.
Ukrainian authorities say hundreds of people are hiding from shelling in the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk.
Mr Gaiday said the plant was “hit twice” in 24 hours and that its “sewage treatment plant” was destroyed.
The UN warned this week the remaining civilians left in Severodonetsk are running out of clean water, food and sanitation.
10:25 AM
Ukraine says it has repulsed Russian attacks near Severodonetsk
Ukrainian troops repulsed Russian attacks on villages near the eastern city of Severodonetsk, where the two armies have fought bloody battles for weeks, Kyiv’s armed forces said on Sunday.
“Our units repulsed the assault in the area of Toshkivka,” the Ukrainian army said on Facebook. “The enemy has retreated and is regrouping.”
It said Russian forces were “storming” towards the village of Orikhove, but that it had “successfully repulsed” an assault near the village.
A day earlier, officials said fierce battles were taking place in settlements outside Severodonetsk, which they say is mostly, but not entirely, under Russian control.
“All declarations by Russians that they control Severodonetsk are lies. Indeed, they control the majority of the city but they do not control it entirely,” local governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Telegram on Sunday.
10:05 AM
‘The situation is not getting easier for us’, Ukrainian MP says
The situation “is not getting easier on us”, a Ukrainian MP has said, as she discussed the ongoing fighting in the east of the country.
Speaking to Sky News from Kyiv, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said: “We don’t have many options on the table – we have to survive in this war, when the aggressor has come to erase us from the map of the world.
“We want to live, we want to preserve our country… therefore we have to win,” she added.
She said arms given by other countries were important in determining Ukraine’s success.
09:53 AM
‘We should all be concerned’ about impact of Ukraine war on cost of living crisis, peer says
Crossbench peer Victor Adebowale has said “we should all be concerned” about the impact of the Ukraine war on the cost of living in the UK, including on NHS key workers.
Mr Adebowale, who is also chairman of the NHS Confederation, told Times Radio: “An extended war in Ukraine will have implications for what my members will experience.
“The cost-of-living crisis will continue, along with the other horrors that have been bestowed on us at the moment.
“It looks like there’s going to be a long, drawn-out war. We know that eventually there’ll have to be a settlement.
“We know that Russia appears to be belligerent – probably too mild a word – and we need to be prepared for the worst, and I suspect that the mistake we made in the past is not being prepared for the worst.
“So, I hope it doesn’t come to British boots on Ukrainian land, because there’s all kinds of implications for that as well.
“But we should all be concerned about the implications for people living in this country of a long, drawn-out war in Ukraine, as well as the Ukrainians, of course, who all right-thinking people will support in their struggle against what what is tyranny at the end of the day.”
09:45 AM
Germany says it will take emergency measures to meet energy needs
Germany will take emergency measures to ensure it meets its energy needs after the drop in supply of Russian gas, including increased use of coal, the government said Sunday.
“To reduce gas consumption, less gas must be used to generate electricity. Coal-fired power plants will have to be used more instead,” the economy ministry said in a statement.
09:14 AM
The latest pictures from Ukraine
09:03 AM
Russia ‘trying to make Kharkiv a frontline city’, Ukrainian official says
The situation north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is quite difficult as Russian forces have been trying to get closer to shell the city again, an official at Ukraine’s interior ministry said on Sunday.
“Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a frontline city,” Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told Ukraine’s national television.
08:38 AM
Gazprom’s gas exports to Europe via Ukraine slightly up today
Russian gas producer Gazprom said its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point was seen up at 41.7 million cubic metres (mcm) on Sunday from 41.4 mcm on Saturday.
An application to supply gas via another major entry point, Sokhranovka, was rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said.
08:30 AM
Russian missiles destroy fuel depot in east Ukraine, killing one, official says
A fuel storage depot in the eastern Ukrainian town of Novomoskovsk exploded on Sunday, killing one and injuring two, after earlier being hit with three Russian missiles, the head of the regional administration said in an online message.
Eleven people were injured in the strike itself, Valentyn Reznichenko had said on Saturday.
Firefighters were still trying to put out a fire from the missile strike, some 14 hours after the depot was hit, Mr Reznichenko said early on Sunday.
Novomoskovsk lies just to the northeast of Dnipro, the regional capital.
08:29 AM
The latest MoD update
04:44 AM
Today’s Top Stories
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Former Soviet countries are part of Russia’s domain and risk Ukraine’s fate if they go up against the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has insinuated
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Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and former Chelsea Football Club owner, negotiated humanitarian corridors out of Mariupol and other cities besieged by Moscow’s army, a Ukrainian official has said
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Britain’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been the best of all the leading western powers, according to a international poll, the Telegraph has learned
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Boris Johnson stressed in an op-ed for the Sunday Times the need to avoid “Ukraine fatigue” and with Russian forces “grinding forward inch by inch”, for allies to show the Ukrainians they were there to support them for a long time
