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At least 20 people were injured in Russian strikes on the Ukrainian port cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, Ukrainian officials said early on Thursday. In northwest Crimea, a Ukrainian drone attack killed a teenage girl, the Moscow-installed regional governor said on Thursday. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
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5:45am: Ukrainian attack in Crimea kills one, says governor
A Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea damaged administrative buildings and killed a teenage girl, its Moscow-installed governor said on Thursday, days after Kyiv struck a strategic bridge linking the region to Russia.
“As a result of an attack by an enemy UAV, four administrative buildings were damaged in one of the settlements in the north-west of Crimea,” Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t pass without victims — a teenage girl died.”
“All necessary support will be provided to the family,” he said, without providing further details of the attack or specifying where it happened.
The report comes a day after a fire at a military site in Crimea that forced authorities to evacuate thousands of civilians.
3:58am: 20 wounded in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Mykolaiv, Odesa
Russia launched attacks on the Ukrainian port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv, wounding twenty people, local governors said early Thursday.
“Russians hit the city centre. A garage and a 3-story residential building are on fire,” Mykolaiv governor Vitaliy Kim wrote on Telegram.
Eighteen people had been wounded and nine of them had been hospitalised, including five children, he added, without specifying their condition or if they had been in the residential building.
He did not give details on the strike.
Pictures posted to Telegram by Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Senkevych showed a fire engine working to douse flames in a multi-storey building with its facade partially destroyed.
“At least five residential high-rise buildings” and around 15 garages were damaged, he said, without giving details.
11:55am: EU to discuss up to 20 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine over four years
European Union foreign ministers are expected to discuss a proposal on Thursday to spend up to 20 billion euros ($22.4 billion) on weapons, ammunition and other military aid for Ukraine over four years.
The proposal, by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, is part of an effort to put the bloc’s support for Kyiv on a longer-term footing, after more than a year of scrambling to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs following Russia’s invasion.
The move would also be part of an international drive to give Ukraine long-term security assurances, as announced by G7 nations on the sidelines of last week’s NATO summit in Vilnius.
Key developments from Wednesday, July 19:
A video purporting to show Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin welcoming his Wagner fighters to Belarus surfaced on Wednesday on one of his official Telegram channels. In the video, which was not yet verified, a man whose voice sounded like Prigozhin’s is heard welcoming his men, telling them to behave, and saying their training will make the Belarusian army the second best in the world.
Russia continued to launch air attacks on Odesa. Ukrainian officials said the key port will continue its work to export grains. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said an alternative to the Black Sea grain deal had to be found and “there are very active discussions now.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the summit of the BRICS group of nations in South Africa in August “by mutual agreement”, South Africa’s presidency said on Wednesday. Russia will be represented by its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instead, the presidency said in a statement.
Read yesterday’s blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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