Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, June 4 :
Fighting
- Russian shelling on the Ukrainian city of Sumy killed four people and injured 28, including three children, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said in a post on Telegram.
- The Interior Ministry also said that two people were killed when fires broke out after a Russian attack on homes in the Kharkiv region’s village of Chistovodivka.
- Ukraine’s SBU security service said it detonated explosives targeting underwater supports on the Crimea Bridge, which links Russia with Russian-occupied Crimea, causing “severe damage” to the structure.
- The Russian Ministry of Transport said in a statement that “standard operations” had resumed on the bridge after earlier “temporary closures”, without providing a reason for the disruption, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
- Russian defence ministry said that its forces have Kindrativka in the Sumy region and Ridkodub in eastern Ukraine.
- The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of staging the attack on the Crimean Bridge and that there had been an explosion but no damage.
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the West was involved, both directly and indirectly, in Ukrainian “terrorist attacks” against civilian targets in Russia, adding that Western countries, NATO and “the collective West” supplied weapons and provided coordinates for such attacks.
Military aid
- Secretary of Defence John Healey said the United Kingdom will spend 350 million pounds ($473.5m) to deliver 100,000 drones to Ukraine as part of the UK’s 4.5 billion pound ($6bn) military support for Ukraine this year.
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German defence minister Boris Pistorius told reporters that Germany would kick off a new initiative to find more air defences for Ukraine. Pistorius added that they were lobbying the US and other countries for more donations of Patriot or similar air defence systems for Ukraine.
Politics and Diplomacy
- Ukraine has been invited to a NATO summit in The Hague this month, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said, without specifying whether this meant Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would attend.
- White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that United States President Donald Trump “was not” informed in advance of Ukraine’s unprecedented drone attack on Russian airbases earlier this week. Asked if Trump approved of the attack, Leavitt said that “the president does not want to see this war prolonged”.
- Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was “going way up”, after Ukrainian forces used drones to strike nuclear-capable bombers at several airbases deep inside Russia.
- NATO’s push to ramp up defences must outstrip Russia’s rearmament drive as Moscow is already gearing up for its “next move” beyond Ukraine, the US ambassador to the alliance Matthew Whitaker said.
- The European Commission has proposed extending Ukrainian refugees’ right to stay in the EU for another year — while for the first time stating clearly that their special status will at some point end.
- US Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate would begin working on a bill to impose sanctions on Russia as it works with Trump to “get Russia to finally come to the [negotiating] table in a real way”.
- Russia’s mission to the United Nations said it would hold an informal UN Security Council meeting at 10am New York time (14:00 GMT) on Wednesday on “understanding and eliminating the ideological root causes of the Ukrainian crisis”.
- Switzerland said it would impose sanctions on “17 individuals and 58 entities” listed in the European Union’s latest sanctions package, “in response to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine”.
- Caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof has vowed to keep up support for Ukraine and stick to defence commitments, despite the political crisis roiling the Netherlands after the government collapsed.
🚨 The Ukrainian Red Cross #EmergencyResponse team is responding to the Russian shelling in #Sumy. Volunteers provide first aid and help transport victims to hospitals. 3 dead, 16 injured. Damage reported to homes, a warehouse, cars & hospital. #NotATarget pic.twitter.com/3ymyuJc9Hs
— Ukrainian Red Cross (@RedCrossUkraine) June 3, 2025
