Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv calls on Belarus to pull back forces from border

Ukraine says significant levels of Belarusian troops – including special forces and former Wagner mercenaries – are deployed at their common border. What we know on day 915

Ukraine on Sunday called on Belarus to pull back what it described as significant levels of Belarusian forces and equipment deployed at their common border. The Ukrainian foreign ministry warned Belarus against making “tragic mistakes” while under pressure from Moscow. The ministry said Belarus special forces and former Wagner mercenary fighters were among the troops at the border. The statement said their equipment included tanks, artillery, air defence systems and engineering equipment and that Ukraine “has never taken and is not going to take any unfriendly actions against the Belarusian people”. In 2022, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to station in Belarus during what Russia and Belarus called “drills” before they launched their invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.

A British man working for the Reuters news agency has been killed in a strike on a hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the news agency has said. Ryan Evans, who was working as a safety adviser for the agency, was killed after a missile struck the Hotel Sapphire on Saturday where he was staying as part of a six-person team. Two of the agency’s journalists were being treated in hospital; one of them was seriously injured, it said. Evans, a former British soldier, had been working with Reuters since 2022 and advised its journalists on safety around the world including in Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris Olympics.

Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the hotel was hit by a Russian Iskander missile, a ballistic missile that can strike at distances up to 500 km (310 miles). “An ordinary city hotel was destroyed by the Russian Iskander,” he said in his evening address on Sunday, adding the strike was “absolutely purposeful, thought out … my condolences to family and friends.” Russia has been bombing hotels in frontline areas for more than a year.

Ukraine’s forces advanced up to three kilometres in Russia’s Kursk region, taking control of two more settlements there, Zelenskiy also said in his evening address.

Russia launched attacks on northern, eastern and southern Ukraine on Sunday, killing at least four people and injuring 37, Ukrainian military and local authorities said. Overnight attacks targeted Ukraine’s frontline regions of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk, Ukraine’s air force said on the Telegram messaging app. “Most of the missiles did not reach their targets,” the air force said.

Former US president Donald Trump signalled his support for Ukraine in a conversation with Zelenskiy and said he wants to stop the war with Russia, the Ukrainian president told Indian reporters in an interview posted on his social media channel on Sunday.

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