Pope calls for dialogue in Ukraine
Pope Leo XIV spoke of the “painful news” about the war in Ukraine, “which continues to spread.” He invited people to pray for the opening of “ways of dialogue” to “extinguish hatred and make a just and lasting peace possible.”
Keir Starmer denounces Russian recklessness in the Channel
The British Prime Minister estimated on Wednesday June 17 that the Russian warship had acted “recklessly” by firing warning shots the day before in the direction of a pleasure sailboat, but considered that the incident was “no more worrying than that”.
“The MoD’s assessment is that it was a warship adrift, not anything more worrying than that,” Keir Starmer told GB News, after the incident involving the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich and a British sailboat, just outside British territorial waters.
Russian drone strike kills one in Zaporizhia
A Russian drone strike hit the southeastern Ukrainian town of Zaporizhia, killing one person and injuring seven, rescue service officials said.
“A fire broke out in a three-story apartment building (…). Due to the constant threat of enemy attacks, rescuers had to take shelter several times,” the state rescue service said on Telegram, adding that the fire was brought under control in the early hours of the morning.
“Buildings, vehicles and civil infrastructure were damaged in several places in the city,” the authorities also indicated.
Russian strikes in the South and East
Russian bombings killed at least eight people in Ukraine on Tuesday, local authorities said, as kyiv and its Western allies try to step up pressure on Moscow to end the war.
In the town of Nikopol, in the Dnipropetrovsk region (center-east), the Russian army attacked civilians “circulating along a road” with drones, killing three people including an 87-year-old mother and her 51-year-old son, announced the head of the regional administration, Oleksandr Ganja, on his Telegram account.
In Sloviansk, one of the bastions still held by Ukraine in the Donetsk region (east) that Moscow wants to completely conquer, two women and a man were killed by Russian bombings on residential and industrial areas, said the mayor, Vadym Liakh.
At least six other civilians were also injured during these Russian attacks carried out with aerial bombs and rockets which also damaged more than 70 houses.
