These are the key events so far on Sunday 17 July. Get the latest updates here.
Militant
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its jet shot down a Ukrainian MI-17 helicopter near the eastern city of Sloviansk and an SU-25 jet in the Kharkiv region. The Russian military also said long-range air-based missiles destroyed a warehouse in an industrial zone in Odessa, southern Ukraine, where Harpoon anti-ship missiles delivered to Ukraine by NATO countries were stored. Russia is strengthening its defense positions in all the areas it holds in southern Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defense announced. On Sunday, more Russian missiles hit industrial facilities in the strategic southern city of Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding center at the mouth of the Southern Bug River, local officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. A Russian missile attack hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region, killing three people, including a 70-year-old woman, and injuring three others, the regional governor said on Saturday. The Russian-backed separatists said Ukraine hit the town of Alchevsk, east of Sloviansk, with six US-made High Mobility Artillery Missile (HIMARS) missiles on Saturday. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic said the strikes had killed two civilians.
Economy/Diplomacy
The war in Ukraine shows that Western dominance is coming to an end as China rises to superpower status in partnership with Russia in one of the most significant turning points for centuries, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 bloc of nations pledged on Saturday to tackle global food insecurity and mounting debt, but remained divided over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gazprom’s natural gas transit to Europe via Ukraine was flat on Sunday.
