A Russian shell killed six civilians sheltering in a building in the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk yesterday, according to reports from rescue workers.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on social media that rescuers found five bodies in the rubble of the two-story building and pulled three people out alive, but one later died in hospital.
In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the Russian army “had fired more than 3,000 cruise missiles at Ukrainian territory” since the start of the war. He went on to point out that “the launch of one such missile costs several million dollars,” highlighting the need to continue restricting the Russian government’s access to additional funding.
Ukraine’s armed forces have foiled several renewed attempts by Russian troops to win territory, the Ukrainian military said on Monday, adding that the Russians were continuing to shell its positions across the eastern Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet the leaders of Turkey and Iran today in Tehran to take part in trilateral security discussions. The focus of the meeting is the ongoing civil war in Syria, but the war in Ukraine and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are also expected to be discussed.
Today is day 146 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Source: Radio Poland, Reuters, AlJazeera.com
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has suspended the head of the country’s domestic security service and the top state prosecutor, citing hundreds of cases of alleged treason and collaboration with Russia.
Zelensky said late on Sunday that more than 60 officials from the SBU security service and the prosecution service were working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied areas and that more than 650 treason and collaboration cases had been started against law enforcement officials. In 198 of these cases, charges have already been pressed against the individuals in question.
In his message, Zelensky cautioned that “such an array of crimes…and the connections that have been exposed between the employees of the security agencies of Ukraine and Russia’s special services” raised “very serious questions” which need “a proper answer.”
A senior Zelensky aide clarified on Monday that the security service chief, Ivan Bakanov, and Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova, who led efforts to prosecute Russian war crimes, had been suspended pending further investigation rather than fired, as previously reported.
Source: Radio Poland, Reuters
Poland is bracing for a new surge in COVID-19 infections as cases climb across Europe.
A Polish deputy health minister said on Monday that “a growth was being observed in the daily infection rate for SARS-CoV-2.” Waldemar Kraska added that the trend was „still relatively low,” but a highly-transmissible subvariant of the omicron strain was set to fuel a fresh increase in infections.
Earlier this month, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told Polsat News that the government had emergency plans “at the ready” to bring back mass testing, increase the number of hospital beds and potentially “reintroduce mask-wearing on public transport if necessary.”
On Monday, Poland reported 319 new COVID-19 cases, including 41 reinfections. No additional deaths were reported.
Source: Radio Poland, Radio Gdańsk, gov.pl/web/koronawirus/
A woman and her son who went missing last week have been found safe, according to Gdańsk police.
Police began searching for 45-year-old Marzena Denysiuk and her 5-year-old son Igor last week after reports emerged the pair had not been seen since July 7th.
Magdalena Ciska, press officer of the Municipal Police Commander in Gdańsk, announced yesterday that the pair had been found and “are fine.” She went on to “thank all the people who got involved in the search” and asked them to delete or anonymize images of Marzena and her son to protect their privacy.
Source: Radio Gdańsk
Polish football star Robert Lewandowski has joined his new club FC Barcelona in Miami for a tour of the United States, news outlets reported on Monday.
Lewandowski is set to sign a contract with the Spanish club and officially move to Barcelona from Bayern Munich after the two clubs reached a verbal agreement on the trade over the weekend.
Barcelona’s squad had its first training session in the United States on Sunday. It will play Inter Miami in Florida tomorrow before facing Real Madrid in Las Vegas on Sunday and Juventus in Dallas next week.
Source: Radio Poland, fcbarcelona.cat
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny and hot, with very little chance of rain and a strong breeze coming in from the west and then north. Temperatures will peak around a high of 26°C, or 78°F, dropping to an overnight low of 13°C or 56°F. An oncoming heat wave will push temperatures up across Pomerania until the end of the week, with temperatures reaching up to 32°C or 90°F on Thursday.
Elizabeth Peck/aKa
