President reveals fighting in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk was particularly intense and said there was ‘no justification’ for countries to delay sending aid

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The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has refused to be drawn on whether she would negotiate directly with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic over the situation of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner. The two British men have been sentenced to death in eastern Ukraine by what Truss called a “sham trial”. She told listeners of the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme:

The two people were fighting for the Ukrainian army. They were permanently located in Ukraine and they are prisoners of war. And the case is being taken up by the Ukrainians, by the Ukrainian foreign minister.

I am doing everything I can, in the best way I can, in the way that I judge is most effective, to deliver these people’s release.

These people are prisoners of war, fighting for the Ukrainian army. And it’s important to maintain that principle. And the Russian proxies are violating the Geneva Convention. And we need to be very, very clear about that.

That’s why the best route is through the Ukrainians, and I can’t go into the details of my discussions with the Ukrainians, but I can assure you, and I can assure the families, that we’re working flat out on this.

Crews of ground attack aviation launched rocket air strikes on military facilities and equipment of units of the armed forces of Ukraine. Missile launches were carried out in pairs from low altitudes. As a result of the combat use of aviation weapons, camouflaged fortified field positions and armoured vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.