TOP HEADLINES

• An 11-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv early on Thursday, according to Ukrainian officials, despite Kyiv's air force shooting down all 10 of Russia's missiles in the 18th attack on the capital since the start of May. READ MORE BELOW

• Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that law enforcement officers were investigating the circumstances of the deaths, amid claims they were unable to get into a locked shelter and were then struck by falling debris. He added that 19 people were injured in total as a result of the night shelling.

• Eight people were injured by shelling overnight and into the morning in the Russian town of Shebekino, which neighbors Ukraine's Kharkiv region, the governor of the local Belgorod region said on Thursday. That comes after Russian-installed officials said five people had been killed in Ukrainian shelling of a Russian-occupied village in the east.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated Ukraine's readiness to join NATO as he met European leaders at a summit in Moldova close to his nation's border. "We support Moldova and its people who are integrating into the EU," Zelenskyy said, standing beside Moldovan President Maia Sandu. "Our future is in the EU. Ukraine is ready to join NATO."

• The European Political Community summit of 27 EU member states and 20 other European countries in Moldova, taking place just 12km from Ukraine and close to the Russian-backed breakaway region of Transnistria, is meant to be a show of support for Kyiv ahead of its planned counter-offensive.  

• The head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, said the West was actively pushing Moldova to take part in the conflict in Ukraine, state-owned news agency TASS reported.

• NATO's door remains open for new members, but the alliance cannot be joined by a country while it is in the midst of a war, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at a gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo.

• The head of Russia's mercenary Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, celebrated his 62nd birthday on Thursday, using the event to say his men would fight on in Ukraine without having to depend on the "clowns" who ran large parts of the Russian armed forces.

• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he would soon travel to Türkiye to discuss Sweden's NATO membership, in a bid to close a process that has been delayed due to objections from Ankara and Hungary.

IN DETAIL

Investigation into Kyiv deaths

A girl, her mother and another woman were killed during a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday after the air raid shelter they were trying to hide in failed to open, witnesses said.

Ukraine's air force said air defenses shot down all 10 ballistic and Iskander cruise missiles fired by Russia, but Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said three school buildings, a kindergarten, six residential buildings and a police station were damaged. 

It was the 18th attack on the Ukrainian capital since the start of May.

The mayor did not say what the main targets of the attack were, but announced that police had opened a criminal investigation into the events near a medical clinic in the Desnyanskyi district.

"Three people, one of them a child, died near the clinic last night," Klitschko said. "A rocket fragment fell near the entrance to the clinic four minutes after the air alert was announced. And people headed for the shelter."

Local residents said people were unable to enter the shelter because it was closed.

"The air alert sounded. My wife took our daughter and they ran to the entrance here," local resident Yaroslav Ryabchuk said in the Desnyanskyi district. "The entrance was closed, there were already maybe five to 10 women with children. No one opened up for them. They knocked loudly enough," he added.

"They tried to enter the shelter, no one opened up for them. My wife died."

Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital, but Ukrainian shelling of its border areas has also increased, Moscow says, ahead of Kyiv's long-planned counterattack in Russian-controlled territory in the country's east.

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