TOP HEADLINES

• At least 13 people were wounded in Russian attacks on Ukraine on Thursday, local officials said. Russian missile strikes wounded 10 in the central city of Dnipro and three people, including a child, in the southern city of Kherson.

• The strikes occurred as Kyiv marked 32 years of independence from Russia, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praising his people for fighting for "freedom" in an address to mark the country's second Independence Day since the conflict started. READ MORE BELOW

• The chief of Russia's Wagner mercenaries Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, Russian authorities have announced. Get the full story here: Wagner's Yevgeny Prigozhin believed killed in plane crash.

• Ukraine's military intelligence carried out a "special operation" in Crimea overnight in which special forces landed on Russian-occupied peninsula and raised the Ukrainian flag. "The enemy suffered losses among personnel, enemy equipment was destroyed," the defense ministry's Main Directorate of Intelligence said on Telegram.

• Norway has decided to give F-16 combat aircraft to Ukraine to fight Russia, Norwegian broadcaster TV2 has reported, citing unnamed sources. If confirmed, Norway would become the third nation - after the Netherlands and Denmark - to announce donations of U.S.-made F-16 jets to Kyiv.

• Russia's Defense Ministry said it had to scramble an MIG-31 jet to intercept a Norwegian military plane over the Barents Sea near the two countries' Arctic border, the second such incident in two days and the third this month.

• The DPRK has accused the U.S. of driving the Ukraine crisis toward a global nuclear disaster by supplying F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv's forces. Its defense minister added that under the circumstances, Washington had no right to criticize Pyongyang's military cooperation with Moscow.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BRICS summit in South Africa that Moscow would deepen ties with African countries - many of which have been hit hard by fuel and food price rises resulting from the Ukraine conflict - adding that Russia would remain a reliable partner for food and fuel supplies.

• Hungary wants the EU's ban on domestic sales of Ukrainian grain to be extended in the five EU member states bordering Ukraine after the current measure ends in mid-September. The EU in May allowed Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of low-cost Ukrainian grain after an influx heavily distorted locals markets.

IN DETAIL

Zelenskyy hails Ukraine's Independence Day

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his people for fighting for "freedom" in an address Thursday to mark the country's second Independence Day since the conflict started.

The celebration took place as at least 13 people were wounded in Russian attacks on Ukraine on Thursday, while just hours before it was announced that a plane believed to be carrying Russia's Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had crashed with no survivors. 

"Today we celebrate the 32nd anniversary of our independence - the independence of Ukraine. A holiday of free people," Zelensky said in an statement on social media.

The Ukrainian president thanked in turn the soldiers, their families, the teaching staff, the doctors, the nurses and all those who help the defense of Ukraine against Russian attacks. "All those who survived the occupation are important," he stressed.

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