These are the key events on day 1,204 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.Here’s where things stand on Thursday, June 12:
Fighting
A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in the middle of the night killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials have said.
The Ukrainian military said it had struck a major Russian gunpowder plant in the western Tambov region overnight, causing a fire at the site.
Russian mechanised infantry units have reached the western border of Ukraine’s Donetsk region and, along with a tank division, are continuing their offensive against the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said.
Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday. Half of the drones were downed over the southern Voronezh region, while the rest were intercepted over the Kursk, Tambov, Rostov region and the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine has brought home the bodies of 1,212 soldiers killed in its war against Russia, Kyiv officials said. The Kremlin said Ukraine returned the bodies of 27 Russian soldiers.
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Regional security
Russia sent long-range Tu-22M3 bomber planes on a flight over the Baltic Sea, Russia’s Defence Ministry said, in what appeared to be a mission aimed at sending a message of business-as-usual following the stunning June 1 Ukrainian attack on Russian airbases in Siberia.
Russia’s nuclear capability did not suffer significant damage due to the Ukrainian attacks on its airfields, and the scale of the damage has been exaggerated, the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov …