Russia Ukraine war live: Macron, Scholz say Kyiv should be allowed to hit military targets inside Russia

Below we have some more photos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to Portugal on Tuesday.

Ukrainian military shot down 13 drones out of 14 launched by Russia in an overnight attack on three regions, the country’s air force has said.

Drone debris fell on energy infrastructure in Ukraine‘s northwestern region of Rivne, governor Oleksandr Koval said on Telegram. The attack triggered a defence mechanism that cut power to some localities, although it has since been restored.

Drone debris also damaged power lines in central Kirovohrad region with repair work ongoing, its governor said.

The air force shot down 11 drones over the Mykolaiv region, with no details on damage reported by the local governor.

US president Joe Biden should attend a planned peace summit in Switzerland on the Ukraine conflict next month to make the meeting a success, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

Biden’s absence would benefit Russian president Vladimir Putin, who gave the order to invade Ukraine in 2022, Zelensky said.

Russian guided bombs killed two civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Toretsk on Tuesday and damaged two apartment buildings, Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.

Mr Filashkin, writing on Telegram, said Russian forces fired three bombs at the city, which lies north of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.

Photos posted by Mr Filashkin and by Donetsk region prosecutors showed sections of the apartment buildings wrecked and rubble strewn in the street.

The prosecutors also said a Russian guided bomb injured six people in Oleksievo-Druzhkivka, a town northwest of Toretsk.

The governor of southern Kherson region said Russian shelling killed a villager north of the region’s administrative centre, also called Kherson.

The prosecutors said Russian shelling struck port facilities in the Black Sea city of Odesa. Russia denies targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

French and German leaders have said Ukraine should be allowed to hit military sites inside Russia but not other targets.

Russian president Vladimir Putin warned earlier in the day that Nato members in Europe were playing with fire by proposing to let Ukraine use Western weapons to strike inside Russia, which he said could trigger a global conflict.

“We support Ukraine and we don’t want escalation, that hasn’t changed,” French president Emmanuel Macron said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Meseberg, Germany.

“We think we should allow them to neutralise military sites from which missiles are fired, military sites from which Ukraine is attacked, but we shouldn’t allow them to hit other targets in Russia and civilian or other military sites in Russia.”

Mr Scholz said he agreed with Mr Macron and that as long as Ukraine respected the conditions given by countries that supplied the weapons, including the United States, and international law, it was allowed to defend itself.

“Ukraine has every possibility under international law for what it is doing. That has to be said explicitly,” Mr Scholz said.

“I find it strange when some people argue that it should not be allowed to defend itself and take measures that are suitable for this.”

Switzerland’s upper house of parliament has backed a motion to toughen measures to expel spies, taking particular aim at Russian intelligence agents as Bern prepares to host a major summit aimed at paving the way for peace in Ukraine.

Voting 32 in favour and nine against late on Monday, upper house legislators supported the motion entitled “systematically expel Russian spies and other foreign spies” that was backed by president Viola Amherd in an address to parliament.

“Foreign states should feel Switzerland is reacting to violations of its security and defending itself,” Amherd said, just over two weeks before her government prepares to host dozens of countries for the Ukraine peace talks.

Amherd said the government wanted to consistently expel intelligence officers whose activities endanger Switzerland’s security or its role as a host state, while stressing that the motion would not lead to automatic decision-making.

Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal will meet a group of European Union leaders in Prague on Tuesday to discuss military aid to Kyiv for its fight against a Russian invasion, Czech prime minister Petr Fiala said.

Speaking ahead of the meeting later in the day, Fiala reiterated the first deliveries of ammunition procured in a Czech-led initiative, which sources supplies from outside the EU, would reach Ukraine in June.