Russia-Ukraine war live: three killed in missile strike on Lviv apartment block | Russia #RussiaUkraine #war #live #killed #missile #strike #Lviv #apartment #block #Russia

Slow weapons deliveries to Ukraine delayed Kyiv’s planned counteroffensive, allowing Russia to bolster its defenses in occupied areas including with mines, Zelenskiy said in a TV interview broadcast Wednesday.

Speaking via a translator in the pre-taped interview in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa days earlier, Zelenskiy said that he had hoped to begin the counteroffensive against Russia “much earlier” than its actual start early June.

“Our slowed-down counteroffensive is happening due to certain difficulties in the battlefield. Everything is heavily mined there,” Zelensky said.

“I wanted our counteroffensive happening much earlier, because everyone understood that if the counteroffensive will be unfolding later, then much bigger part of our territory will be mined.”

Three people were killed after a missile hit an apartment block in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, its mayor said on Thursday.

A Russian missile made a “direct hit to a residential building” in the city of Lviv, governor Maksym Kozytski said in a video posted to Telegram.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote in a post that the strike had left “three dead already.”

The missile caused a fire which was extinguished, Kozytski said, adding that emergency services were on the scene and rescuers were “sorting through the debris.”

Sadovyi earlier said on Telegram that a “series of explosions” had been heard and warned residents to stay in shelters.

One person was in “serious” condition and had been taken to hospital, he added.

On 20 June Lviv was hit by a major Russian drone assault on Kyiv and other cities.

Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.

Our top story this morning: three people were killed in a Russian missile attack that hit an apartment building in Lviv overnight, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city said on Thursday.

And Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that slow weapons deliveries to delayed Kyiv’s planned counteroffensive, allowing Russia to bolster its defenses in occupied areas including with mines.

Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa days earlier, Zelensky said that he had sought to begin the counteroffensive against Russia “much earlier” than its actual start early June.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. Elsewhere meanwhile:

• UN observers appealed on Wednesday for greater access to Europe’s largest nuclear plant, after Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over a possible “catastrophic” act of sabotage at the Russian-controlled facility in Ukraine. The International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday said they have yet to observe any indications of mines or explosives but called for additional access to the plant.

• A man who detonated explosives in a court house in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday has died, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko said. Police officers were wounded in the explosion.

• US president Joe Biden told Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday that he is “looking forward” to the country’s stalled Nato membership bid winning final approval, as the western alliance prepares for next week’s summit. Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said he wanted to reiterate that he “fully, fully supports Sweden’s membership in Nato”. Biden added he was “anxiously looking forward” to the bid being ratified.

• James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, and Ben Wallace, the British defence secretary, joined with their Polish counterparts Zbigniew Rau and Mariusz Blaszczak at a pre-Nato summit meeting in London on Wednesday. The two countries emphasised their mutual agreement on defence and foreign policy ahead of next week’s Nato meeting.

• The UN is making “every effort” to ensure that the Black Sea grain deal and a memorandum of understanding to facilitate access of Russian fertiliser and other products to global markets are extended, UN trade chief Rebeca Grynspan said. “We need both to continue bringing down prices and have stable markets of food and fertilisers in the world,” Grynspan told reporters in Geneva.

• Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that Russian forces had struck three Ukrainian army groups near Bakhmut, amid conflicting reports about fighting in the area. The Reuters news agency could not independently verify the battlefield situation. The ministry made no comment in its daily briefing on reports that Russian forces have retreated from the village of Klishchiivka, south-west of Bakhmut, which a Russian-installed official in eastern Ukraine has denied.

• Vladimir Rogov, one of the prominent pro-Russian figures in occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has reported on his Telegram account that “the houses of local residents, a garage and a car were damaged” in the region due to Ukrainian fire. He said there were no casualties. The claims have not been independently verified.

• Russian president Vladimir Putin’s former election spokesperson has been appointed to run the state news agency Tass, according to a government order published on Wednesday. The Kremlin has tightened its control over the media since the start of the Ukraine war, forcing the closure of leading independent news outlets and designating many journalists and publications as “foreign agents”.

• Next week’s Nato summit must offer “real security guarantees” to Ukraine, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said on Wednesday. Speaking in Warsaw alongside the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, Meloni said Italy and Poland were “in perfect agreement” on the issue, Reuters reported.

• Russia accused a small US based charity of “sabotaging” the construction of a huge gas pipeline to China and banned it as an “undesirable organisation”. Jennifer Castner, director of the Altai Project, described the accusation as absurd. The move has followed clamp-downs on many foreign NGOs in Russia, including a similar ban last month on the local arm of the WWF environmental group.

• Russia said on Wednesday that one person was killed and another 41 injured, including two children, by Ukrainian fire in the east Ukraine town of Makiivka, which is occupied by Russian forces.

• Residential buildings and a medical facility were damaged by a Russian rocket attack on Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region overnight.

• Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions came under fire from Ukrainian forces across the border in the early hours of Wednesday, the regions’ governors said, adding that no casualties were reported.