· Ukraine "is likely to have won the battle of Kharkiv", the country's second largest city, said the Institute for War Studies. "Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone taking Kharkiv, and then drove them out of the city district, as they did with Russian forces trying to take Kiev," said the US-based group of experts.
· The Ukrainians have also repulsed numerous attempts by the Russians to cross a strategically important river in the Donbas, causing major losses in the process, according to local officials and British intelligence.
Russia will suspend electricity supplies to Finland from 1 a.m. Saturday, the supplier, RAO Nordic, said amid rising tensions over Helsinki's bid to join NATO.
· Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would not welcome either Sweden or Finland to join NATO.
· Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that "very difficult negotiations are taking place" for the evacuation of the seriously injured and doctors from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, which Russian forces continue to bomb.
· A Russian soldier has appeared in court accused of killing an unarmed man on a bicycle. This marks the first war crimes trial in Ukraine since the beginning of the occupation. Vadim Shysimarin, a commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, is charged with the premeditated murder of a 62-year-old man.
Georgia 's separatist region of South Ossetia will hold a referendum on joining Russia on July 17, regional leader Anatoly Bibilov announced .
Source: Guardian
