🔴 Live: Drone hits Russia’s Voronezh as fighting rages in southeast Ukraine

11:05am: Russian intelligence investigating drone strike on Voronezh

The Kremlin says Russia’s intelligence services are investigating a drone attack on the Russian city of Voronezh, which it blames on Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the security services were working to clarify details of the incident.

The regional governor said earlier that three people had been lightly wounded when the drone hit a residential building in the city.

10:25am: Russian official says pipeline blast will affect grain talks

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said a blast that damaged an ammonia pipeline between Russia and Ukraine would be taken into account during consultations on the Black Sea grain deal, the RIA news agency reports.

Russia has repeatedly threatened to quit the deal – which enables Ukraine to export grain via its Black Sea ports – unless a series of its own conditions are met, including restoration of the pipeline between the Russian city of Togliatti and Ukraine’s Odesa.

The deal next comes up for renewal on July 17. Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was separately quoted on Friday as saying there were no grounds to extend it, but that Moscow was continuing consultations with the United Nations.

9:55am: Ukraine says it intercepted call proving Russia blew up Kakhovka dam

Ukraine’s domestic security service says it has intercepted a telephone call proving Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region.

The destruction of the facility on Tuesday unleashed mass flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and wreaking environmental havoc.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation, which featured two men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian.

“They (the Ukrainians) didn’t strike it. That was our sabotage group,” said one of the men, who the SBU described as a Russian soldier. “They wanted to, like, scare (people) with that dam.”

“It didn’t go according to plan, and (they did) more than what they planned for.”

The SBU did not offer further details of the conversation or its participants. It said it had opened a criminal investigation into war crimes and “ecocide”.

“The invaders wanted to blackmail Ukraine by blowing up the dam and staged a man-made disaster in the south of our country,” the SBU said in a statement.

9:35am: Russia says three injured in drone strike on Voronezh

Three people have been wounded in an apparent drone strike in the southern Russian city of Voronezh, regional governor Alexander Gusev has said.

“A drone fell on Belinsky Street in Voronezh,” Gusev said on Telegram, adding that a residential building was hit.

Gusev said the three people had received medical attention on the spot and declined hospital treatment, suggesting their injuries were light.

Voronezh is about 200 kilometres (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border, northeast of Belgorod province.

Ukraine does not comment on alleged cross-border attacks into Russia.

8:40am: Russia reports heavy fighting in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia regions

Russian military sources reported heavy fighting in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, saying over 21 Ukrainian tanks had been destroyed in battles across key sections of the front line.

A spokesman for Russia’s Vostok group of forces said 13 Ukrainian tanks were destroyed in battles in the Zaporizhzhia region and eight in the Donetsk region. It reported artillery, drone and infantry battles.

The battlefield claims could not be independently verified.

Russian military bloggers said there were intense battles on the Zaporizhzhia front near the city of Orikhiv as Ukraine seeks to pierce Russian defences and drive a wedge through Russian forces.

8:10am: Aid workers scramble to evacuate civilians in areas flooded by dam collapse

The collapse of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River has set off a scramble to evacuate residents in dozens of flooded areas in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and get aid to those still there.

Russian shelling on Thursday forced a suspension of some rescue efforts hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky went to the area to assess the damage.

FRANCE 24’s Ukraine correspondent Gulliver Cragg reports from the southern city of Mykolaiv.

7:15am: Ukraine says it downed four cruise missiles, 10 attack drones

Ukraine’s military shot down four cruise missiles and 10 attack drones during a Russian air strike overnight, the air force has claimed in a statement.

It said Russian forces had launched 16 drones and six cruise missiles during the attack, and that two other cruise missiles had struck a civilian object in central Ukraine during an earlier attack on Thursday evening.

5:11am: Biden, Sunak vow to stick together on Ukraine

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have reiterated their commitment to help Ukraine repel Russia’s ongoing invasion.

The 15-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine was high on the agenda during talks between the two leaders at the White House.

The US and UK are the two biggest donors to the Ukraine war effort and play a central role in a long-term effort announced last month to train, and eventually equip, Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

Biden reiterated confidence that Congress would continue to provide Ukraine funding as needed despite some hesitation among Republican leaders at the growing cost of the war for American taxpayers.

“The US and the UK have stood together to support Ukraine,” Biden said at the start of their meeting.

1:15am: Zelensky hails ‘results’ in eastern Ukraine fighting

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed what he described as “results” in heavy fighting in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

“There is very heavy fighting in Donetsk region,” Zelensky said in his daily video message, delivered in a train after visiting areas affected by the breach of the Kakhovka power dam.

“But there are results and I am grateful to those who achieved these results. Well done in Bakhmut. Step by step,” he said.

Zelensky referred to other areas where fighting is going on, but said he would provide no details. Pictures posted on his Telegram account showed him meeting some of the country’s top generals in the field.

Key developments from Thursday, June 8:

Nine people were injured Thursday in Russian shelling in the Kherson region as it deals with massive flooding from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, according to Ukrainian officials. The attacks came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Kherson.

Moscow accused Ukraine of killing two people at an evacuation point in the Russian-controlled side of the Dnipro River.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)