Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities have destroyed half of its electricity generation capacity since winter, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.

“As a result of the strikes of Russian missiles and drones, nine gigawatts of capacity have already been destroyed. The peak of electricity consumption last winter was 18 gigawatts. So half now doesn’t exist,” Mr Zelensky told a conference in Berlin.

A Russian military jet crashed during a training flight in North Ossetia, killing two people on board, the defence ministry said Tuesday.

The Sukhoi SU-34 jet crashed “in a mountainous zone” and there was “no damage on the ground”, the ministry said, adding that a technical problem appeared to have caused the crash.

It comes amid an increase in aircraft accidents in Russia, attributed to sanctions imposed on Russia leading to a shortage of necessary parts.

Russian forces have captured the village of Miasozharivka in Ukraine’s Luhansk region and the village of Tymkivka in the Kharkiv region, the TASS news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying.

Russian and Belarusian troops have started the second stage of tactical nuclear drills in Russia, Russia’s defence ministry has said.

The ministry said the drills were aimed at ensuring that the two countries’ military personnel and equipment were ready to protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“During the exercise, issues of joint training of units of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus for the combat use of non-strategic nuclear weapons will be worked out,” the defence ministry said.

Nato’s eastern flank leaders will have a more coordinated approach towards supporting Ukraine after the Hungarian president stayed away from their summit in Riga, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said.

The split emphasises diverging approaches to Russia and Ukraine among central European nations, amid Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s continued close ties to Russia and refusal to give arms to Ukraine.

Rinkevics said Hungary’s President Tamas Sulyok cancelled his trip to the summit of the Bucharest Nine, a group of European countries on the eastern edge of Nato, at the weekend.

China will resolutely oppose all unilateral sanctions following new warnings from G7 countries on small Chinese banks about their links to Russia, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, spokesperson Lin Jin said at a regular press conference.

It was reported yesteday that member countries of the G7 were set to send a tough new warning next week to smaller Chinese banks to stop assisting Russia in evading Western sanctions.

Leaders are gathering for the summit on June 13-15.

Among other immediate problems Ukraine faces, sustained Russian attacks on its power grid in recent weeks have forced leaders in Kyiv to institute nationwide rolling blackouts.

But on Monday, the head of the State Agency for Restoration of Ukraine, Mustafa Nayyem, announced his resignation on Facebook.

He cited “systemic obstacles that prevent me from exercising my powers effectively” and accused the government of bogging his agency down in red tape.

Ukraine hasn’t had a minister dedicated to reconstruction since Oleksandr Kubrakov was dismissed in May.

Mr Nayyem complained that Ukraine‘s prime minister barred him from attending the Berlin conference, starting on Tuesday

Ukraine applied to join the EU after the Russian invasion in February 2022, and last Friday, the European Commission said it had met the requirements for starting negotiations - so it’s now up to member countries to make it happen.

Speaking ahead of the two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said: “We are pulling out all the stops so that Ukraine can soon take a seat at the table of the European Union - because, in addition to our military support, that’s the best protection there is.”

Ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, where support will be gathered for Kyiv from governments and businesses, the German development minister Svenja Schulze has said governments need support of companies and civil societies.

It said assisting Kyiv in its short and long term recovery was “too big to be tackled by governments alone”

He added: “Even during the current times of war, Ukraine needs to continually rebuild houses, water pipelines, hospitals and power grids.

“People want to keep on living in their country, and to do so they need electricity, water and a roof over their heads.”

Germany is hosting a two-day conference to gather support for Ukraine’s recovery in a signal of solidarity witth Kyiv from today.

The two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin comes before the Group of Seven summit of Ukraine‘s leading Western allies in Italy and a global peace summit in Switzerland this coming weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last week attended events marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France, is expected at the gathering, which the German hosts say will bring together 2,000 people from politics, business and other areas.