Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

* The Russians are advancing towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, attacking buildings of police, state security and prosecutors and taking nearby settlements, the governor of the surrounding Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said.

Russian forces pounded Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv and the surrounding countryside with rockets, killing at least 15 people, in what Kyiv called a bid to force it to pull resources from the main battlefield to protect civilians from attack. ON THE GROUND * Operations at Russia's Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery near the border with Ukraine were suspended on Wednesday after a fire possibly caused by an attack by two drones, regional governor Vasily Golubev said. * The Russians are advancing towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, attacking buildings of police, state security, and prosecutors and taking nearby settlements, the governor of the surrounding Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said. * Zelenskiy said the military situation in Luhansk was very difficult and his advisor Oleskiy Arestovych said Russian forces could cut off Lysychansk, and the fiercely-contested city of Sievierodonetsk across the Siverskyi Donets river, from Ukrainian-held territory. Between 7,000 and 8,000 civilians remain in Sievierodonetsk, supported by Ukrainian troops, the city's mayor said. * Ukraine's second-biggest city Kharkiv, further north, came under Russian attack again overnight, Arestovych said, and the nearby village of Chuhuiv was under fire again, a day after at least 15 civilians were killed there. * Intense fighting was going on along the border with Russia in northeastern Ukraine, the governor of the Sumy region, Dmytro Zhyvitsky, said. Seven Russian missiles hit the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, said regional governor Vitaliy Kim. * Six children were among 11 wounded in Chasiv Yar on Tuesday when the Russians fired at a beach on Lake Zolota Rybka, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Wednesday. One person was killed, he said, adding, without providing evidence, that cluster munitions were used. Reuters could not immediately confirm the battlefield accounts.

ECONOMY AND DIPLOMACY * The European Union will temporarily shift back to coal to cope with slowing Russian gas flows, an EU official said on Wednesday, as a tight gas market and rocketing prices set off a race for alternative fuels. * Russia and the U.S. are exchanging signals on the issue of American fighters in Ukraine but Moscow does not think Washington is ready to discuss a prisoner exchange seriously, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. * Moscow is still working on its response to Lithuania's ban on the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad but it will be practical, rather than just diplomatic, Russian officials said, without elaborating. * Ukraine said its grain exports in the first 22 days of June fell by 48% from a year earlier to 907,000 tonnes. Russia said Russian and Turkish delegations had agreed to continue talks on safe vessel departures and grain exports from Ukrainian ports. COMING UP * Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will pay an official visit to Iran on Wednesday, Tass news agency reported.

QUOTE * "The most important line of defense is between one's ears, as the war in Ukraine proves at the moment," Finnish armed forces chief General Timo Kivinen said in an interview, stressing that Finland had prepared for decades for a possible Russian attack.