We're pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine shortly. But before we go here's a recap of today's main developments:

• Russia says it now controls the whole of the Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine after capturing the final holdout of Lysychansk
• Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin that Luhansk had been "liberated", the defence ministry said
• But Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister, has told the BBC that Lysychansk is not under the "full control" of Russian forces, despite Moscow's claims
• He added that the situation had been "very intense for quite a while now" with Russian ground forces "attacking the city non-stop".
• Elsewhere, at least six people were killed and 15 injured in Ukraine's eastern city of Slovyansk following intense shelling by Russian troops

• Russia has accused Ukraine over explosions which reportedly killed three people in the city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine

• Turkish customs authorities have detained a Russian cargo ship carrying grain which Ukraine says is stolen

Today's live page was brought to you by: Aoife Walsh, Sophie Williams, Laurence Peter, Paulin Kola and Chris Giles.

Experts say the total number of recorded deaths so far in the Ukraine war is likely to be a severe underestimation.

Ukraine and Russia claim the number reaches into the tens of thousands - but their estimations do not match up and cannot be independently verified.

To try to understand the human cost of the war, it is necessary to look at a number of sources, including the United Nations, national governments and independent monitors.

Some of our BBC colleagues have been exploring the data.

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Chris Partridge
BBC News

Image source, Raytheon Technologies

Last week we reported on plans to give Ukraine advanced western missile defence systems, something that’s been requested for many months.

Now it’s been confirmed.

The United States will supply the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), as part of the new $820m package of military aid.

Two NASAMS units will be delivered in this latest deal, which also comprises more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). These multiple launch rocket systems have been supplied with guided precision munitions and according to Ukraine are already having an impact on the battlefield.

In addition, another 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition will be sent for the M777 Howitzer heavy guns, plus four counter-artillery radars.

President Zelensky wants western advanced missiles defence systems to complement and eventually replace its ageing, Soviet-based SAMs.

Kyiv has warmly welcomed this latest move. Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, external tweeted his thanks to US President Joe Biden and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, describing it as "another significant step in support of Ukraine".

Ukraine needs more firepower to defend against Russia’s use of aircraft and missiles. Nearly 3,000 missiles alone have been targeted at Ukraine since February 24, and their use has been on the rise in recent weeks.

Image source, Reuters

A Russian cargo ship carrying grain which Ukraine says is stolen has been detained by Turkish customs authorities, Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey says.

Vasyl Bodnar says "We have full co-operation. The ship is currently standing at the entrance to the port, it has been detained by the customs authorities of Turkey".

He says that the ship's fate will be decided by a meeting of investigators tomorrow.

Read our investigation tracking the grain shipment from Ukraine to Turkey.

Sarah Rainsford
BBC Eastern Europe Correspondent, reporting from Kyiv

Claims from Russia that it has taken Lysychansk are still heavily disputed by the Ukrainian side. But the reports of Russia capturing Lysychansk began yesterday evening when we started seeing pictures on social media of a group of Chechen fighters who claimed that they were in central Lysychansk and who were celebrating the city’s capture.

This is an important city because it is the last significant one that has remained under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. If it falls, Russian troops will move on further into the Donetsk region and perhaps beyond.

Moscow now says that the defence minister himself, Sergei Shoigu, has informed President Putin that “as a result of successful military operations” not only Lysychansk, but the whole of the Luhansk region of Donbas is now under Russia’s “full control.”

It seems unlikely he’d do that, if he wasn’t confident that was the situation on the ground. But Ukraine says while there has been intense fighting the city is not yet surrounded.

Seizing the city of Slovyansk is a key part of the Russian plan to control the entire Donbas region.

As the BBC's Paul Kirby explains, Slovyansk is on the strategic M03 motorway, and the city of 125,000 people was captured by Russian-backed forces in 2014, before Ukrainian forces seized it back. Capturing Kramatorsk, just to the south, is also a big objective.

It is the next city in the Russian push westwards in Donbas, after the bitter fighting for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Most Donbas residents have historically close ties to Russia and are Russian-speaking. The region is dominated by heavy industry, especially coal and steel.

Just before he launched the war, President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk - together known as Donbas - as independent of Ukraine, not just the limited statelets created by Moscow-backed proxies in 2014. That recognition was condemned internationally.

Sophie Williams
Reporting from Kyiv

We've just spoken with Yuriy Podlesnyi, deputy mayor of Slovyansk.

"I only have bad words to describe it," he said, claiming that cluster bombs are being fired at the city.

"There is a lot of shrapnel. One building in a residential building was badly damaged. The wave of the bomb made it look like no one was living in the apartment.

"Only empty walls are left," he said.

At least six people are dead and about 20 are injured.

As we've been reporting, the Russian defence ministry earlier said its troops have taken full control of Lysychansk, even though Ukraine denies the claim.

Speaking to BBC News, Russia specialist Prof Mark Galeotti says Lysychansk's fall to the Russians would enable Putin to say his forces have seized Luhansk - one of the two regions that make up the Donbas.

Galeotti says if Russia took control of the Donbas and the land corridor to Crimea, it will be something Putin “will be able to spin as a victory, and probably that is the point at which he would feel comfortable with how the war has gone”.

He says the Russian's attack on Lysychansk is part of a "slow, grinding offensive" and it’s uncertain how much more fighting its force can endure.

“The key uncertainty is how much metaphorical fuel in the tank have the Russians got, how much further will they be able to push their offensive,” he says, adding troops “probably will soon be exhausted”.

Sophie Williams
Reporting from Kyiv

As we mentioned earlier, there has been intense shelling in Slovyansk.

Donetsk spokesperson Ova Ignatchenko has told Ukrainian media that at least six people have been killed and 15 wounded as a result of the shelling.

Kramatorsk - just south of Sloviansk - has also come under attack.

Slovyansk and Kramatorsk are two of the biggest city in the Donetsk region still in Ukrainian hands.

Sophie Williams
Reporting from Kyiv

We're also now getting reports that the town of Slovyansk is now being shelled by Russian troops.

Mayor of the city, Vadym Lyakh, said there are up to 15 fires in the city and claims that a large number of people are injured or dead.

In a video posted to telegram, huge plumes of smoke can be seen behind Lyakh as he speaks to the camera.

Image source, Reuters

More now on the explosions that rocked Belgorod, a Russian city 40km (25 miles) from the border of northern Ukraine. There are contradictory claims from Russia and Ukraine.

A Russian defence ministry spokesman said air defences had destroyed three Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles with cluster warheads, but fragments of one had fallen on an apartment block.

"This missile attack was intentionally planned and launched at the civilian population," spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

He also said Russia had shot down two armed Ukrainian drones approaching Kursk, also in southern Russia.

Earlier Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the Belgorod attack had killed at least three people.

The Ukrainian defence ministry denied the Russian claim. Spokesman Yuriy Sak told the BBC that "our security service has many times intercepted phone calls between the Russian servicemen which prove that sometimes, most often, these types of activities are... provocations by the Russian side".

Another Ukrainian official, Serhiy Bratchuk, said rocket debris embedded in a damaged Belgorod apartment block came from a Russian Pantsir anti-aircraft system, which Ukraine does not have. Several Ukrainians have tweeted a photo allegedly showing that debris.

In early April, Russia said two Ukrainian helicopters had attacked a civilian oil storage depot on the outskirts of Belgorod, causing a fuel blaze. Video appeared to show missiles hitting the facility. The Ukrainian military denied that it was involved.

Another setback in the east?published at 12:36 British Summer Time 3 July 2022

12:36 BST 3 July 2022

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence insists that Lysychansk – the last major city it controlled in Luhansk Oblast - is “not under the full control” of Russian forces. But there are plenty of videos on social media confirming that they have now entered the city.

Some also appear to show a handful of locals who stayed behind greeting the Russian forces as “liberators”. There’s always been a strong element of pro-Russian sentiment there.

Lysychansk overlooks Severodonetsk – which has already been taken by the Russians. There was some hope that, built on high ground, it would provide a natural strong defence. But the noose around the city has been tightening with Russian forces now controlling most access in and out.

Ukraine’s commanders will have had to make the difficult decision to fight on, with the potential of large casualties and their remaining forces being surrounded. Or to withdraw troops to fight another day. Some units had already pulled back to the next lines of defence over the past week

Ukrainian officials have been unusually quiet about what’s been happening in the city. That might, in part, be explained by “operational security” reasons. They would not want to broadcast any tactical retreat – if that is what’s been happening. But losing Lysychansk would also be seen as another setback in the East.

If Lysychansk has fallen, and it has yet to be confirmed, it’s by no means the end of the fighting in the Donbas.

Ukraine still controls large urban areas in neighbouring Donetsk Oblast. Their forces have been preparing new defensive lines between Bakhmut and Slovyansk - though they too are now coming under heavy Russian shelling. Both sides have been taking heavy casualties.

The question now is whether Ukraine can halt the advance, and whether Russia can maintain the momentum.

More now from our interview with Ukraine's defence ministry spokesman Yuriy Sak who's told the BBC that it will "not be game over” for the Donbas region if Russia captures all of Luhansk.

He says there are “other large cities in the Donbas area, in particular in the Donetsk region” that are under control of Ukrainian armed forces.

“These are cities that for the last couple of days [have been] targets of severe missile attacks, artillery shelling,” he says, “but the battle for the Donbas is not over yet”.

Sak adds that Ukraine is hopeful and is receiving support from its western allies.

He says Ukraine will eventually accumulate a sufficient number of heavy artillery and other types of weaponry "that will allow us to liberate our lands".

Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman Yuriy Sak has told the BBC that the city of Lysychansk is not under the "full control" of Russian forces, despite Moscow's claims that the city has fallen.

But he added that the situation in the city had been "very intense for quite a while now" with Russian ground forces "attacking the city non-stop".

"For Ukrainians, the value of human life is a top priority, so sometimes we may retreat from certain areas so that we can retake them in the future," he added.

Russian and separatist forces have taken full control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, Russian state news agency Tass quotes the defence ministry as saying.

The Russian ministry said earlier on Sunday that its forces had encircled Lysychansk and were now fighting inside the city.

In a statement, Russia's defence minister says he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the entire region of Luhansk has been "liberated".

The Russian defence ministry says its troops have captured the villages surrounding Lysychansk and are now fighting Ukrainian troops inside the city.

In a statement, the ministry says: "Russian troops and units of the Luhansk People's Republic are fighting inside Lysychansk, completely defeating the encircled enemy".

Ukraine's military has not yet responded - and the BBC has not been able to independently verify these claims.

Russian troops have surrounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, Ukraine's last major stronghold in the Luhansk region, the TASS news agency cites the Russian defence ministry as saying.

This has not been confirmed by Ukraine's military.

Russia has been focussed on driving Ukrainian forces out of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbas.

That's where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia's first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.

Image source, .

Sophie Williams
Reporting from Kyiv

Image source, VICTOR SHCHADEY

Here in Ukraine, we’ve spoken with a number of teachers who are serving in the military but still finding ways to continue their students’ education.

One of those is Fedir Shandor, 47, who has teaching sociology and tourism from the trenches.

We spoke with Iryna, one of his students, who said that Shandor’s dedication to his job has helped keep participation numbers up.

“Even students who would skip classes before, turn up to every lecture,” she said. “He has always told us that we have to be smart, that we are fighting for a smart nation.”

According to Ukraine's Education Minister, Serhiy Shkarlet, some 900 teachers have joined the armed forces so far.

You can read more here

The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, says Ukrainian armed forces have launched 30 strikes and destroyed one of four Russian military bases located in the city.

For its part, the Russian-installed authorities there said only some houses in the vicinity of the airport had been damaged.

Mayor Ivanov denied the Russia account as “provocation”.

Melitopol, a small city in south-eastern Ukraine, was one of the first to fall to the Russians.

Image source, .

Image source, VVGLADKOV

At least three people have been killed in Russia's western city of Belgorod, near the Ukraine border, its governor says.

Vyacheslav Gladkov says at least 11 apartment blocks and 39 houses were damaged.

Writing on Telegram he says: "We are currently trying to establish the circumstances of the incident. The anti-aircraft defences were in operation".

The governor's statement could not be independently confirmed and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.