Russia said on Wednesday its forces had struck Ukrainian military storage facilities, logistics hubs and port infrastructure, while Ukraine reported a strike on a Russian attack helicopter and mass drone interceptions over the past 24 hours.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in its latest daily briefing that over the past 24 hours, Russian forces had targeted storage sites of Ukrainian long-range drones, alongside logistics centers, energy facilities and port infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces.
According to the ministry, Russian air defense units also intercepted eight guided aerial bombs and 558 Ukrainian drones, while Russia's Black Sea Fleet destroyed four Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels.
On the same day, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that 73 combat engagements had taken place along the front line as of Wednesday afternoon.
Ukraine's unmanned systems forces confirmed the same day that they had struck a Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter in Russia's Belgorod region. Meanwhile, Ukrainian air defense forces intercepted and suppressed 101 Russian drones from late Tuesday to early Wednesday.
Russia, Ukraine report launching strikes against each other
China's real estate market witnessed positive changes in the first half of the year as supportive property policies continued to take effect, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
With home prices in major cities stabilizing, unsold housing inventory declined and second-hand home transactions remained active, Mao Shengyong, deputy director of the NBS, said at a press conference in Beijing, adding that policy adjustments and optimization measures introduced across the country have gradually delivered results, contributing to an improving property market.
Data showed that since March, the month-on-month sales prices of both newly built commercial homes and second-hand homes in first-tier cities have risen for four consecutive months, Mao said.
The inventory of unsold commercial housing also continued to decline. By the end of June, the floor space of unsold commercial housing nationwide had fallen 0.9 percent year on year, with the pace of decline widening by 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, he said.
The inventory has registered year-on-year declines for four straight months.
And the second-hand housing market remained active. In the first half of the year, the floor space of online-registered second-hand home transactions increased 10.2 percent year on year, 2.5 percentage points faster than the growth recorded in the January-May period.
"As China's real estate market continues to readjust, profound changes are taking place in both the structure and overall scale of property transactions. The traditional market pattern, which was driven mainly by sales of newly built homes, is rapidly shifting toward one featuring both new and second-hand home transactions. Second-hand home sales have become an important part of the housing market. According to online registration data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the transaction area of second-hand homes is now roughly equivalent to that of newly built homes. When combining online-registered transactions of both new and second-hand homes, total transaction volume in the past three months has recorded positive growth continuously. Overall, the supply-demand relationship in the real estate market is gradually improving, and market expectations have continued to recover," said Mao.
Property market sees positive changes in H1
