Gen Mark Milley, head of the US military, says offensive has gone ‘slower than anticipated’ but battle isn’t done

A Spanish aid worker was killed when a missile hit the vehicle in which she was travelling in Ukraine, the Spanish foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, said on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, I can confirm a missile hit a vehicle in which this Spanish worker was travelling who was working for a humanitarian NGO in Ukraine. We have verbal confirmation of her death,” Albares told reporters in India, where he attended the G20 meeting.

That offensive kicked off about 90 days ago. It has gone slower than the planners anticipated. But that is a difference between what Clausewitz called war on paper and real war.

So these are real people in real vehicles that are fighting through real minefields, and there’s real death and destruction, and there’s real friction. And there’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days, worth of fighting weather left.

G20 declaration ‘nothing to be proud of’, says Kyiv; Ukraine warns against lifting sanctions as Russia pushes grain deal; Ukraine condemns lack of progress for a tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders

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The Ukrainian foreign ministry has responded to the joint declaration by G20 leaders, describing the sections relating to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “nothing to be proud of”. Foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko called out the declaration for not outright naming Russia. “It is clear that the participation of the Ukrainian side would have allowed the participants to better understand the situation.”

An adviser to the head of the office of Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned about the consequences of lifting sanctions against Russia, which pushed for a grain deal in the joint G20 declaration that would lift the international Swiftbank payments system ban on some Russian banks. “Even the slightest lifting of sanctions on Russia or any discussions suggesting such an option have consequences,” Mykhailo Podolyak said.

G20 leaders adopted a consensus declaration on issues facing the bloc after some disagreement over the wording on the war in Ukraine. Western countries had pushed for strong condemnation of Russia while Russia blocked a compromise that was “acceptable otherwise for everyone else”, an EU diplomat told Reuters.

The wording on a portion of the declaration on Ukraine noted the “different views and assessments” on Russia’s war, but underscored that all states must act in a manner “consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN charter in its entirety”. It called for the “timely and effective” implementation to ensure “immediate and unimpeded” deliveries of grain, food stuff and fertilisers from Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine’s top diplomat, Dmytro Kuleba, has condemned the lack of progress on the creation of a tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders and on the transfer of frozen assets. The foreign minister said the G7 group “stands firmly” in favour of a hybrid tribunal based on Ukrainian legislation. This would not allow for the immunity of Vladimir Putin and other leading Russian figures to be stripped – an unacceptable option for Kyiv.

Ukraine’s newly nominated defence minister, Rustem Umerov, has called on Kyiv’s partners to increase deliveries of heavy weapons, amid a long and difficult counteroffensive against Russian forces. “We are grateful for all the support provided … we need more heavy weapons,” Umerov said in an embargoed speech released on Saturday.

At least five blasts were heard early on Sunday across the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Reuters witnesses reported. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said air defence systems were engaged in repelling a Russian air attack.

Kyiv residents are fearing a property grab by developers, with the war not diminishing the appetite for prime property in the city, or halting the scramble to get hold of empty plots for construction. While developers seek to take advantage of Russia’s invasion, it has also spurred opposition to their plans.

New fragments of a drone similar to those used by the Russian military were found on Romanian soil, the president and defence ministry said on Saturday – the second discovery of its kind in Romanian territory this week.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned of a potential threat to nuclear safety after a surge in fighting near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The UN atomic watchdog said its experts at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant reported hearing explosions over the past week.

Zelenskiy said on Saturday he had agreed to begin bilateral talks with Japan over security guarantees at a meeting with the Japanese foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, in Kyiv.

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia who is currently heading the international working group on sanctions against Russia.

”It is important to strengthen sanctions against the energy, financial and banking sectors of Russian terrorists,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram today. “It is also necessary to block the supply to Russia of any components and spare parts used for the production of missiles and drones.”

Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Russian ally Belarus, congratulated Kim Jong-un of North Korea on the country’s founding anniversary.

Russian attack on Ukrainian police building kills one and wounds dozens; Zelenskiy says Putin ‘killed Prigozhin’; British military to monitor Black Sea

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A Russian missile slammed into a police building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing a policeman and injuring many more people, the interior minister said. The administrative building was destroyed and rescue workers pulled several people out of the rubble after the attack on Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home town, Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said about 40 people had been injured.

A Russian airstrike killed three people and injured four others in the village of Odradokamianka in Kherson, southern Ukraine, on Friday, Klymenko said.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russian ruler Vladimir Putin is responsible for the death of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Ukrainian president, who provided no evidence to back up his assertion over Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash with his top lieutenants last month, said at a conference in Kyiv on Friday: “The fact that he [Putin] killed Prigozhin – at least that’s the information we all have, not any other kind – that also speaks to his rationality, and about the fact that he is weak.”

British military and security services will monitor the Black Sea in a bid to deter Russia from striking cargo ships that are transporting grain from Ukraine to developing countries, the UK government has announced.

The first 10 Leopard 1 tanks donated by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have arrived in Ukraine and more are on their way, Denmark’s armed forces said on Friday.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry condemned “sham elections” being staged by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories on Friday, saying they were “worthless” and would have no legal standing. The Russian regional elections include four Ukrainian regions Moscow does not fully control – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also described the voting in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as “sham elections” and said they were “illegitimate”.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “slower” arms shipments from western countries were threatening his counteroffensive and called for more powerful and long-range weapons. The Ukrainian president also said his country’s allies had eased up on sanctions imposed on Russia and called for a renewed drive to impose further punitive measures on Moscow.

Ukrainian officials said air defences shot down 16 of the 20 drones fired by Russia over Thursday night. Fourteen 14 drones had been brought down over Odesa region and two more over the southern region of Mykolaiv, the southern military command said on Friday.

Russia “must stop” its blockade of Ukrainian seaports after pulling out of the UN and Turkey-mediated deal to ensure grain shipments, the European Council president, Charles Michel, said on Friday.

Cuban authorities have arrested 17 people in connection with what they described as a network to recruit Cuban nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine. The head of criminal investigations for Cuba’s interior ministry, César Rodríguez, told state media that at least three of the 17 people arrested were part of recruitment efforts inside the island country.

Ukraine’s former defence minister has said Vladimir Putin remains determined to destroy Ukraine entirely and to “assimilate” its citizens into the Russian Federation. Oleksii Reznikov warned his western counterparts that negotiations with Moscow would not bring peace.

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Ukraine’s air force shot down 16 drones launched by Russia overnight in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, regional and military officials said on Friday.

Oleh Kiper, the Odesa regional governor, wrote on Telegram:

During the night the Russian terrorists attacked the Odesa region for the fifth time this week.