Ukrainian and Russian troops both advancing in different areas amid ‘fierce fighting’, says Kyiv; Biden to visit UK and Finland on Nato summit trip

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Ukraine has said Russian troops are advancing in four areas in the east of the country amid “fierce fighting” but reports that Kyiv’s forces are moving forward in the south. Russian troops were advancing near Avdiivka, Mariinka, Lyman and Svatove, said the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. “Fierce fighting is going on everywhere,” she wrote on social media on Sunday. Russian accounts said Moscow’s forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks near villages ringing Bakhmut and in areas farther south, including the strategic hilltop town of Vuhledar.

The US president, Joe Biden, will travel to Europe in a week for a three-nation trip, including a Nato summit, focused on reinforcing the international coalition backing Ukraine amid its counteroffensive against Russia. Biden is set to depart on Sunday 9 July for Britain and then head to Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, for the meeting of Nato leaders, followed by a one-day visit to Helsinki for talks with his Nordic counterparts, the White House has said.

A top Russian propagandist has accused Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin of going “off the rails” after receiving billions in public funds, as Moscow’s new narrative takes shape after Wagner’s brief mutiny. “Prigozhin has gone off the rails because of big money,” Dmitry Kiselev, one of the main faces of the Russian propaganda machine, said on his weekly television show on Sunday. Prigozhin led his forces in a short-lived rebellion against Russia’s top military brass just over a week ago in a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

Four civilians were injured by Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson, the prosecutor general’s office said on Sunday, including two in a direct hit on a high-rise building. Russian forces fired on the residential area from the occupied east bank of the Dnipro River, also reportedly damaging civilian infrastructure.

Award-winning Ukrainian writer and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina, 37, has died after being wounded in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk, the freedom of expression group PEN has said. The attack last Tuesday destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city, killing another 12 people, including four children, and wounding dozens.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy paid tribute in Odesa to those serving in the navy on Ukrainian Navy Day on Sunday in a video posted on Twitter. The Ukrainian president said: “The enemy will in no way dictate its terms in the Black Sea.”

Two British peers were among 50 people who attended a party organised by the Russian ambassador to the UK at his residence in west London last month to mark the creation of a Russia independent of the Soviet Union. The Conservative Lord Balfe and crossbencher Lord Skidelsky attended the event at which the Russian envoy, Andrei Kelin, spoke and sought to justify the invasion of Ukraine, according to the Sunday Times.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s media holding company is to shut down, the director of one of its outlets said. Patriot Media, whose most prominent outlet was the RIA FAN news site, had taken a strongly nationalist, pro-Kremlin editorial line while also providing positive coverage of Prigozhin and his Wagner group.

Poland will send 500 police officers to its border with Belarus, Poland’s interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński, has said. Warsaw earlier announced a tightening of security because of concerns over the Wagner group’s presence in Belarus.

Energy giants TotalEnergies and Shell have defended activities linked to Russia after a critical report into their trading in natural gas despite the war in Ukraine. The campaign group Global Witness said TotalEnergies was the third-biggest player in Russian liquified natural gas last year and Shell the fourth, behind two Russian companies. Both companies said on Sunday they were tied to ongoing contracts despite pulling out of Russian partnerships after Ukraine was invaded last year.

Russia has cancelled its 2023 Maks international airshow, probably over security concerns after recent uncrewed aerial vehicle attacks inside the country, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s latest intelligence report.

Eastern Command spokesperson says Ukrainian forces are ‘pressuring’ Russian troops in Donetsk Oblast; Russian shelling hits residential area. says Ukraine

• What we know on day 494 of the invasion

Poland will send 500 police officers to its border with Belarus, the Polish minister of the interior, Mariusz Kaminski, said on Sunday, Reuters reports.

“Due to the tense situation on the border with Belarus I have decided to bolster our forces with 500 Polish police officers from preventive and counterterrorism units,” he wrote on Twitter.

Exclusive: Ukrainians who fought against separatists tell of kidnap and torture by invaders; the fate of hundreds of others is a mystery

Viktor Kushyn knew Russian soldiers were after him. He sensed it from the first day of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February last year, when Russians occupied his village in the Kharkiv region.

So when two Russian service personnel stopped him in the street one morning in May 2022, he didn’t resist. He spent the next few days locked in a cellar with other men who, like him, had fought against Russian-backed separatists between 2014 and 2022 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Putin’s admission of funding Wagner could open doors for war crimes trial; Zelenskiy warns of ‘serious threat’ at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

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Vladimir Putin’s admission that the Wagner group had been “fully funded” by the Russian state could make it easier for an international court to prosecute him for war crimes, experts in international law have said. In the year to May 2023 alone, Wagner reportedly received more than 86bn roubles from the state budget, or over a billion dollars.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that a “serious threat” remains at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that Russia is “technically ready” to provoke a localised explosion at the facility. Zelenskiy cited Ukrainian intelligence as the source of his information and called for greater international attention to the situation at the facility, the largest nuclear plant in Europe.

Air defence systems were engaged early on Sunday in repelling a Russian air attack on Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said. Witnesses heard blasts resembling the sound of air defence systems hitting targets, but there was no immediate information about potential damage.

A 51-year-old man has been killed and two others injured by shelling in Mala Tokmachka, a village near the frontline in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhia, local officials said. The head of the local military administration, Yuriy Malashko, described the site as a “frontline community under merciless enemy fire”.

US president Joe Biden will host Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson next week to talk about transatlantic security cooperation and the war in Ukraine, the White House said. The two leaders “will review our growing security cooperation and reaffirm their view that Sweden should join Nato as soon as possible”.

Austria, a neutral country, announced its intention to join the European Sky Shield initiative, launched in 2022 by Germany against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer said the decision did not call into question the neutrality of the country but cited “a threat that has considerably worsened”. “We must and will take precautions to protect our country against the risk of drone or missile attacks,” he said.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez pledged the EU’s “unequivocal” support for Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv on the first day of Spain assuming presidency of the bloc. Sanchez said his visit “demonstrates a clear and unequivocal political commitment” to Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.

Ukrainian president Zelenskiy has expressed frustration over the slow deliveries of weapons and lack of clarity over pilot training by “some” western nations. “There is no schedule of training missions. I believe that some partners are dragging their feet. Why are they doing it? I don’t know,” Zelenskiy said.

Two children have been injured in the Russian shelling of a residential area in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, according to the regional governor. A nine-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy were injured and are receiving medical treatment.

Gen Mark Milley says no one should have any illusions about difficulty of Ukrainian offensive

• What we know on day 493 of the invasion

Here are pictures from Friday of family and co-workers attending the funeral of a young female killed in a missile attack that hit a restaurant in downtown Kramatorsk on 27 June.

The Guardian’s Shaun Walker, Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer have written an analysis about the likely vengeful response opponents of Vladimir Putin should expect after the attempted Wagner mutiny last weekend.