Russian president dares the west to try to win on the battlefield and says chances of talks growing dimmer
Vladimir Putin has issued one of his most ominous warnings yet, claiming Moscow has barely started its campaign in Ukraine and daring the west to try to defeat it on the battlefield.
Speaking at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday, the Russian president said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on.
Continue reading...Alexei Gorinov receives first long-term sentence under harsh laws introduced since Russian invasion
A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war.
Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army.
Continue reading...Russian president hits out at western involvement in war and claims his forces have not ‘started anything yet in earnest’
Authorities in Odesa are reporting that grain silos in the region and Snake Island have been hit by rockets or missiles overnight.
An official channel for Odesa posted:
Two rockets hit two agricultural hangars at night, which were destroyed. About 35 tonnes of grain were stored in one of them.
According to preliminary data, there are no victims.
Continue reading...Moscow says equipment, which was being repaired in Canada, was crucial to restore gas supplies to Germany
Canada’s Ukrainian community has urged the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to refuse to compromise the country’s sanctions against Russia in order to return a turbine that Moscow says is critical for supplying natural gas to Germany.
Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom cut the capacity along the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to just 40% of usual levels last month, citing the delayed return of equipment being serviced by Germany’s Siemens Energy in Canada.
Continue reading...Meeting in Indonesia will be the first with the Russian envoy since the Kremlin invaded its neighbour, triggering global food and energy crises
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has flown into the Indonesian island of Bali for a gathering of G20 foreign ministers, which is likely to be overshadowed by Moscow’s war in Ukraine and deep divisions within the bloc over how to respond to the crisis.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, Lavrov and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi are all due to attend the gathering as concern among western governments mounts about the war’s impact on the cost of food and fuel, which has prompted the UN to warn of an “unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution”.
Continue reading...Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’
Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.
Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.
Continue reading...Artillery ‘working very powerfully’ as it inflicts blows on Russian logistics, according to Ukrainian president
Ukrainian forces are finally seeing the impact of western weapons on the frontlines of the war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
Experts say while western equipment has been crucial for pushing back Russian forces, the west will need to scale up its supplies, and even mobilise its own defence industries, if it wants to avoid a war of attrition that Ukraine could lose.
Continue reading...New era of tensions requires sturdier barriers than current wooden livestock fences, parliament decides
Finland’s parliament has passed legislation to build stronger fences on its border with Russia, as the country seeks to join Nato after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland reversed decades of military non-alignment by seeking membership of the military alliance in May, formally starting the process to join this week.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018
Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.
A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.
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Taoiseach Micheál Martin has arrived in Kyiv. The Irish prime minister is expected to have a series of meetings designed to reiterate Ireland’s solidarity with the Ukrainian authorities. PA Media quotes him saying:
The people of Ireland stand with Ukraine and its people in the face of Russia’s immoral and unprovoked war of terror. The bombardment and attacks on civilians are nothing short of war crimes and I will use my visit to express Ireland’s support for moves to hold those behind these attacks fully accountable.
The spirit and resolve of the Ukrainian people has inspired us all and Ireland will provide every support for Ukraine’s path to full EU membership, and continue to welcome and support civilians fleeing this war.
Continue reading...Russian forces hit targets across Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province; governor urges 350,000 civilians to evacuate
At least two people have been killed and seven injured after “massive shelling” pummelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, officials say. City mayor, Vadim Lyakh, called on residents to evacuate after Russian forces struck a market and a residential area.
The governor of the Donetsk region has also urged 350,000 civilians to evacuate in light of an imminent Russian offensive. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that getting people out is necessary to save lives and to enable the Ukrainian army to better defend towns from the Russian advance.
Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk said on Wednesday that fighting continues in the villages around Lysychansk. Serhai Haidai said “some settlements have already been under one or another control twice”. He repeated that up to 15,000 civilians remain in Lysychansk and 8,000 in Sievierodonetsk, adding “today’s videos from Lysychansk are painful to watch”.
The battle for Sloviansk is likely to be the next key contest in the struggle for Donbas as Russian forces approach within 16km of the Donetsk town, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. Russian forces from the eastern and western groups of forces are likely now around 16km north of Sloviansk as central and southern groups of forces also pose a threat to the town, according to the latest British intelligence report.
The premises of a higher educational institution in the Kyiv region of Kharkiv have been destroyed by Russian fire, according to the governor of the region, Oleh Synyehubov
The first rotation of Ukrainian soldiers has arrived in the UK for training, according to the defence secretary, Ben Wallace. The training is part of a programme that aims to train up to 10,000 new Ukrainian recruits alongside a £2.3bn military aid package.
Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in Ukraine today, and has visited the Borodyanka area on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv. The Irish prime minister said: “The people of Ireland stand with Ukraine and its people in the face of Russia’s immoral and unprovoked war of terror. The bombardment and attacks on civilians are nothing short of war crimes.”
Continue reading...Pavlo Kyrylenko says ‘destiny of the whole country’ will be decided in Donetsk region
The governor of Donetsk, the last remaining eastern province of Ukraine partially under Kyiv’s control, has urged the region’s 350,000 people to flee amid reports of fresh deaths and injuries.
At least seven civilians have been killed in Russian shelling over the past 24 hours and 25 are said to have been wounded as the Kremlin continues to step up its offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Continue reading...Norwegian government intervenes in pay row because of ‘great social consequences for whole of Europe’
The Norwegian government has stepped in to end a strike that had threatened supplies of gas to Britain.
The labour dispute had shut down oil and gasfields and was expected to cut Norway’s gas supplies by almost 60% by the weekend.
Continue reading...Defence minister announces move as ‘we have no reason to think Russia will change its behaviour’
Latvia is to reinstate compulsory military service amid growing tension with Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The current military system of Latvia has reached its limit. Meanwhile, we have no reason to think that Russia will change its behaviour,” the Latvian defence minister, Artis Pabriks, told reporters on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Sloviansk mayor tells residents to evacuate amid expected increase in Russian bombing
Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhai Haidai, has posted an update to Telegram casting aspersions on the ability of pro-Russian proxies to restore stability in the newly occupied areas of Ukraine. He writes:
In the recently occupied territories, the Russians establish their own rules, talk nonsense about the opening of schools from 1 September, the rapid restoration of communications. This is all a lie, the same thing happened in Mariupol. The only thing the Rashists [a term for Russian fascists] are capable of is terrorising the local population. Orcs [derogatory slang for Russians/pro-Russian forces] are already looking for activists and military families, collaborators are helping with this.
Over these few months, more than 800 saboteurs were detained and handed over to the SBU [Ukrainian security service] for further procedural actions. And often, they are “sold for thirty pieces of silver”: the price for treason to the motherland reaches no more than 300 dollars.
Continue reading...Ukraine officials clarify initial confusion as to whether the flag has been raised, saying it is there but will be hoisted only once troops arrive
Ukrainian forces are set to raise the country’s flag on Snake Island, a strategic and symbolic outpost in the Black Sea that Russian troops retreated from last week after months of heavy bombardment.
“The military operation has been concluded, and … the territory, Snake Island, has been returned to the jurisdiction of Ukraine,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, told reporters.
This article and its headline were amended on Tuesday 5 July 2022 to take in the update of when the flag would be raised on Snake Island.
This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Ukrainian media reports an ammunition depot was destroyed in occupied Snizhne in the eastern Donetsk region. Nexta TV has this unverified footage of what it claims to be the incident.
Russian forces hit a secondary school in the Kharkiv district at 4am this morning, according to a report from Oleh Synyehubov, governor of the region. There were no reported casualties.
Continue reading...Region’s governor says loss was painful and he expects Sloviansk and Bakhmut now to face heavy attack
Vladimir Putin has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and told Russian troops to rest and “increase their combat capabilities”, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province.
Ukraine’s military command confirmed on Sunday evening that its troops had been forced to pull back from the city of Lysychansk in Luhansk, and the regional governor has warned that Russian forces are trying to seize the entire Donetsk region, which, with Luhansk, makes up the industrial heartland of Donbas.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy says process of recovery will allow his country to deepen its links with Europe
The eventual restoration of Ukraine through a $750bn (£620bn) recovery plan is the common task of the entire democratic world, the Ukrainian president said on Monday at the first detailed event to map out a physical future for the country in the event it survives as a western-facing nation after the Russian invasion.
Speaking by video link to a high-level conference in Lugano, Switzerland, attended by many senior Ukrainian politicians, Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted the task ahead was colossal, claiming the war was a battle of outlooks in which Russia was determined to destroy his country’s physical and moral fabric.
Continue reading...Ukrainian military command confirms withdrawal of troops from city of Lysychansk to avoid ‘fatal consequences’
Russia has said it is in control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region after taking over Lysychansk, the last Ukrainian-controlled city in the region.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Vladimir Putin on Sunday that their forces had established “full control” over Lysychansk and several nearby settlements, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
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