Category Archives: Russia

International investigators visit war-torn areas near Kyiv – as it happened

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Ukraine’s navy has claimed on social media that it has struck the Russian rescue tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, which it says was in the process of the “transportation of ammunition, weapons and personnel of the Black Sea Fleet to Snake Island.”

The claim has not been independently verified, and as yet there is no comment from the Russian navy on the status of the ship.

Fighting continues on the line of contact. In the Kharkiv direction, the enemy tried to conduct reconnaissance by fighting in the Kochubeyevka area, but suffered losses and withdrew. In the Izium area, the occupiers are trying to continue the offensive in the direction of Slavyansk. Our defenders repel all attacks of the enemy.

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Closing Syria aid route would be ‘catastrophe’, UN warned

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Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from Turkey

The last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.

On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib.

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US agency aware of photograph showing two Americans captured by Russians

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The state department told a relative of one of the men they were working to verify the image which was circulated on social media

The US state department is aware of a photograph appearing to show two missing Americans volunteering to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders in the back of a military truck with their hands tied behind them, seeming to offer evidence that they have been captured, a relative of one of the men said Thursday.

At least one copy of the photograph in question depicting Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh was circulating on the social media platform Telegram, which is popular in Russia and Ukraine. An accompanying caption in Russian appeared to mock both men, saying something to the effect of a trip to Ukraine “for easy money” had ended badly, according to an approximate translation provided by Google.

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Civilian evacuation from Sievierodonetsk plant ‘impossible’, says governor – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Children born in Ukraine’s Kherson region since 24 February will automatically receive Russian citizenship, according to a statement by an official.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed military-civilian administration in the occupied Kherson region has told Russian news agency RIA Novosti:

Children born after 24 February in the Kherson region will automatically receive citizenship of the Russian Federation. Plus, orphans will also be registered as citizens of the Russian Federation.

All of the main bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River, which link the contested town of Sieverodonetsk and Ukrainian-held territory, have now highly likely been destroyed.

Ukraine has probably managed to withdraw a large proportion of its combat troops, who were originally holding the town. The situation continues to be extremely difficult for the Ukrainian forces and civilians remaining east of the river.

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UK aims sanctions at Russians accused of abducting Ukrainian children

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Maria Lvova-Belova accused by Ukraine of organising capture of vulnerable children in Luhansk and Donetsk

A fresh wave of sanctions against Russia has been imposed by the government, as the UK signalled its disapproval of the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children into Russia, by aiming new sanctions at people involved with the “barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine”.

Those targeted by sanctions include the Russian children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, the so-called mastermind behind the shadowy abduction programme.

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Scholz, Macron and Draghi vow support for Ukraine’s EU bid on Kyiv visit

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Symbolic visit of German, French and Italian leaders comes as Russia continues attacks across country

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have vowed to support Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union on a visit to Kyiv intended as a show of unity in the face of Russian advances and complaints from the Ukrainians about the pace of weapons supplies.

“My colleagues and I came here to Kyiv today with a clear message: ‘Ukraine belongs to the European family,’” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said at a joint press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.

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European leaders expected to visit Kyiv to show support for Ukraine

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy to push leaders of Germany, France and Italy to send more weapons to help army withstand Russian invasion

The leaders of the European Union’s three biggest countries, Germany, France and Italy, are expected in Kyiv on Thursday to show their backing for Ukraine as it struggles to withstand a relentless Russian assault.

The visit by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has taken weeks to organise with the three men looking to overcome criticism within Ukraine over their response to the war.

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Two US volunteers in Ukraine feared taken prisoner by Russia

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The pair’s disappearance, the first believed to have been captured in Ukraine, would add another layer of complexity to US efforts against Russia

Two American volunteers in Ukraine have gone missing and are feared to have been taken prisoner by Russia, officials and family members said on Wednesday.

Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, are both US military veterans who had been living in Alabama and went to Ukraine to assist with war efforts. Relatives have been in contact with Senate and House offices seeking information on the men’s whereabouts.

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Ex-Russian football captain Igor Denisov condemns invasion of Ukraine

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Former captain of national team said he fears he could be ‘jailed or killed’ for speaking out against the conflict

Igor Denisov, the former captain of Russia’s national football team, has said he feared he could be “jailed or killed” as he spoke out to condemn his country’s war against Ukraine.

The 38-year-old has become the most senior former or current athlete who still lives in Russia to publicly condemn the conflict.

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US says China’s support for Russia over Ukraine puts it on ‘wrong side of history’

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‘China claims to be neutral, but its behavior makes clear that it is still investing in close ties to Russia,’ state department says

Xi Jinping has assured Vladimir Putin of China’s support on Russian “sovereignty and security” prompting Washington to warn Beijing it risked ending up “on the wrong side of history”.

China has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and has been accused of providing diplomatic cover for Russia by blasting western sanctions and arms sales to Kyiv.

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Ukraine ignores Russian ultimatum to surrender Sievierodonetsk

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Fears grow over the hundreds of civilians believed to be sheltering in the city’s Azot chemical plant

Ukraine has ignored a Russian ultimatum to surrender the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, as fears grow over the hundreds of civilians trapped in the city’s Azot chemical factory.

Russia ordered Ukrainian forces a day earlier to stop “senseless resistance and lay down arms” from Wednesday morning, as Moscow controls 80% of Sievierodonetsk, a city that has become a focal point of Russia’s advances in the east of the country.

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US to provide an additional $1bn in security assistance to Ukraine for its efforts in Donbas – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Dmitry Medvedev, a long-term ally of Vladimir Putin who is currently deputy chair of the Security Council of Russia, has posted this morning to Telegram a message which gives some insight into the current state of senior level Russian thinking about the situation in Ukraine.

In the message, Medvedev questions a Ukrainian request that it receive energy imports this winter with an option to delay payment for two years. Medvedev says:

Just a question. Who said that in two years Ukraine will even exist on the world map?

There is a lot of excitement. More and more people want to obtain citizenship of the Russian Federation. Residents of the Kherson region today are en masse in queues to submit documents for obtaining Russian citizenship just because Russia can protect, Russia can feed and provide socially for a person in the country, in which a person is the highest social value of the state.

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US announces plan to build silos on Ukraine border to export grain

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Joe Biden working with European governments to avert global crisis and help lower food prices

Temporary silos will be built along the Ukraine border, including in Poland, in an attempt to help export more grain from the country and avert a global food crisis, Joe Biden has announced.

The US president told a Philadelphia union convention on Tuesday that he was working with European governments on the plan “to help bring down food prices”.

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‘Justice’ for Ukraine overshadowed by cost of living concerns, polling shows

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Survey across 10 European countries and UK shows respondents favouring an end to the conflict rather than holding Russia accountable

Europe’s unity over the war in Ukraine is at risk as public attention increasingly shifts from the battlefield to cost of living concerns, polling across 10 European countries suggests, with the divide deepening between voters who want a swift end to the conflict and those who want Russia punished.

The survey in nine EU member states – Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden – plus the UK found support for Ukraine remained high, but that preoccupations have shifted to the conflict’s wider impacts.

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Russia bans 29 UK journalists, including Guardian correspondents

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Military figures and MPs on list along with staff from most major British newspapers and broadcasters

Russia has banned 29 members of the British media, including five Guardian journalists, from entering the country, its foreign ministry has said.

Moscow said the sweeping action was a response to western sanctions and the “spreading of false information about Russia”, as well as “anti-Russian actions of the British government”.

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Russia-Ukraine war: forces suffering ‘painful losses’ in Donbas, Zelenskiy says as he repeats request for anti-missile weapons – live

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President reveals fighting in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk was particularly intense and said there was ‘no justification’ for countries to delay sending aid

The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has refused to be drawn on whether she would negotiate directly with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic over the situation of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner. The two British men have been sentenced to death in eastern Ukraine by what Truss called a “sham trial”. She told listeners of the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme:

The two people were fighting for the Ukrainian army. They were permanently located in Ukraine and they are prisoners of war. And the case is being taken up by the Ukrainians, by the Ukrainian foreign minister.

I am doing everything I can, in the best way I can, in the way that I judge is most effective, to deliver these people’s release.

These people are prisoners of war, fighting for the Ukrainian army. And it’s important to maintain that principle. And the Russian proxies are violating the Geneva Convention. And we need to be very, very clear about that.

That’s why the best route is through the Ukrainians, and I can’t go into the details of my discussions with the Ukrainians, but I can assure you, and I can assure the families, that we’re working flat out on this.

Crews of ground attack aviation launched rocket air strikes on military facilities and equipment of units of the armed forces of Ukraine. Missile launches were carried out in pairs from low altitudes. As a result of the combat use of aviation weapons, camouflaged fortified field positions and armoured vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.

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Zelenskiy says the battle for Sievierodonetsk is taking a ‘terrifying’ toll on Ukraine – as it happened

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An industrial zone where about 500 civilians are sheltering is under heavy artillery fire from Russian forces, Reuters reported the regional governor saying.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that includes Sievierodonetsk, said on Facebook that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city and fighting there was fierce.

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Ukraine asks the west for huge rise in heavy artillery supply

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Zelenskiy adviser says far more hardware is needed to reach ‘heavy weapons parity’ with Russia and drive out its forces

Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.

The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, on Twitter on Monday where he argued that Ukraine needed “heavy weapons parity” to defeat Russia and end the war.

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Libel loss for Arron Banks gives welcome fillip to media industry

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Analysis: Ruling bucks trend for wealthy individuals to suppress public interest reporting via courts

The decision by a high court judge to dismiss a libel claim brought against the Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr by the multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks is a timely shot in the arm for public interest journalism.

Concerns have long been mounting that the legal landscape in England and Wales places excessive restrictions on reporting, with London – where the high court is situated – often described as the libel capital of the world.

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