Closing summary
The blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
At least two people have been killed and 19 injured in a Russian drone attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy. A five-year-old boy was among the injured. An official building and two residential buildings were damaged in an attack carried out with four drones, the regional administration said on Telegram.
The US ambassador to Russia met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Moscow. Lynne Tracy met with Gershkovich on Monday after being granted access, her second visit since his detention in March. She has accused Russia of conducting “hostage diplomacy.” On Thursday, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told reporters that the country has tried to get consular access to Gershkovich “virtually every day.”
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones of Ukraine into Russian territory, the head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, has said. Grigory Karasin said on the Telegram app: “In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine.” Moscow claims its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in conflict zones.The international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged forced deportation of children.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN that the war would not be over while Crimea was under Russian occupation. “We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea is under the Russian occupation, it means only one thing: the war is not over yet,” he said. Asked whether there was any scenario under which there could be peace without Crimea, Zelensky said: “It will not be victory then.”
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has restated that Ukraine is making incremental gains in both the east and the south, and said that 37.4 sq km (14.4 sq m) of territory had been reclaimed. On the Telegram messaging app Maliar said Ukrainian forces were advancing in the Bakhmut direction, adding that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region. She said: “Heavy fighting is going on there now.”
Ukrainian authorities have charged a former top security official with treason, says Kyiv’s domestic intelligence agency. Oleh Kulinich, who headed the security service of Ukraine’s (SBU) Crimea directorate, was arrested last July over accusations of recruiting other Russian-friendly operatives on orders from Moscow. If convicted, Kulinich faces up to 15 years in prison.
Russia’s top election official has warned President Vladimir Putin that the Russian Federation may need to abandon plans to hold elections in the regions it claims to have annexed from Ukraine in September, depending on the military situation at the time. It is currently planned that the five regions would hold regional and municipal elections on 10 September, along with the rest of the Russian Federation.
An international office to investigate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine opened on Monday in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow’s leadership. It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about payments to the Wagner group was “like direct evidence” that Wagner’s mercenaries were an illegal arm of the Russian army in the war, Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Andriy Kostin, has said while in The Hague.
There is no need for a further mobilisation in Russia to replace Wagner fighters who have left the battlefield in Ukraine after a short-lived mutiny, Russian state media said on Monday, quoting Andrey Kartapolov, head of the state duma’s defence committee.
The Russian-imposed leader in occupied Kherson, Andrey Alekseyenko, has stated that the damage to the Chongar Bridge linking Kherson and Crimea has been repaired. It was struck by Ukrainian forces in June.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that Russian security forces have claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate the Russian-imposed head of Crimea. It claims Sergei Aksyonov was to be targeted with a car bomb. The Russian Federation illegally seized Crimea in 2014.
The European Union is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network, the Financial Times has reported. The move would be aimed at safeguarding the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, the newspaper said on Monday. A Kremlin spokesperson said there were “not too many hopes" Black Sea grain deal would be extended.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, is due to meet the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, on Monday.
Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq has commented on the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire this month, telling reporters on Monday that officials had been in touch with “a number of nations, including European nations, to find creative ways in which exports of food and fertiliser from the Russian Federation could be expedited.”
The Financial Times reported on Monday that the EU was considering a proposal for the Russian Agricultural Bank to set up a subsidiary to reconnect to the global financial network, as an incentive for Moscow to extend the deal.
In response, Olha Trofimtseva, Ukraine’s foreign ministry ambassador at large, said the EU wanted “to somehow facilitate the grain deal”.
“On the one hand, any opportunities for agricultural exports are good. On the other hand, making concessions to a blackmailer means encouraging him to continue blackmailing,” she wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Two court cases related to the war were heard in Russian courts on Monday. Both were reported on by Reuters.
In a military court in the Serbian city of Tomsk, a Russian soldier was sentenced to seven years in prison for twice escaping from his army unit.
According to the court, which identified the man by the initial K, the soldier was called up for service last September during what the Russian government described as a “partial” mobilisation of 300,000 reservists.
It said K absconded from his unit in mid-December and was caught on 3 March. Later that month, he deserted again before being found in early April.
In Tula, a city 120 miles south of Moscow, a Russian man who was investigated by police after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school told a court on Monday that he would rather face capital punishment than be separated from her.
Alexei Moskalyov was sentenced in March to two years in a penal colony for discrediting the Russian army. He fled house arrest in the town of Yefremov, in the Tula region south of Moscow, and escaped to Belarus, but was quickly rearrested and returned to Russia.
At an appeal hearing on Monday, Moskalyov delivered an emotive speech in which he said “my heart bleeds every day” at the separation from his teenage daughter Masha, and said he would prefer the death penalty.
Moskalyov was convicted over comments he himself was alleged to have posted online about Russia’s war in Ukraine. But the investigation started after Masha, then 12, drew a picture last year showing Russian missiles raining down on a Ukrainian mother and child, prompting the head of her school to call the police.
Masha was removed from her father and placed in a children’s home before his trial. She is now living with her mother, who is estranged from Moskalyov, but father and daughter can still write to each other.
A family support group said some people in the courtroom cried when Moskalyov read out a letter from Masha in which she called him the world’s best father and told him: “We will be together, whatever happens.”
Updated
Reuters reports that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and German chancellor Olaf Scholz have called for the extension of the Black Sea grain deal.
The two made the call during a phone conversation on Monday, Scholz’s spokesperson said.
The deal, which allows the safe export of grain and fertilisers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, will expire on 18 July.
Earlier on Monday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said there were “not too many hopes” the Black Sea grain deal would be extended.
A five-year-old child was among the 19 injured in the Sumy drone attack, the region’s military administration said on Telegram.
Four of the injured are in hospital, two of whom are in intensive care.
Updated
Uilleam Blacker has translated a poem by Victoria Amelina, the Ukrainian writer killed by a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk, titled Poem About a Crow, which is inspired by her work interviewing women who lived through Russian occupation.
Below are the opening lines:
Poem About a Crow
In a barren springtime field
Stands a woman dressed in black
Crying her sisters’ names
Like a bird in the empty sky
She’ll cry them all out of herself
Unilever has been named as an international sponsor of war by the Ukrainian government after the Marmite, Dove and Domestos owner became subject to a law in Russia obliging all large companies operating in the country to contribute directly to its war effort.
The move came as campaigners called on Unilever’s new boss, Hein Schumacher, who started work this weekend, to withdraw from Russia, where its local business continues to sell “essential” products from tea to ice-cream, after evidence emerged that it paid Moscow $331m in taxes last year.
The Ukraine Solidarity Project (USP) on Monday erected a giant billboard outside the Anglo-Dutch consumer group’s London headquarters featuring pictures of wounded Ukrainian soldiers – posing in the style of the Dove beauty brand’s advertisements – and the slogan: “Helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Unilever was placed on the sponsors of war list on Monday alongside companies including Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest manufacturer of household chemicals and personal care products, and the French supermarket group Leroy Merlin.
It is thought that a new law in Russia could lead to the conscription of Unilever’s 3,000-strong workforce in Russia across its four manufacturing sites and head office.
Sumy drone attack death toll rises to two
Reuters reports that at least two people have been killed and 19 others wounded in a Russian drone attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Monday.
An official building and two residential buildings were damaged in an attack carried out with four drones, the Sumy regional administration said on Telegram.
Zelenskiy: war not over 'while Crimea is under Russian occupation'
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the war would not be over while Crimea was under Russian occupation.
Speaking to CNN on Monday, Zelenskiy said: “We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea is under the Russian occupation, it means only one thing: the war is not over yet,” he said.
Asked whether there was any scenario under which there could be peace without Crimea, Zelensky said: “It will not be victory then.”
Updated
US ambassador meets with jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich in Moscow
The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on Monday after being granted access, her second visit since his detention in March.
Tracy visited Gershkovich at Moscow’s Lefortovo prison on Monday. On 22 June, a court upheld a request from Russia’s FSB security service to extend the reporter’s detention to at least 30 August while he awaits trial. Gershkovich’s lawyers appealed against the FSB’s request.
Russia has said Gershkovich was caught trying to obtain military secrets while on a trip to the Russian city of Ekaterinburg, but has provided no evidence to support this claim.
Tracy last met with Gershkovich in April, after his 29 March arrest. She has accused Russia of conducting “hostage diplomacy.”
On Thursday, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told reporters that the the country has tried to get consular access to Gershkovich “virtually every day.”
Moscow has said no exchange could take place in Gershkovich’s case until a verdict has been reached. No date has been set for his trial.
Updated
Family of Alexei Navalny file lawsuit against penal colony over its refusal to let them visit
The family of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have filed a class-action lawsuit against the penal colony where he is being held over its refusal to let them visit him, Reuters reports.
“The whole Navalny family, including my parents, Yulia, Dasha and Zakhar, filed a class action lawsuit today and are determined to go all the way to the constitutional court,” Navalny said on Monday in a post on his official Twitter page, which is run by his lawyers and allies.
“I am a convict. And they never cease to remind me that I am like everyone else. But I’ve had zero visits in the last year. Zero long visits, zero short visits and two phone calls 11 months ago,” Navalny said.
“The general rule here is that I am entitled to three long visits, [lasting] three days and three short visits [lasting] 4 hours through the glass, per year, as well as a minimum of six phone calls,” he added.
Navalny, 47, is serving sentences totalling about 11 years in the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo, about 145 miles east of Moscow, on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up to silence his criticism of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
A new trial for alleged “extremist” activity began against Navalny last month, which could extend his prison term by decades. Acquittals of opposition figures are practically unheard of in Russia.
1/12 Who do you think is in this picture?
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) July 3, 2023
These are the plaintiffs. The whole Navalny family, including my parents, Yulia, Dasha and Zakhar, filed a class action lawsuit today and are determined to go all the way to the Constitutional Court. pic.twitter.com/Qpyc5yZdKG
Updated
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget A Brink, said “Russia must be held to account for its actions”, referencing the death of celebrated Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who was killed by a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in Kramatorsk.
Quote tweeting a statement from the US embassy in Colombia about Amelina, Brink said: “More heartbreaking loss due to Russia’s strikes on civilians.
“Russia must be held to account for its actions.”
More heartbreaking loss due to Russia's strikes on civilians.
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) July 3, 2023
Russia must be held to account for its actions.
Ще більше жахливих втрат через російські удари по мирному населенню.
Росія має відповісти за свої дії. https://t.co/xcAzNmexnv
Updated
The head of Russia’s navy, Nikolai Yevmenov, met Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu in Beijing on Monday, Tass reports.
The two men discussed strengthening cooperation in the Pacific.
On Friday, Japan’s defence ministry said it had spotted two Russian navy ships in the waters near Taiwan and Japan’s Okinawa islands in the previous four days. This followed on from a similar announcement that week from Taiwan.
Updated
Here are two images that have come through on the news wires showing the aftermath of the shelling of a residential building in Zaporizhzhia region.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports there will be two services for the celebrated Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina who was killed by a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in Kramatorsk.
On its Telegram channel for Lviv it posted:
Farewell to the deceased Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina will take place on 4 July in Kyiv in the St Michael’s Cathedral and on 5 July in Lviv, in the Garrison Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
Updated
Official warns Putin that 'elections' in areas Russia claims to have annexed may be postponed if situation deteriorates
Russia’s top election official has warned President Vladimir Putin that the Russian Federation may need to abandon plans to hold elections in the regions it claims to have annexed from Ukraine in September, depending on the military situation at the time.
Russia unilaterally claimed to annex Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson last year after holding so-called referenda, which were widely decried as a sham. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
It is currently planned that the five regions would hold regional and municipal elections on 10 September, along with the rest of the Russian Federation.
Reuters reports Ella Panfilova, who chairs Russia’s central election commission, told Putin: “Since the situation is really difficult, anything can happen.”
“If unforeseen circumstances arise – in some areas the situation may deteriorate dramatically - and we see that there is a serious danger to the life and health of residents, then we have the right to postpone these elections,” she said.
“We will certainly use this right if there are serious reasons for it.”
Putin replied: “Understood.”
Panfilova did not explain how it had been possible last year to hold the “referendums” in similar circumstances and claim they were free and fair.
Updated
The Russian-imposed acting governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, claims Russian forces have thwarted repeated attempts by Ukrainian troops to cross the Dnipro River near the Antonovsky Bridge in small groups, Tass reports.
He also claimed Russian forces sank a Ukrainian boat in the middle of the Dnipro River on Sunday night where “no one survived”.
Saldo told Tass: “The enemy seeks to remotely booby-trap the approaches to our positions on the left bank and cross the river in small groups on individual boats. Despite the enemy’s artillery fire, our fighters promptly conduct demining activities and use artillery to sink vessels. For instance, last night, our artillery units sank a boat with troops in the middle of the Dnipro; no one survived,” Saldo said.
He noted that Russian forces “continue to strengthen their positions on the left bank and reinforce them with firepower, hitting the enemy’s positions on the right bank with artillery and retaliating by booby-trapping the approaches to the Antonovsky Bridge.”
Updated
Ukrainian authorities have charged a former top security official with treason, says Kyiv’s domestic intelligence agency
Ukrainian authorities have charged a former top security official with treason, Kyiv’s domestic intelligence agency said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Oleh Kulinich, who headed the security service of Ukraine’s (SBU) Crimea directorate, was arrested last July over accusations of recruiting other Russian-friendly operatives on orders from Moscow.
Investigators said Kulinich was working for Russia’s Federal Security Service and was overseen by other former Ukrainian officials who had defected to Moscow.
“This is a clear signal to all those who work for the enemy: the SBU will definitely find you and make you answer for what you have done,” SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, who oversaw the operation to detain Kulinich, said in a statement.
If convicted, Kulinich faces up to 15 years in prison.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year hailed Kulinich’s arrest as part of a process of “self-purification”.
Ukrainian authorities are also investigating Andriy Naumov, a former head of the SBU’s department of internal security, who turned up in Serbia last year in a car stuffed with cash and emeralds, police said.
Updated
RIA, a Russian state-owned news agency, reports that an object resembling a mine was found in a post office in central Moscow. Emergency services told RIA that more than 20 people were evacuated.
Kremlin spokesperson says there were 'not too many hopes' Black Sea grain deal would be extended
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday there were “not too many hopes” the Black Sea grain deal would be extended, Reuters reports.
The deal, which under Russia has guaranteed the safety of grain ships heading to and from Ukrainian ports through waters it controls, will expire on 18 July.
The Financial Times reported on Monday that the EU was considering a proposal for the Russian Agricultural Bank to set up a subsidiary to reconnect to the global financial network, as an incentive for Moscow to extend the deal.
When the deal was signed in July 2022, the UN and Russia also signed a memorandum of understanding committing the UN to facilitate unimpeded access of Russian fertiliser and other products to global markets.
To fulfil the memorandum, Russia says several conditions must be met, including the readmission of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the Belgian-based international banking payment system, Swift.
Asked to comment on the FT story, Peskov said: “So far we have nothing to report on the implementation of that part of the agreement that concerned the Russian side.
“For the time being, we state that this part of the agreements is still not fulfilled. There is still time for the deadline to expire, but there is not much hope.”
Rosselkhozbank did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the FT report, or on the status of any talks with the EU.
Updated
Ukraine has retaken 14.4 sq miles (37.4 sq km) of territory previously occupied by Russia in the past week, Reuters reports.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Monday that Kyiv’s troops were advancing in the Bakhmut direction of eastern Ukraine and that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region in the east.
Ukraine had reclaimed 9 sq km over the past week along the eastern front “as a result of improving the operational [tactical] position and aligning the frontline”, Maliar said.
In the south, Ukraine has regained 28.4 sq km of territory, bringing the total area of recaptured territory along that front to 158.4 sq km, Maliar added.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were making progress in its counteroffensive to retake Russian occupied territory but added that last week was “difficult”.
Russia said over the weekend that its forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks near villages around Bakhmut and in areas further south, particularly near the hilltop town of Vuhledar. It also reported success in containing Ukrainian troops in the north-east.
Updated
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, claims its forces have destroyed over 900 pieces of Ukrainian military equipment in areas where Ukraine is conducting a counteroffensive to regain occupied territory.
Shoigu said 15 aircraft, 3 helicopters and 920 armored vehicles, including 16 Leopard tanks, have been destroyed in the Yuzhnodonetsk, Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions, Russian-state media outlet RIA reports.
Shoigu added that since 4 June, Ukrainian troops have lost about 2,500 weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Ukrainian forces were making progress in its counteroffensive to retake Russian occupied territory but added that last week was “difficult”.
Updated
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Monday that Ukrainian forces were making progress in its counteroffensive to retake Russian occupied territory.
On Telegram, Zelenskiy wrote: “Last week was difficult on the frontline. But we are making progress.
”We are moving forward, step by step! I thank everyone who is defending Ukraine, everyone who is leading this war to Ukraine’s victory!”
Updated
One person killed in Sumy drone attack
One person has been killed in a drone attack on a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, the country’s defence ministry said.
On Twitter, the ministry claimed the civillian died after an attack by Russian drones.
russians attacked Sumy with drones and hit a residential building.
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 3, 2023
UPD. A civilian was killed.#russiaisaterroriststate pic.twitter.com/EfnibtSwB1
Reuters reports that Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said on Monday that the aborted mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group last month did not affect Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, in his first comments about the mutiny.
Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, wanted the minister dismissed. Shoigu said that plans to destabilise Russia had failed because of troops’ loyalty.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones of Ukraine into Russian territory, the head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, has said. Grigory Karasin said on the Telegram app: “In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine.” Moscow claims its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in conflict zones.The international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged forced deportation of children.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has restated that Ukraine is making incremental gains in both the east and the south, and said that 37.4 sq km (14.4 sq m) of territory had been reclaimed. On the Telegram messaging app Maliar said Ukrainian forces were advancing in the Bakhmut direction, adding that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region. She said: “Heavy fighting is going on there now.”
An international office to investigate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine opened on Monday in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow’s leadership. It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about payments to the Wagner group was “like direct evidence” that Wagner’s mercenaries were an illegal arm of the Russian army in the war, Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Andriy Kostin, has said while in The Hague.
There is no need for a further mobilisation in Russia to replace Wagner fighters who have left the battlefield in Ukraine after a short-lived mutiny, Russian state media said on Monday, quoting Andrey Kartapolov, head of the state duma’s defence committee.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that a residential building in Sumy has been damaged by a drone strike, after explosions were heard in the city.
The Russian-imposed leader in occupied Kherson, Andrey Alekseyenko, has stated that the damage to the Chongar Bridge linking Kherson and Crimea has been repaired. It was struck by Ukrainian forces in June.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that Russian security forces have claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate the Russian-imposed head of Crimea. It claims Sergei Aksyonov was to be targeted with a car bomb. The Russian Federation illegally seized Crimea in 2014.
The European Union is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network, the Financial Times has reported. The move would be aimed at safeguarding the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, the newspaper said on Monday.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, is due to meet the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, on Monday.
Updated
Hungary will ask the EU for a one-year extension of an exemption from sanctions against Russia that allows refiner Slovnaft to export products refined from Russian oil to the Czech Republic, Reuters reports Hungary’s foreign minister as saying on Monday.
Updated
Ukraine’s chief prosecutor has issued a statement commending the opening of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression (ICPA) in The Hague.
On social media, Andriy Kostin wrote:
The long-awaited day has arrived: the ICPA officially begins work!
This is the beginning of the end of impunity for the crime of aggression. From today, Ukrainian prosecutors will work in The Hague.
The ICPA is of particular importance to Ukraine — it is a clear signal that the world is united and steadfast in holding the Russian regime accountable for all its crimes: the crime of aggression, genocide, and war crimes.
Unfortunately, there is a gap in the architecture of international criminal justice regarding responsibility for the crime of aggression. The ICPA will be one of the elements that will strengthen the legal mechanisms for the prohibition of aggression, complement and strengthen this architecture.
We are sincerely grateful to each of the partners who contributed to the creation of the Centre.
I am firmly convinced that together we will be able to restore justice. This means the inevitable punishment of the aggressor — Russia, which unleashed the bloodiest war in Europe and continues to violate international law and human rights every day.
Updated
The Russian-imposed leader in occupied Kherson, Andrey Alekseyenko, has stated that the damage to the Chongar bridge linking Kherson and Crimea has been repaired.
In a message on Telegram, he said “Transport communication between the Kherson region and the Crimea through Chongar, disrupted after the barbaric Nazi attack on the road bridge on 22 June, has been completely restored. The shortest and most convenient transport corridor, where the recently renovated section of the federal highway passes, operates as before.”
Russia illegally seized Crimea in 2014.
Ukrainian journalist, and co-founder of the Reckoning Project Nataliya Gumenyuk writes for the Guardian today in the wake of the killing of writer Victoria Amelina at a restaurant by a Russian missile strike:
Exactly a year before the attack on the restaurant in Kramatorsk, Russia attacked a shopping mall in Kremenchuk – far from the frontline – killing 21 people, mainly employees. We’ve just published the investigation: the Ukrainian prosecutors identified that the types of missiles used here were used in subsequent civilian attacks, killing at least 21 people near Odesa and 46 sleeping at home in Dnipro. A picture is building of brutal, targeted civilian attacks.
For legal experts, a buildup of evidence like this leads to more action, a stronger case. It’s the opposite for the media. The more often these attacks happen, the more attention wanes. Talking to international media while working on war crimes documentation, I mention how reporters and editors – intrigued by “a newer type of crime” – are getting bored as long as I mention victims of the missile attacks. “But isn’t that just how war works?” they ask.
Russia has managed to normalise these civilian missile strikes, and even though it’s possible to identify the type of weapon and prove that something was a civilian target, lawyers are hesitant to engage when public pressure is lacking.
Strikes against civilians are treated as inevitable tragedies of the war. But they are also crimes that must be investigated, whatever our political views and stance on the conflict.
Read more here: Nataliya Gumenyuk – My friend was out for pizza when the missile hit. Putin’s targeting of civilians must be punished
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that a residential building in Sumy has been damaged by a drone strike, after explosions were heard in the city.
More details soon …
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, is due to meet the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, today. However, there is not expected to be a press conference.
Updated
Ukraine’s state emergency service has issued some pictures of firefighters working on the right-bank of the Kherson region over the weekend. Suspilne reports that 12 fires have broken out in the area in the last 24 hours after Russian shelling, ten of them in residential areas.
Emergency service workers report being “under constant fire” while trying to deal with the fires, which have all now been extinguished.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that Russian security forces have claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate the Russian-imposed head of Crimea. It claims Sergei Aksyonov was to be targeted with a car bomb.
Tass quotes the press service of Russia’s FSB as saying: “An assassination attempt on the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov, organised by the special services of Ukraine, was suppressed. The bomber did not have time to bring the criminal intent to the end, since he was detained.”
A video clip released showed a man in custody making a confession of being recruited by Ukrainian special services. The Russian Federation illegally seized Crimea in 2014.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that yesterday, “Russian troops fired 117 times on the liberated settlements of Luhansk region. Six residential buildings were destroyed by shelling. There are no dead or injured civilians.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Ukraine claims further small territorial gains on eastern and southern fronts
In her regular operational update, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has re-stated that Ukraine is making incremental gains in both the east and the south, and said that 37.4 sq km (14.4 sq m) of territory had been reclaimed.
On the Telegram messaging app Maliar said Ukrainian forces were advancing in the Bakhmut direction, adding that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region.
Reuters reports she said “Heavy fighting is going on there now.”
Ukraine had reclaimed nine square kilometres over the past week along the eastern front “as a result of improving the operational position and aligning the frontline”, Maliar said.
In the south, Ukraine has regained 28.4 km of territory, bringing the total area of re-captured territory along that front to 158.4 km, Maliar claimed.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Ukraine says Putin comments on Wagner funding 'direct evidence' it was illegal arm of Russian army
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about payments to the Wagner group was “like direct evidence” that Wagner’s mercenaries were an illegal arm of the Russian army in the war, Ukraine’s top prosecutor has told Reuters.
Putin said last week that Wagner and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had received almost £1.58bn ($2bn / €1.84bn) from Russia in the past year.
Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin made the comments in The Hague where he was attending the opening of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression on Monday. [See 6.59am BST]
He said Putin’s comments about state spending on Wagner was “like direct evidence that they are not only de facto, but probably, illegally, also are part of the Russian army”. The use of mercenaries by states in armed conflict is banned under the Geneva conventions.
Among more than 93,000 incidents of potential war crimes Kostin’s office was investigating were many atrocities Wagner forces committed, Kostin said.
They are “among the most severe crimes against our civilians and our prisoners of war,” he added.
Kostin appealed to allies, including the US and Britain, to classify Wagner as a terrorist organisation so it can be prosecuted and its assets frozen.
“Prigozhin is already a suspect in criminal proceedings in Ukraine, but the main thing is to stop the activity of such groups,” he said.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, on Belarus’s independence day on Monday, Reuters reports the Kremlin said in a statement.
In another development, Russia’s ambassador to Cuba said Putin had an invitation to visit the island, but it was too early to talk about preparations for such a trip.
Putin has made limited trips outside Russia in recent years, but also has invites to attend the Brics summit in South Africa, and an invite to Beijing to reciprocate Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow.
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An air alert has just been declared over several regions in southern and eastern Ukraine, including Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Kharkiv and Sumy.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
International centre probing Ukraine war opens in The Hague
An international office to investigate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will open on Monday in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow’s leadership.
Agence France-Presse reports that the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression (ICPA) features prosecutors from Kyiv, the EU, the US and the international criminal court (ICC).
It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine war.
Senior officials would hold a press conference at the ICPA at the headquarters of the EU’s judicial agency, Eurojust, scheduled to begin at 11.15am (0915 GMT), Eurojust said in a statement. They included Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, US assistant attorney general Kenneth Polite and EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders.
Calls for a special tribunal on Ukraine have mounted because the ICC, a war crimes court also based in The Hague, the Netherlands, has no mandate to investigate the broader crime of aggression. The ICC is probing more specific war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin in March over alleged child deportations.
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No need for new military draft to replace Wagner troops, says defence official
There is no need for a further mobilisation in Russia to replace Wagner fighters who have left the battlefield in Ukraine after a short-lived mutiny, state media said on Monday, quoting a defence official.
“There is no threat at all regarding a drop in the combat potential, both in the mid-term and long-term perspective,” Andrey Kartapolov, head of the state duma’s defence committee, was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency Tass.
Reuters reports he also said:
At the time of the rebellion, there were no Wagner PMC [private military company] employees at the forefront, they were all in camps. As for replacing them [Wagner] in the reserve, there is something and someone to replace them with.
The Wagner group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces against Russia’s top military brass just over a week ago, embarrassing the Kremlin. He later abandoned his advance on Moscow and struck a deal with the Kremlin under which he accepted exile in neighbouring Belarus.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, President Vladimir Putin in September ordered a “partial” military call-up to boost regular forces in the first military mobilisation in Russia since the second world war.
Hundreds of thousands of men have been drafted, while tens of thousands more have fled abroad.
On 13 June – before the Wagner rebellion – Putin told reporters there was “no such need” for any additional mobilisation.
The European Union is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve-out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network as a sop to Moscow, the Financial Times has reported.
The move would be aimed at safeguarding the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, the newspaper said on Monday.
The plan, which was proposed by Moscow through negotiations brokered by the UN, would allow the bank to create a subsidiary to handle payments related to grain exports, the FT said, citing people with knowledge of the matter, Reuters reports.
The new entity would be permitted to use the global Swift financial messaging system, which was closed to the largest Russian banks following the Ukraine invasion last year.
Russia’s envoy to the United Nations in Geneva said there were no grounds to maintain the “status quo” of the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire on 18 July, the Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on Monday.
Reuters reports that envoy Gennady Gatilov told the outlet that the implementation of Russia’s conditions for the extensions of the agreement was “stalling”. Those conditions included the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the Swift banking payment system.
Gatilov told Izvestia:
Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes. However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo.
The Black Sea deal, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the UN and Turkey in July last year, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from Black Sea ports.
The UN said last week it was concerned no new ships had been registered under the Black Sea deal since 26 June despite applications by 29 vessels.
President Vladimir Putin has suspended Russia’s participation in the pact but both sides have pledged to continue to respect its limits and there since has been “direct contact” between Moscow and Washington on the issue.
Moscow has removed 700,000 children from Ukraine, says Russian MP
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones of Ukraine into Russian territory, the head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, has said.
Grigory Karasin said on his Telegram messaging channel late on Sunday:
In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine.
Reuters also reports that Moscow says its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in conflict zones.
However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the US says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.
Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war, which began in February 2022.
In July 2022, the US estimated that Russia had “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s ministry of integration of occupied territories says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.
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Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. This is Adam Fulton and here’s a rundown on the latest developments in a week that is set to reach 500 days since Moscow’s forces invaded the country.
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones of Ukraine into Russian territory, a senior Russian MP has said.
Grigory Karasin, the head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said on Telegram that that number was from “recent years” as children fled the fighting in Ukraine.
More on that story shortly. In other news:
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.
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.
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.
