Summary
We will be pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine for the next few hours.
Before we return, here is a comprehensive rundown of where things currently stand.
- Kharkiv has been hit by fresh strikes amid fears the city is still on Russia’s agenda. At least nine civilians were killed, including a child, and 19 injured, authorities said. “Today, the occupiers shelled Kharkiv again. At the moment, the list of the dead includes nine people. 19 wounded. All civilians,” Zelenskiy said. Residents have been urged to go to, or remain in, shelters.
- Officials in Ukraine have admitted that Russia has the “upper hand” in fighting in the country’s east. The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said just 5% of the area now remained in Ukrainian hands – down from about 10% little more than a week ago – and that Ukrainian forces were retreating in some areas. “The Russian army has thrown all its forces at taking the Luhansk region,” he said in a video on Telegram. “Extremely fierce fighting is taking place on the outskirts of Severodonetsk. They are simply destroying the city, they are shelling it every day, shelling without pause.”
- The Kremlin has rejected claims that Russia has blocked grain exports from Ukraine, blaming the west for creating such a situation by imposing sanctions on Russia. The UK’s foreign minister, Liz Truss, accused Vladimir Putin of “weaponising” hunger through Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian grain exports. A senior Turkish official said Ankara was in “ongoing” talks with Russia and Ukraine to open a corridor via the Bosphorus.
- Two captured Russian soldiers have pleaded guilty to shelling a town in eastern Ukraine, in the second war crimes trial since Russian troops invaded the country. Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov acknowledged being part of an artillery unit that fired at targets in the Kharkiv region from Russia’s Belgorod region.
- There are about 8,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war held in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, the Luhansk official Rodion Miroshnik has said. “That’s a lot, and literally hundreds are being added every day,” Miroshnik was quoted by the Russian Tass news agency as saying.
- The deputy prime minister of the Russian-appointed Crimean government, Georgy Muradov, has said the Sea of Azov is “forever lost to Ukraine”. Russia’s Ria news agency also quoted a Russian-appointed official in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region as saying that the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions would never be returned to the control of the Kyiv.
- Russia has deployed mobile propaganda vans with large-screen televisions to humanitarian aid points in the captured city of Mariupol. The Orwellian turn comes as the Kremlin continued to push forward with efforts to integrate newly occupied territories across the south of Ukraine.
- Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has said China’s cooperation with Vladimir Putin after his invasion of Ukraine “raises alarm bells”. Blinken criticised the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, for defending Putin’s “war to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty” and said it was “a charged moment for the world”.
- Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president who is a close Putin ally, has ordered the creation of a new military command for the south of the country bordering Ukraine. The Belarusian armed forces previously said they would deploy special operations troops in three areas near its southern border with Ukraine. Lukashenko has also talked up the role of Russian-made missiles in boosting the country’s defences.
- Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, said that “weapons, weapons and weapons again” are what the country needs. “We need more heavy weapons delivered as soon as possible, especially MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) to repel Russian attacks,” Kuleba said.
- The US is preparing to send advanced, long-range rocket systems to Ukraine after an urgent request from Ukrainian officials, multiple officials reportedly told CNN. Kuleba said Ukraine’s most urgent need is for multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to counter Russian superiority in heavy weaponry. Zelenskiy also referred to the weapons as “the systems that are really needed to stop this aggression” in his latest address.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has complained about divisions inside the European Union over more sanctions against Russia and asked why some nations were being allowed to block the plan. “How many more weeks will the European Union try to agree on a sixth package?” Zelenskiy asked in his latest national address. “Pressure on Russia is literally a matter of saving lives,” he added.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi held a phone call to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the issue of global food security on Thursday. Speaking to journalists after the call, Draghi said he would continue talking to both Moscow and Kyiv to resolve the food crisis, but added that he had little optimism for ending the war. “When asked if I have seen any glimmer of hope for peace, the answer is no,” he said.
- Russian troops occupying the south-eastern port city of Mariupol have cancelled school summer holidays to prepare pupils for switching to a Russian curriculum, according to officials. “The main goal is to eradicate everything Ukrainian and prepare for the new school year, which will be according to the Russian curriculum,” city official Petro Andryushchenko said.
Ukrainian president Zelenskiy has provided a little more information on the recent attack on Kharkiv, which killed at least nine civilians, including a child, and injured 19.
Today, the occupiers shelled Kharkiv again. At the moment, the list of the dead includes nine people. 19 wounded. All civilians. A child (five months) and a father were killed. The mother is in grave condition. Among the wounded in Kharkiv is also a nine-year-old girl.”
Missile strikes continues in the Sumy region, in Donbas again, he added.
“Significant intensification of the occupiers’ artillery in the Zaporizhzhia region again. Again, their efforts to burrow into the ground in the south.”
