Here are the key events so far on Friday, June 10.
Get the latest updates here.
Fighting
- The Ukrainian army has said its forces continue to frustrate Russian attempts to take the fiercely contested eastern city of Severodonetsk. The regional governor said Russians were “dying like flies”, but added that the Ukrainian forces were suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of artillery.
- The commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street fighting in Severodonetsk to neutralise their artillery advantage.
- The Russian army is sending its men into Severodonetsk “like cannon fodder”, the secretary of Ukraine’s security council said.
- Russian forces destroyed “one of the symbols of Severodonetsk”, a large sports complex called the Ice Palace, Luhansk’s governor said.
- The Russian-occupied region of Kherson is the “Kremlin’s laboratory of horrors” in which Moscow-backed authorities are abusing the rights of civilians and local politicians, the US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, said.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported “positive” news from the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, but did not provide details, and said Ukrainian forces are gradually advancing in the eastern Kharkiv region.
- A court in a separatist-controlled breakaway region of eastern Ukraine issued death sentences to two British citizens and one Moroccan national, who were captured while fighting for the Ukrainian army against Russian forces, according to media reports.
- The Ukrainian foreign ministry has said the death sentences handed down to British and Moroccan nationals fighting for Ukraine should be considered null and void.
Diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared himself to Peter the Great, and spoke of Russia’s need to “take back [territory] and defend itself”.
- Finland plans to amend border legislation to allow the building of barriers on its eastern frontier with Russia in a move to strengthen preparedness against hybrid threats amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega authorised Russian troops, planes and ships to deploy to Nicaragua for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response.
- President Zelenskyy appealed to European Union leaders to support Ukraine’s membership in the bloc. Ukraine’s bid for EU candidate status is expected to be considered at the end of June.
- Zelenskyy spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday to provide him with an update on the situation on the war’s front lines and to discuss additional defence support for Ukraine.
Economy
- The breakaway eastern Ukrainian regions backed by Moscow have said they will soon start shipping grain to Russia, the TASS news agency reported.
- More than 400 million Canadian dollars ($314.8m) in Russian assets and transactions involving people sanctioned as a result of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, the Canadian police said.
- Russia may be getting more revenue from its fossil fuels now than shortly before its invasion of Ukraine, as global price increases offset the effect of Western efforts to restrict its sales, US energy security envoy Amos Hochstein told lawmakers.
- The UN food agency said “many vulnerable countries are paying more but receiving less food” amid growing food security amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
- The Kremlin said no agreement had been reached to sell grain from Ukraine to Turkey – grain which Ukraine says Russia has stolen – but that work on a deal was continuing. Moscow denies stealing the grain but the US says there are credible reports that Russia is “pilfering” it.
