Here are the key events so far on Monday, June 13.
Get the latest update here.
Fighting
- Russian forces have blown up a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River, which links the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, local officials said.
- The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Russian forces should, in principle, be seeking to seize bridges rather than destroy them since they have struggled to get across the Siverskyi Donets River in the past.
- The self-proclaimed officials also celebrated Russia Day on Sunday and began issuing Russian passports to residents in Melitopol, Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency said.
- Moscow-backed officials are solidifying their hold on occupied territories by installing Russian flags in and around Melitopol and Mariupol, with the sign to the port city’s entrance painted in the Russian flag colours.
- Amnesty International accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Russian cluster bomb attacks, the rights body said.
- Ukraine has uncovered sabotage activities among 50 people in Lysychansk who were leaking Ukraine’s operational information to Russian forces to help Moscow with its offensive, the governor of Luhansk said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow’s tactics had not changed in the war and that poorly-trained Russian reserves were now being deployed in the battle for Donbas, where “every metre” is being fought over.
(Al Jazeera)
Diplomacy
- Security concerns raised by Turkey in its opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO are legitimate, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a visit to Finland.
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met President Zelenskyy in Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s candidacy for European Union membership that will be announced by the end of the week.
- The risk of nuclear war is higher today than ever since the height of the Cold War, an arms research institute concluded.
The human cost of the war
- Zelenskyy claimed Russian casualties since the start of the war may pass 40,000 in June.
- The governor of Luhansk said about 500 civilians remain in hiding at the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk.
- Three people were killed in Lysychansk on Sunday, including a six-year-old boy, and one person was injured, the governor of Luhansk said.
- Russian forces’ attacks on a residential area in Kryvyi Rih region of Dnipropetrovsk killed one woman and wounded five peope, the head of the Kryvyi Rih military administration said.
Economy
- Russian-owned successor of McDonald’s opened in Moscow three months after McDonald’s suspended operations in Russia.
- Ukraine has established two routes through Poland and Romania to export grain and avert a global food crisis although bottlenecks have slowed the supply chain, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said.
- QatarEnergy signed a partnership deal with TotalEnergies for the North Field East expansion of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project as Europe seeks alternatives to Russian energy.
