Summary
It’s 19:45 in Kyiv, and here’s a summary of the key developments from the day:
Ukraine says fighting has intensified on the eastern front as further details emerged about the number of Wagner fighters who have relocated to Belarus. “The situation has somewhat intensified in the east,” the Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Sunday. She added that Ukrainian forces were on the defensive near the eastern city of Kupiansk but making advances near Bakhmut.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia had a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and that Moscow reserved the right to use them if such munitions were used against Russian forces in Ukraine. He added that Russia had not yet used the weapons despite a “certain shortage of munitions at some point”. However, in April 2022, Russia was accused of using cluster munitions in the Kramatorsk railway station attack, which killed 63 civilians (including 9 children) and wounded 150 (including 34 children).
Russia said it downed at least 10 Ukrainian drones around Sevastopol on the Crimea peninsula.
Vladimir Putin said a Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory was “not succeeding” and that attempts to break through Russian defences had failed.
A Chinese naval flotilla set off on Sunday to join Russian naval and air forces in the Sea of Japan in an exercise aimed at “safeguarding the security of strategic waterways”, according to China’s defence ministry.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had shelled the Russian town of Shebekino near the Ukrainian border with Grad missiles, killing a woman who was riding her bike.
South Korea will provide more mine-clearing equipment to Ukraine, a South Korean official said on Sunday.
The Russian state has taken control of French yoghurt maker Danone’s Russian subsidiary along with beer company Carlsberg’s stake in a local brewer, according to a decree signed by Vladimir Putin on Sunday. The decree said that foreign-owned stakes in Danone Russia and Baltika breweries were being put under the ‘temporary management’ of government property agency Rosimushchestvo.
One man was killed and another wounded in Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, while seven were injured in a village in Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
Russia’s security apparatus entered a period of confusion and negotiations after the Wagner group’s mutiny and an interim arrangement for the future of the group had started to form in recent days, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s latest intelligence update.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said redoubling support for Ukraine was the “single best” way to aid the global economy, AFP reported.
Wagner group fighters have arrived in Belarus from Russia, according to Ukrainian and Polish officials, a day after Minsk confirmed the mercenaries were training the country’s soldiers south-east of the capital, Reuters reported.
UK defence secretary Ben Wallace walked back on his remarks that Ukraine should show “gratitude” for the military support it had received, saying they were “misrepresented”. Wallace tweeted a clarification in Ukrainian to pledge his support for the invaded country and said his comments were not about governments, but more about “citizens and members of parliaments”.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair said it would be “completely disastrous” if the US rowed back support for Ukraine in the event of Donald Trump being re-elected as US president. He also told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that said Ukraine had done an “extraordinary” job in defending itself but when asked what the endgame looked like he said the path would be “extremely difficult”.
That’s it for today from me. Thank you for following along. For more updates, follow our live coverage tomorrow.
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