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Summary of today's developments
Before we launch our new liveblog, here is a comprehensive rundown of where the situation currently stands:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the situation in the town of Borodyanka was “much worse” than in nearby Bucha, where Russian forces’ suspected killings of civilians received global condemnation. Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, added: “Borodyanka is the worst in terms of destruction and in terms of the uncertainty about [the number of] victims.”
- Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said 26 bodies had been found under two ruined buildings in Borodyanka, a town about 25km west of Bucha. She did not say if the authorities had established the cause of death, but accused Russian troops of carrying out airstrikes on the town, which is being searched by Ukrainian authorities after Russian troops occupying it withdrew.
- The Kremlin has admitted suffering “significant losses” of troops since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, in a rare admission of how badly the war has gone. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he hoped the besieged city of Mariupol would be “liberated from nationalistic battalions” sooner rather than later.
- Zelenskiy highlighted the bravery of his nation in his latest late-night national address. “Being brave is our brand,” he said, while calling for bolder sanctions on Russia. He also claimed Russian troops were preparing “elaborate propaganda scenarios” to make it look like civilians they had killed in Mariupol were killed by Ukrainian soldiers.
- A Russian airstrike on a railway near Barvinkove station in Donetsk Oblast has blocked three evacuation trains from leaving, according to reports. Thousands of passengers who were meant to be evacuated on the trains have been placed at the station, according to the Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske.
- Boris Johnson is set to meet the German Chancellor as they look to discuss how to help European countries wean themselves off Russian gas following the attack on Ukraine. Johnson will host Olaf Scholz at Downing Street on Friday, with a press conference planned for the afternoon, PA Media reports.
- Britain is preparing to announce a fresh package of military aid for Ukraine and has demonstrated new missile systems and armoured vehicles that it believes can help Kyiv in the next phases of fighting.
- The European Union approved an embargo on Russian coal imports and the closing of the bloc’s ports to Russian vessels over the Ukraine war. The measure will take effect from mid-August.
- In addition to the sanctions, the EU also backed a proposal to boost its funding of arms supplies to Ukraine by 500 million euros, taking it to a total of 1.5 billion euros.
- Ukraine is bracing for a renewed Russian offensive on its eastern front, as Russian forces withdraw from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their attacks across the Donbas region. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the besieged southern city of Mariupol was holding out and that he believed the Russian efforts to surround Ukrainian troops in the east would be in vain. The mayor of Dnipro, a city in central-eastern Ukraine, urged women, children and elderly people to leave. Similar calls were made by authorities in the Luhansk region, east of Dnipro.
- The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, says more than 100,000 people still urgently need to be evacuated from the city. Speaking on national television, he described the situation in the Russian-besieged Ukrainian port city as a humanitarian catastrophe.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had confirmed more than 100 attacks on health services in Ukraine, as it called for humanitarian access to the besieged city of Mariupol.
- The United Nations general assembly voted to suspend Russia from the UN human rights council over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” by invading Russian troops in Ukraine. Ninety-three countries voted in favour of the US-led motion, while 24 countries voted against and 58 countries abstained.
- Russia will probably renew its attack on Kyiv if it succeeds in taking full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Hruzevych, said. The Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, earlier warned that Russian forces were biding their time as Moscow ramped up intelligence operations there and learned how best to fight Ukrainian troops.
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US defence secretary Lloyd Austin contradicted these claims, saying he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has given up on conquering Kyiv after his forces were beaten back by the Ukrainian military.
- General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the war would be a “long slog” at the US Senate armed services committee in a hearing in Washington DC.
- Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said allies had agreed to strengthen support for Ukraine, and were providing “a wide range” of weapon systems, as well as cybersecurity assistance and equipment to protect against chemical and biological threats. There was no sign Vladimir Putin intended to pull back, he added.
- The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining Nato was part of the discussion between foreign ministers from the military alliance in Brussels this week, a senior US State Department official said.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called for more heavy weaponry from western allies and “ruinous” sanctions against Moscow, warning: “Either you help us now – and I’m speaking about days, not weeks – or your help will come too late, and many people will die.”
- G7 foreign ministers condemned “in the strongest terms” the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha and a number of other Ukrainian towns. In a joint statement, ministers spoke of “haunting” photographs of mutilated bodies, alleged executions and reports of sexual assaults by Russian troops.
- German intelligence agencies have intercepted radio messages from Russian soldiers discussing the killings of civilians in Ukraine, according to reports. Two separate communications are said to have been intercepted in which Russian soldiers describe how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and then proceed to shoot them, the Washington Post cited an intelligence official as saying.
- Russia has imposed sanctions on Australian and New Zealand citizens, including their prime ministers, the Russian foreign ministry announced.
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Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was wounded in Ukraine during an attack that killed two of his colleagues, said on Thursday that he had sustained serious injuries but felt “pretty damn lucky” to have survived.
