Russian artillery is bombarding an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor has said. Serhiy Haidai said a bridge out of the city had been blown up, as fears grow for those who have not yet managed to leave. Ukrainian troops in Sievierodonetsk must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk said.
Russian forces have taken most of Sievierodonetsk, where fierce street fighting continues after a fire broke out at the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his nightly video address that Russia’s military was trying to deploy reserve forces to the Donbas region. Ukrainian troops reportedly remain in control of an industrial area.
Russia’s defence ministry said its missiles destroyed a large quantity of weapons and military equipment in the Donbas, including some sent from the US and Europe. It said high-precision air-based missiles struck near the Udachne railway station, hitting equipment that had been delivered to Ukrainian forces. It has not been possible to independently verify this claim.
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said Russia is using “weapons of mass destruction” in Ukraine. Both sides are using “increasingly heavy” weapons, Niinistö said, including, in Russia’s case, thermobaric bombs. Amnesty International accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on Kharkiv – many using banned cluster bombs – had killed hundreds of civilians.
About 1,200 bodies, some found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko. Criminal proceedings have been opened over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said. About 75% of the dead were men, 23% were women and 2% were children, he said.
Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea). With 61% of these exports – worth €56bn (£48bn) – going to the member states of the EU, the bloc remains Russia’s largest export market.
The UN’s rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described what she called the arbitrary arrests of a large number of anti-war protesters in Russia as worrying. Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has said he expects the war in Ukraine to last up to two years. Kasyanov, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, said he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly, and he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
River crossing operations are likely to be among the most important determining factors in the course of the war over the coming months, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest report. Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw from territory, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large-scale river crossings under fire, the report added.
A former British soldier has died fighting Russian forces in Sievierodonetsk. The British Foreign Office confirmed that Jordan Gatley was shot and killed in Ukraine. He left the British army in March “to continue his career as a soldier in other areas” and had been helping Ukrainian troops defend their country against Russia, his father, Dean, wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
