Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s most senior adviser, Andriy Yermak, has suggested Poland is willing to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters. Yermak said Ukraine had had “positive signals” from Warsaw in a Telegram posting, although Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was careful to stress his own country would only act in consultation with Nato allies, as Ukraine’s lobbying for the combat jets steps up only a few days after Germany and the US agreed to send over their tanks.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for western weapons to be supplied more quickly. Speaking in his nightly address, the Ukrainian president said Russia was hoping to drag out the war, and exhaust his country’s ability to resist the invaders. “So we have to make time our weapon. We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.
The Kremlin warned the west’s supplying of further weapons to Ukraine would only lead to “significant escalation” of the conflict. Kyiv “demands more and more weapons” while Nato countries were “more and more becoming directly involved in the conflict”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, after Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Andriy Melnyk, called on Germany to send his country a submarine.
Russian forces continued attacks on positions across the frontline near the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Donetsk. Moscow’s troops have been pounding Bakhmut in the Donbas for several months, but in recent days the invaders appeared to have opened up a new effort to gain ground around the village of Vuhledar, 30 miles south-west of Donetsk city.
The situation in Bakhmut and Vuhledar was “very tough” with both and “other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks”, President Zelenskiy said. Vuhledar is close to the junction with the southern Zaporizhzhia front and considered a hinge point for both sides, but remains held by the Ukrainians despite a claim by the leader self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic to the contrary.
Ukraine’s military and Russia’s Wagner private military group are both claiming to have control in the area of Blahodatne, eastern Donetsk region. “Units of Ukraine’s defence forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of … Blahodatne … in the Donetsk region,” Ukraine’s military reported, adding its forces also repelled attacks in 13 other settlements in the Donetsk region. Wagner, designated by the US as a transnational criminal organisation, said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday that its units had taken control of Blahodatne.
Russian shelling of residential areas in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson left at least three people dead and 10 injured, local authorities said. The Kherson regional military administration said on its Telegram channel that Russian forces targeted a hospital, school, bus station, post office, bank and residential buildings in a strike on Sunday.
A missile hit an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, killing one person and injuring three others, according to the regional governor. Oleh Synehubov said the missile struck the city centre on Sunday, and that an elderly woman’s body had been pulled from the rubble. He said 15 residents of the building were evacuated immediately after the explosion, and will be provided with temporary accommodation.
Ukraine’s state-run energy operator Ukrenergo has said there is a “significant” deficit in the country’s energy system due to damage caused by Russian missile attacks. Ukraine’s energy system had “survived” 13 rocket attacks and 15 drone strikes from Russian forces, which had “caused significant damage to high-voltage facilities and power plants”, it added.
Ukraine’s military will spend nearly $550m (£444m / €505m) on drones (UAVs) in 2023, and 16 supply deals have already been signed with Ukrainian manufacturers, defence minister Oleksii Reznikov has said. Ukraine has received significant supplies of UAVs from its partners but Kyiv is now seeking to boost domestic production to build what officials cast as an “army of drones”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv on Monday. The pair “reviewed the state of the region’s energy infrastructure, the means of its protection and the pace of recovery”, and discussed the impact of Russian missile and drone strikes, Zelenskiy posted to Telegram.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has urged South Korea to increase military support to Ukraine, suggesting it reconsider its policy of not exporting weapons to countries in conflict. Stoltenberg thanked South Korea for its non-lethal aid to Ukraine, but urged it to do more, adding there is an “urgent need” for ammunition.
The UK’s defence minister, Ben Wallace, has said that the tanks donated to Ukraine will arrive on the frontline “this side of the summer”. Britain should be “really proud” of having led the world in supporting Ukraine and standing up to Russian aggression, prime minister Rishi Sunak has said.
The president of Croatia, Zoran Milanović, has criticised western countries for supplying Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons. Speaking to reporters in Zagreb, Milanović said he was “against sending any lethal arms” to Kyiv, arguing that supplying Ukraine with weapons only “prolongs the war” and that Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized and annexed by Russia in 2014, will “never again be part of Ukraine”.
Delays in the provision to Ukraine of western long-range fires systems, advanced air defence systems, and tanks have limited Ukraine’s ability to seize opportunities for larger counter-offensive operations presented by Russian military failures, according to a Washington-based thinktank. Western delays in providing necessary military aid exacerbated “stalemate” conditions and the ability to regain significant portions of territory, the Institute for the Study of War said.
Boris Johnson has said Vladimir Putin claimed he could have sent a missile to hit Britain “within a minute”, in a call shortly before the invasion of Ukraine. “He sort of threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute’, or something like that,” Johnson said in a three-part documentary for BBC Two on the conflict and the lead-up to Russia’s invasion in February last year.
President Tayyip Erdoğan signalled that Turkey may agree to Finland joining Nato without Sweden, amid growing tensions with Stockholm. “We may deliver Finland a different message [on their Nato application] and Sweden would be shocked when they see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake Sweden did,” Erdoğan said in a televised speech aired on Sunday. Sweden and Finland applied last year to join Nato and need all member countries’ approval to join. Turkey and Hungary are holding out.
The new US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was heckled by a crowd of people chanting anti-US slogans as she entered the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow to present her diplomatic credentials. Protests in Russia – particularly on issues related to the war – are effectively banned unless they have the backing of the authorities.
Poland could supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters, Kyiv suggests
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s most senior adviser has suggested Poland is willing to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters as Ukraine’s lobbying for the combat jets steps up only a few days after Germany and the US agreed to send over their tanks.
Andriy Yermak said Ukraine had had “positive signals” from Warsaw in a Telegram posting, although Poland’s prime minister was careful to stress his own country would only act in consultation with Nato allies.
“We coordinate all actions aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defence forces with our Nato partners,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference where he announced plans to lift his country’s defence spending to 4% of GDP when asked about the jets. Any possible transfer of fighter jets would come “in full coordination” he added.
Ukraine began its lobbying campaign for the US-made jets almost immediately after Germany and the US said they would supply Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks, but this time its effort could be successful more quickly.
The deputy US national security adviser, Jon Finer, said last week that Washington would be discussing the idea of supplying fighter jets “very carefully” with Kyiv and its allies, while other reports said there was growing support for the idea in the Pentagon.
The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, on Monday wryly noted that:
I think what we know about all these demands is that … the initial response is no and it ends up being yes.
