Summary
Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
It is currently 3am in the capital Kyiv. We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning.
In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the days’ events in our summary below.
- Russia has gathered almost all of its forces to storm the settlements near the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. “Decisive” battles are taking place in the area of Sievierodonetsk with the Russian leadership aiming to reach the borders of the Luhansk region by the end of the week, Maliar was quoted as saying.
- Russian officials have accused Ukraine of launching missile strikes against three gas rigs in the Black Sea south of Odesa, in an apparent escalation of Kyiv’s attempts to weaken Russia’s maritime dominance. Seven people were reported missing and three injured after the strikes on Monday, according to the head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov.
- A food warehouse in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa was destroyed by a Russian missile attack on Monday, according to the Ukrainian military. The military said Russian forces fired 14 missiles at southern Ukraine during a three-hour barrage “in impotent anger at the successes of our troops”. No civilians were killed, it said.
- Russia’s blockade of the export of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain is a war crime, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said. “We call on Russia to deblockade the ports … It is inconceivable, one cannot imagine that millions of tonnes of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger,” he said.
- Russia has demanded that Lithuania immediately lift a ban on the transit of goods on an EU sanctions list across its territory to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Russia’s foreign ministry demanded Vilnius immediately reverse what it described as an “openly hostile” move, warning Russia would respond to protect its interests. The ministry also said it will summon the European Union ambassador to Moscow, Markus Ederer, over the ban.
-
Turkey said it does not consider next week’s Nato summit as a final deadline for resolving its objections to Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance. Turkish presidential spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, reported no breakthrough in talks in Brussels but said discussions between Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki will continue.
-
Americans captured in Ukraine have been described by Moscow as “mercenaries” engaged in illegal activities and should take responsibility for their “crimes”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the detained men were not covered by the Geneva convention as they were not regular troops, according to Russia’s RIA news agency.
- The United States is in talks with Canada and other allies to further restrict Moscow’s energy revenue by imposing a price cap on Russian oil, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters on Monday. “We are talking about price caps or a price exception … that would push down the price of Russian oil and depress Putin’s revenues, while allowing more oil supply to reach the global market,” she said.
- The former director of the British special forces said the UK must “prepare for war” as a deterrent against Russia. The comment by Gen Sir Adrian Bradshaw came after the new head of the British army, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, told troops they must prepare “to fight in Europe once again”.
- Putin fears the “spark of democracy” spreading to Russia, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who said the Russian president was trying to divide Europe and return to a world dominated by spheres of influence. “The Russian President must accept that there is a community of law-based democracies in his neighbourhood that is growing ever closer together. He clearly fears the spark of democracy spreading to his country,” Scholz told the Muenchner Merkur newspaper.
- The upcoming decision whether to grant Ukraine candidacy for membership to the EU is making Russia “very nervous”, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his latest nightly address on Monday night. “We are moving towards the main decision of the European Council, which will be adopted on Friday. As I predicted, Russia is very nervous about our activity.”
- Palaces, yachts and vineyards reportedly provided to Vladimir Putin by friends and oligarchs can now be linked to what appears to be an informal network holding assets worth more than $4.5bn (£3.7bn). A digital paper trail appears to suggest an array of holiday homes and other assets reportedly used by the Russian president are linked through a common email domain name, LLCInvest.ru.
- Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, is to be banned from the parliamentary estate in Westminster “until further notice”, according to a message sent out by the Commons Speaker and the Lord Speaker this morning. The ban, which also applies to all other accredited Russian diplomats and officials in the UK, was confirmed in writing for the first time.
- The editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta is auctioning his Nobel peace prize medal, with the proceeds to go to helping children displaced by the war in Ukraine. Dmitry Muratov, whose 23-carat gold medal will go on sale in New York on Monday, said the sale was “an act of solidarity” with the 14 million Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion, which he called “a tragedy”.
Here is a quick snap from another Russian official responding to Lithuania’s ban on the transit of goods to the Russian outpost of Kaliningrad.
Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the delegation of the Russian Federation and permanent representative of Russia to the international organisations in Vienna, has spoken of “countermeasures” if the transit of goods is not restored.
Russia stated that if the transit of goods to and from Kaliningrad through Lithuania is not restored in the near future Moscow reserves the right to take countermeasures.
Very mild reaction at this stage despite the fact that Vilnius violated 2002 EU-Russia agreement.”
Russia stated that if the transit of goods to and from #Kaliningrad through #Lithuania is not restored in the near future Moscow reserves the right to take countermeasures. Very mild reaction at this stage despite the fact that Vilnius violated 2002 #EU-Russia agreement.
— Mikhail Ulyanov (@Amb_Ulyanov) June 20, 2022
