That’s it from the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
For a summary of the day’s events, see this afternoon’s summary here.
Poland said it will send 500 police to shore up security at its border with Belarus to cope with rising numbers of migrants crossing as well as any potential threats after the Wagner group of mercenaries relocates to Belarus.
“Due to the tense situation on the border with Belarus I have decided to bolster our forces with 500 Polish police officers from preventive and counter-terrorism units,” minister of Interior Mariusz Kaminski wrote on his Twitter account.
The police force would join 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers in securing the border, he said.
Poland has accused Belarus of artificially creating a migrant crisis on the border since 2021 by flying in people from the Middle East and Africa and attempting to push them across the frontier, Reuters reported.
Papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi said on Sunday his mission to Moscow on the Ukraine war was focused on humanitarian issues and had not involved any discussions of a peace plan.
Pope Francis had in May asked Zuppi, head of the Italian bishops’ conference, to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Zuppi met one of President Putin’s advisers, Yuri Ushakov, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, in Moscow this week. Earlier in June, he also visited Kyiv for talks with President Zelenskiy.
All the meetings “were important, especially in humanitarian aspects, which are what we have focused on. There is not a peace plan, not a mediation,” Zuppi told Italy’s state broadcaster RAI.
“There is a big aspiration that the violence will end and that human life can be preserved, starting with the protection of the little ones,” he said, adding he would meet with the pope in the coming days to discuss the outcome of the meetings.
Updated
Two British peers were among 50 people who attended a party organised by the Russian ambassador to the UK at his opulent residence in west London last month, to mark the creation of a Russia independent of the Soviet Union.
Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador, spoke at the event where he sought to justify his country’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, while those attending included the Conservative Lord Balfe and cross-bencher Lord Skidelsky.
An account of the event published by the Sunday Times includes pictures of Kelin, who is banned from the UK parliament, addressing an audience of about 50, including Russian embassy staff, foreign diplomats and a number of Britons.
Kelin reportedly said “in order to develop normally, Russia must first deal with significant threats to its security” – a clear reference to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine last February aimed at overthrowing the elected government of Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The ambassador also accused Britain of making a “big strategic miscalculation” by engaging in a confrontational approach to Moscow. The UK, alongside other western countries, has strongly supported Ukraine, providing arms and aid since the start of the war to help Kyiv restore its internationally recognised borders.
Updated
Afternoon summary
Key developments today:
Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv after a 12-day break, a Ukrainian military official said, with air defence systems destroying all targets on their approach. Ukraine’s air force said the attack included eight Iranian-made Shahed drones and three cruise missiles. One person was injured and three private houses were damaged.
Four civilians, including two in a direct hit on a high-rise building, have been injured by Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson, the prosecutor general’s office said. The attack on the residential area occurred at about 11.20am local time, with Russian forces firing from the occupied east bank of the Dnipro River to attack the city.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was in Odesa, where he paid tribute to those serving in the navy on Ukrainian Navy Day in a video posted on Twitter.
Ukrainian forces have continued to gradually advance on the flanks of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast, the Eastern Command spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi told national television. Ukrainian forces were “pressuring” Russian troops and liberating the territories, he said, though he did not mention how far the military had advanced, saying he would disclose it after the analysis on the ground.
Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s media holding company is to shut down, the director of one of its outlets said. Patriot Media, whose most prominent outlet was the RIA FAN news site, had taken a strongly nationalist, pro-Kremlin editorial line while also providing positive coverage of Prigozhin and the Wagner group. “I am announcing our decision to close down and to leave the country’s information space,” the RIA FAN director, Yevgeny Zubarev, said in a video clip posted late on Saturday on the holding company’s social media accounts. Zubarev gave no reason for the decision.
Poland will send 500 police officers to its border with Belarus, the Polish minister of the interior, Mariusz Kaminski, said. Last week, Warsaw announced a tightening of security because of concerns over the presence of the Wagner group in Belarus.
Forty diplomats and Russian embassy staff in Bucharest were to leave Romania on Saturday after a request from the government, with ties reportedly worsening between the two countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Eleven diplomats and 29 technical and administrative staff, accompanied by their families, “will leave Romania onboard a civilian aircraft belonging to a Russian airline”, the Romanian foreign ministry said.
The ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic party of Russia is working on a bill that would temporarily ban the travel of close relatives of high-ranking officials to “unfriendly countries”, the RIA state news agency reported. Russia considers all countries that have imposed sanctions on it over the invasion of Ukraine to be “unfriendly”.
Russia has cancelled its 2023 Maks international airshow, probably over security concerns after recent uncrewed aerial vehicle attacks inside the country, according to the latest intelligence report from the UK Ministry of Defence.
Updated
Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy is in Odesa where he has paid tribute to those serving in the navy on Ukrainian Navy Day in a video posted on Twitter.
The enemy will definitely not dictate the conditions in the Black Sea, and 🇷🇺 occupiers will have to be as afraid of approaching our 🇺🇦Crimea and our Azov Sea coast as Russian ships are already afraid of approaching our Black Sea coast. I thank every warrior of the Ukrainian Navy… pic.twitter.com/lWQqDgRTCe
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 2, 2023
Four civilians injured after Russian shelling in Kherson, says Ukraine
More details on shelling in Kherson.
Four civilians, including two in a direct hit into a high-rise building, have been injured by Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson, the prosecutor general’s office said on Sunday.
The attack on the residential area occurred at about 11.20am local time, with Russian forces firing from the occupied east bank of the Dnipro River to attack the city, the Kyiv Independent reports.
The attack also damaged the civilian infrastructure in the city, according to the report.
Kherson oblast, including the regional capital, has been shelled daily by Russian forces from the east bank of the Dnipro River since Ukrainian forces liberated the west bank during the counteroffensive campaign in the autumn of 2022.
Updated
Some of the latest images from Ukraine.
Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Updated
Ukrainian forces continue to gradually advance on the flanks of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast
Ukrainian forces continue to gradually advance on the flanks of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast, the Eastern Command spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi told national television today, the Kyiv Independent reports.
Ukrainian forces are “pressuring” Russian troops and liberating the territories, he said, though did not mention how far the military advanced, saying he would disclose it after the analysis on the ground.
Ukrainian forces are assaulting Russian positions on the southern and northern flanks, with a success near Klishchiivka and Kurdiumivka south of Bakhmut, it was reported.
Ukraine’s offensive operations near Bakhmut may force Russia to make a difficult decision on whether to pull defending forces from other regions of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest analysis.
Russia has already deployed reinforcements to the Bakhmut area, where Ukrainians reported making headway in clawing back captured territory, according to the report.
Updated
A Ukrainian commander has claimed the highly mobile French AMX-10 RC infantry fighting vehicles – sometimes described as light tanks – are “impractical” for frontline attacks, claiming one four-man crew has already died because of the vehicle’s thin armour.
President Zelenskiy of Ukraine thanked France’s President Macron for sending light combat tanks to Kyiv, and Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, was filmed riding in one.
Kyiv said in April that the French vehicles – designed for armed reconnaissance and attacks on enemy tanks – were already in service.
But AFP reports that a 34-year-old battalion commander within the 37th Marine Brigade, who uses the call sign Spartanets, said the tanks’ “thin armour” means they can be used as fire support, but not in frontline assaults.
“Unfortunately, there was one case when the crew died in the vehicle,” the major told AFP.
“There was artillery shelling and a shell exploded near the vehicle, the fragments pierced the armour and the ammunition set detonated.” The crew of four inside were all killed, he said.
“The guns are good, the observation devices are very good. But unfortunately there is thin armour and it is impractical to use them in the front line (attack),” Spartanets said.
The battalion commander reportedly compared the French-built vehicles unfavourably with MRAP-type armoured vehicles such as the US’s Oshkosh and Britain’s Husky, which he said could resist a direct strike by rocket-propelled grenades.
Updated
Several people injured after Russian shelling on Kherson, says Ukraine
Russian shelling hit a residential area in Kherson on 2 July, injuring several people, according to the regional military administration’s report as of 12pm, the Kyiv Independent reports.
A high-rise residential building, a pharmacy and a restaurant were struck by the shelling. The victims, now being treated in hospital, include a 50-year-old man.
Heavy combat is said to be continuing in Kherson, near the destroyed Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnieper river.
Updated
Russia launched an overnight drone attack on the Ukrainian capital after a 12-day break, a Ukrainian military official said, with air defence systems destroying all targets on their approach.
In video footage, blasts resembling the sound of air defence systems hitting targets could be heard, and orange flashes were visible in the sky, but there was no immediate information about the scale of the attack.
Wagner chief's media holding group to shut down
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s media holding group is to shut down, the director of one of its outlets said, highlighting the mercenary chief’s worsening fortunes a week after the collapse of a brief mutiny staged by his Wagner Group fighters, Reuters reports.
Under a deal that halted the mutiny, Prigozhin, a former ally of President Vladimir Putin, was allowed to go into exile in Belarus and his men given the choice of joining him, being integrated into Russia’s armed forces or returning home.
Patriot Media, whose most prominent outlet was the RIA FAN news site, had taken a strongly nationalist, pro-Kremlin editorial line, while also providing positive coverage of Prigozhin and his Wagner Group.
“I am announcing our decision to close down and to leave the country’s information space,” the RIA FAN director, Yevgeny Zubarev, said in a video clip posted late on Saturday on the holding’s social media accounts. Zubarev gave no reason for the decision.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Friday that the country’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor had blocked media outlets linked to Prigozhin, without elaborating. The watchdog could not be reached on Sunday for comment, Reuters said.
Russian media have also reported that a “troll factory” allegedly used by Prigozhin to influence public opinion in foreign countries including the US had been disbanded.
Updated
Poland will send 500 police officers to its border with Belarus, the Polish minister of the interior, Mariusz Kaminski, said on Sunday, Reuters reports.
“Due to the tense situation on the border with Belarus I have decided to bolster our forces with 500 Polish police officers from preventive and counterterrorism units,” he wrote on Twitter.
Last week, Warsaw announced a tightening of security due to concerns over the presence of the Wagner group in Belarus. The Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to offer troops from the private military company the choice of relocating to Belarus has led to fears among eastern Nato members that their presence will cause greater instability in the region.
On Wednesday, the leader of Poland’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) party, the deputy prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said Poland believed that there could be about 8,000 Wagner troops already in Belarus. He said Poland would take both temporary and permanent steps to strengthen the border, including boosting the presence of security forces and increasing fortifications.
Asked on Thursday whether Brussels should help Warsaw pay for such measures, the deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, said: “Poland expects it.”
Updated
Rossiya Airlines, part of Russia’s Aeroflot group, has reportedly resumed scheduled flights to Cuba, which had been suspended since western countries shut Russia out of their airspace in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The first flight of what will begin as a twice-weekly service took off for the Cuban resort of Varadero from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Saturday, Aeroflot said, Reuters reports.
Russian airlines suspended flights to Cuba, Mexico and the Dominican Republic on 28 February last year, four days after the invasion.
The deputy prime minister for tourism, sport, culture and communications, Dmitry Chernyshenko, announced in May that regular flights to Cuba skirting the airspace of “unfriendly” countries would resume by July.
Updated
Forty diplomats and Russian embassy staff in Bucharest were set to leave Romania on Saturday following a request from the government, with ties worsening between the two countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, AFP has reported.
Eleven diplomats and 29 technical and administrative staff, accompanied by their families, “will leave Romania onboard a civilian aircraft belonging to a Russian airline,” the Romanian foreign ministry said.
Romanian broadcasters showed an Ilyushin Il-96 aircraft landing at Bucharest airport. It was due to take off later on Saturday, according to airport sources quoted in the local press, AFP reported.
The decision “reflects the current level of bilateral relations … after Moscow launched its war of aggression against Ukraine”, the Romanian foreign ministry said.
The authorities made the request on 8 June, giving Moscow 30 days to comply.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming out of Ukraine:
More details coming in on the Russian drone strike on Kyiv overnight, Ukraine’s air force said the attack included eight Iranian-made Shahed drones and three cruise missiles which were all shot down.
One person was injured and three private houses were also damaged as a result of falling drone debris, the military head of the region, Ruslan Kravchenko said.
Updated
Russia has cancelled its 2023 Maks international airshow, likely due to security concerns after recent uncrewed aerial vehicle attacks inside the country, according to the latest intelligence report from the UK Ministry of Defence.
Russia has cancelled the 2023 iteration of Maks, its premier international airshow. Scheduled every other year, Maks takes place near Moscow and showcases Russia’s civil and military aerospace sectors and has become key to securing export customers.
The show has probably been cancelled largely due to genuine security concerns, following recent uncrewed aerial vehicle attack inside Russia. Organisers were highly likely also aware of the potential for reputational damage if fewer international delegations attended.
The war has been exceptionally challenging for Russia’s aerospace community. The sector is struggling under international sanctions; highly trained specialists are being encouraged to serve as infantry in the Roscosmos space agency’s own militia. Meanwhile, Commander in Chief of the Aerospace Forces, General Sergei Surovikin, has not been seen in public since the abortive mutiny by Wagner Group, for whom he served as point of contact with the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 2 July 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 2, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/Okgrw8EpKD
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Cx7q07BjNH
The ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is working on a bill that would temporarily ban the travel of close relatives of high-ranking officials to “unfriendly countries,” the RIA state news agency reports.
Russia considers all countries that have hit it with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine to be “unfriendly”.
Restrictions may also affect law enforcement officers, judges, top managers of state corporations, and the board of directors of the Central Bank.
A member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Sergei Karginov said trips to those western countries are “not only inadmissible, but also dangerous”.
Updated
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned of a “serious threat” that Russia could be ready to provoke a localised explosion at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the station, which could lead to a [radiation] release.
Zelenskiy cited Ukrainian intelligence as the source of his information and called for greater international attention to the situation at the facility, the largest nuclear plant in Europe. Since seizing it last year, Moscow has turned it into a military base from which it has bombarded Ukrainian towns across the Dnipro reservoir.
For more on this story:
Russia launches overnight drone strike on Kyiv
Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv after a 12-day break, a Ukrainian military official said, with air defence systems preliminarily destroying all targets on their approach.
“Another enemy attack on Kyiv,” said Serhiy Popko, a colonel general who heads Kyiv’s military administration. “At this moment, there is no information about possible casualties or damage.”
Witnesses reported hearing blasts resembling the sound of air defence systems hitting targets, but there was no immediate information about the scale of the attack.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, I’m Yang Tian bringing you the latest news.
Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv after a 12-day pause, a Ukrainian military official said. Air defence systems destroyed all targets on approach as the capital and a number of surrounding regions were under air raid alerts in the early hours of Sunday morning.
More details shortly, in other key developments:
Vladimir Putin’s admission that the Wagner group had been “fully funded” by the Russian state could make it easier for an international court to prosecute him for war crimes, experts in international law have said. In the year to May 2023 alone, Wagner reportedly received more than 86bn roubles from the state budget, or over a billion dollars.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that a “serious threat” remains at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that Russia is “technically ready” to provoke a localised explosion at the facility. Zelenskiy cited Ukrainian intelligence as the source of his information and called for greater international attention to the situation at the facility, the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
A 51-year-old man has been killed and two others injured by shelling in Mala Tokmachka, a village near the frontline in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhia, local officials said. The head of the local military administration, Yuriy Malashko, described the site as a “frontline community under merciless enemy fire”.
US president Joe Biden will host Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson next week to talk about transatlantic security cooperation and the war in Ukraine, the White House said. The two leaders “will review our growing security cooperation and reaffirm their view that Sweden should join Nato as soon as possible”.
Austria, a neutral country, announced its intention to join the European Sky Shield initiative, launched in 2022 by Germany against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer said the decision did not call into question the neutrality of the country but cited “a threat that has considerably worsened”. “We must and will take precautions to protect our country against the risk of drone or missile attacks,” he said.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez pledged the EU’s “unequivocal” support for Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv on the first day of Spain assuming presidency of the bloc. Sanchez said his visit “demonstrates a clear and unequivocal political commitment” to Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.
Ukrainian president Zelenskiy has expressed frustration over the slow deliveries of weapons and lack of clarity over pilot training by “some” western nations. “There is no schedule of training missions. I believe that some partners are dragging their feet. Why are they doing it? I don’t know,” Zelenskiy said.
Two children have been injured in the Russian shelling of a residential area in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, according to the regional governor. A nine-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy were injured and are receiving medical treatment.
