The European Union is set to add Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank and the head of giant zinc and copper firm UMMC to its black list of individuals and companies accused of supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. A new list of 48 officials and nine entities to be blacklisted, prepared by the EU foreign affairs service, also includes leaders of the Night Wolves motorcycle club, actors, politicians, the deputy head of a Russian security service, family members of sanctioned oligarchs and military people.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will discuss the export of Ukrainian grain at their meeting in Tehran on Tuesday.
Russian forces shelled a town in eastern Ukraine, killing six people, according to Ukrainian officials. “Early in the morning, the town of Toretsk was shelled. A two-storey building with people inside was destroyed,” Ukraine’s state emergency services said. “Rescuers found and recovered the bodies of five dead people in total. Three people were rescued from the rubble and one of them died in hospital.”
Russia has struggled to sustain effective offensive combat power and the problem is likely becoming increasingly acute, according to British military intelligence. It says “As well as dealing with severe under-manning, Russian planners face a dilemma between deploying reserves to the Donbas or defending against Ukrainian counterattacks in the south-western Kherson sector.”
There are currently unverified reports that there are explosions in occupied Kherson. Video clips being circulated on social media appear to suggest that the targets may have been the Kherson International Airport at Chornobaivka and one of the bridges that cross the Dnipro river.
At least one person was killed in a Russian missile strike on the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, the regional governor said. Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said the attack caused loud explosions and a fire in a residential building.
Ukraine’s parliament has confirmed the removal of Ivan Bakanov and Iryna Venediktova from their posts. There was confusion when on Sunday night Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had dismissed them, but on Monday a presidential aide said they were suspended. The Verkhovna Rada has confirmed their exits today. Zelenskiy’s childhood friend, Ivan Bakanov, will be replaced by Vasyl Maliuk, a former first deputy head of the SBU who led the anti-corruption and organised crime unit of the agency’s central directorate. Venediktova is expected to remain in some capacity at the prosecutor general’s office.
Ukraine has received the bodies of another 45 servicemen “in accordance with the norms of the Geneva Convention” according to a statement from the ministry of reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
A 16-year-old Ukrainian boy has described how he was held hostage by Russian soldiers for 90 days as he heard other prisoners being tortured in a nearby cell. His vivid account of his time in captivity is a depiction of violent interrogations involving brutal beatings, and confirms other reports of Russian and pro-Russian separatist forces mistreating detainees.
Russia has claimed to have killed at least 260 members of the Ukrainian forces in the last 24 hours, to have shot down one helicopter and four drones, and claims – without producing evidence º that Kyiv is carrying out forced mobilisations in the Donetsk region, including confiscating private vehicles for use in military formations.
The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, has said that the village of Novye Yurkovichi was shelled from Ukrainian territory. He reported there were no casualties, but posted to Telegram an image of damage to a road. The village is to the north of Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, close to where the borders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus meet.
North Korea could send workers to two Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s ambassador in Pyongyang. His comments come days after North Korea became one of only a few countries to recognise the two territories, accusing the Ukrainian government of being part of Washington’s “hostile” stance towards Pyongyang.
The United States will continue to provide intelligence to Ukraine despite recent changes in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s inner circle, the US state department said on Monday. Zelenskiy removed his security service chief and top prosecutor from office on Sunday. US state department spokesperson Ned Price said: “We invest not in personalities, we invest in institutions. We do have an intelligence-sharing relationship with our Ukrainian counterparts ... We continue to proceed ahead with that.”
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Monday as she began a series of high-profile appearances in Washington that will include a session with US counterpart Jill Biden.
Russia’s Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of “extraordinary” circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The Russian state gas monopoly said it was declaring force majeure on supplies, starting from 14 June.
Turkey has said a meeting with Ukraine, Russia and the UN this week to discuss resuming Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports is “probable”, while a Turkish official said lingering “small problems” should be overcome.
Erdoğan has threatened once again to “freeze” Sweden and Finland’s Nato bids unless the military alliance complies with his conditions. “I want to reiterate once again that we will freeze the process if these countries do not take the necessary steps to fulfil our conditions,” he said. Last month, Erdoğan urged the two countries to “do their part” in the fight against terrorism, accusing them of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish militants.
Ukraine will break diplomatic ties with Belarus if its forces cross the border in support of the Russian invasion, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview with Forbes. “Belarus is an accomplice to the crime of aggression, there is no doubt about that. We broke off diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation immediately after the start of the full-scale attack. Relations with Belarus will likewise be severed if the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus cross the border of Ukraine,” he said.
Foreign ministers from European Union countries have agreed another €500m (£425m) of EU funding to supply arms to Ukraine, taking the bloc’s security support to €2.5bn since February. “Today at the EU foreign ministers’ meeting, a political agreement was reached on the fifth tranche of military assistance to Ukraine,” Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs, Ann Linde, said.
Putin said it would be impossible to cut Russia off from the rest of the world, adding that sanctions imposed by western countries would not turn the clock back on Russia’s development.
EU foreign ministers are discussing a ban on Russian gold imports to further curb funding for the Kremlin’s war machine. The EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said the ban on Russian gold was the most important measure of the latest plan, which is focused largely on “improving the implementation of the already existing sanctions”.
The independent Russian TV station, Dozhd, has begun broadcasting from abroad. The outlet was blocked in March as the government cracked down on independent media outlets following the invasion of Ukraine.
