A Ukrainian senior defence official has repeated that its troops are advancing in all directions of their counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces. “If we talk about the entire frontline, both east and south, we have seized the strategic initiative and are advancing in all directions,” deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.
Russia is gradually reducing the number of personnel at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southern Ukraine, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Friday. The GUR said that among the first to leave the nuclear power station were three employees of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom who had been “in charge of the Russians’ activities”. It said Ukrainian employees who have signed a contract with Rosatom had also been advised to depart. Employees should leave by 5 July, it said, and have been told to preferably head for the Crimea peninsula.
Overnight the Russian army attacked military infrastructure facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine’s air force claimed four S-300 missiles and 13 “Shahed” drones were fired, and air defence forces shot down ten drones.
Ukraine’s general staff has claimed that it struck the headquarters and storage depots of Russian troops in the suburbs of Berdiansk. Local Russian-imposed officials said that air defence had repelled the attack. Video distributed on social media appeared to show smoke rising over the occupied city.
In Kramatorsk, a makeshift memorial has been set up carrying pictures of some of the people killed in a missile strike on a restaurant earlier this week. Twelve people died and at least 56 people were injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. Russia claimed the strike was on a military target.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that he believes the west is aiming to freeze the conflict in Ukraine to buy time to pump more arms into the country. He also accused the west of having a “schizophrenic” approach to the conflict, saying they first wanted to see Russia lose on the battlefield and for its leaders to go on trial – and only then to press for peace in Ukraine. Lavrov also described the west’s attitude to the Black Sea grain deal as “outrageous” and lamented the fact that grain was not being exported to the world’s poorest countries.
Wagner mercenaries will no longer fight in Ukraine after their leader refused to sign contracts with the Kremlin. Yevgeny Prigozhin refused to sign the contracts, according to the head of the Duma defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov. Overnight, the BBC has been reporting that recruitment continues at Wagner mercenary offices across Russia, despite the fallout from the weekend’s armed mutiny.
Sweden’s prime minister said on Friday his Hungarian counterpart had assured him that Budapest would not delay the Nordic country’s Nato accession, following reports that Hungary’s parliament would delay a ratification of the membership.
Hungary rejects the European Commission’s plans to grant more money to Ukraine and is not willing to contribute additional money to finance the EU’s increased debt service costs, prime minister Viktor Orbán told state radio on Friday.
Poland has detained a Russian ice-hockey player playing for a first division Polish team on spying charges, prosecutors said on Friday, describing him as the 14th person that had been arrested from one espionage network.
The Kremlin has declined to answer questions about the whereabouts of Sergei Surovikin amid unconfirmed reports that the Russian army general had been detained and was being questioned by the security services. US intelligence has claimed that Surovikin, who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine, had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s uprising, in which Wagner mercenaries captured the city of Rostov-on-Don and moved on Moscow before striking an amnesty deal. Surovikin has not been seen in public since Saturday. Asked if the Kremlin could clarify the situation with Surovikin, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said: “No, unfortunately not. So I recommend that you contact the defence ministry. This is its prerogative.”
Former US President Donald Trump has said now is the time for the US to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and that Vladimir Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by Wagner’s aborted mutiny. “I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. Trump said everything would be “subject to negotiation” if he were president.
Mike Pence met Volodymyr Zelenskiy Thursday during surprise Ukraine trip. Pence is the first Republican presidential candidate to meet the Ukrainian president during the US campaign. Pence told NBC News: “Coming here just as a private citizen … just steels my resolve to do my part, to continue to call for strong American support for our Ukrainian friends and allies.”
The Russian-imposed acting governor of the occupied Kherson region on Thursday denied claims that Ukrainian troops had succeeded in establishing any kind of bridgehead over the Dnipro river at the location of the Antonivskyi Bridge. He has also claimed that Russian forces repelled multiple landing attempts in the area.
Russia said it was opening criminal cases against what it claimed to be 160 mercenaries from 33 different countries who were operating on behalf of Ukrainian forces in the country.
