Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:
The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine. Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.
Nato allies on Monday reached agreement on regional plans detailing how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, overcoming a Turkish blockage one day before leaders meet for a summit in Vilnius, three diplomats told Reuters. Nato had for decades seen no need for large-scale defence plans, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.
Associated Press reports that Putin has met with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader, just days after a short-lived rebellion by the mercenary chief and his private army. According to the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, a three-hour meeting took place on 29 June, which also involved commanders from the military company Prigozhin founded. Prigozhin has had a longstanding conflict with Russia’s top military brass which on 24 June culminated in an armed mutiny in which he led his fighters into Russia.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he wants to work with allies to discuss a pathway for Ukraine to join Nato, but the exact mechanism is up for discussion, his spokesperson said on Monday, following talks with the US president, Joe Biden. The spokesperson said it would not be appropriate for Ukraine to join Nato when the war with Russia was going on, but Sunak believed Ukraine’s “rightful place” was within alliance.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has thrown a surprise obstacle in the way of a plan from Joe Biden for Swedish accession to Nato by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Turkey’s EU bid is not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared to introduce a new hurdle for Sweden to clear before joining the military alliance. The Turkish president told reporters in Istanbul: “Turkey has been waiting at the door of the EU for over 50 years now, and almost all of the Nato member countries are now members of the EU.”
Norway will extend the presence of its Nato forces in Lithuania until 2024, its government said on Monday. Norway has been a part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania since 2014, Reuters reports the government said in a statement, adding that its contribution consists of about 150 people.
Reuters reports that Russia will continue to co-operate with Beijing and can count on China’s “friendly shoulder”, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Monday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. “We can count on a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” Valentina Matvienko said.
The Australian government will send a surveillance aircraft to Germany to help monitor the flow of military and humanitarian supplies into Ukraine. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the deployment after talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin on Monday, a day before attending a Nato summit in Lithuania where the war in Ukraine will dominate discussions.
Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut. Earlier, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.
A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023. Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”. The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.
Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of about 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday. Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s.
Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say “following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato”. The “membership action plan” (MAP) is a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.
The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in London for talks with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said that foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania. Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.
A substantial announcement on Germany delivering military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for this evening. Thanks for following along.
Nato allies on Monday reached agreement on regional plans detailing how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, overcoming a Turkish blockage one day before leaders meet for a summit in Vilnius, three diplomats told Reuters.
Nato had for decades seen no need for large-scale defence plans, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.
But with Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 raging just beyond its borders in Ukraine, it is now warning that it must have all planning in place well before a conflict with a peer adversary such as Moscow might erupt.
Turkey had been blocking approval of the plans over the wording on geographical locations such as Cyprus.
Nato leaders gather in Vilnius on 11-12 July for a summit that will discuss Sweden’s membership and the alliance’s future relationship with Ukraine.
An elderly woman walks next to buildings destroyed in the Russian strike on Sunday Orikhiv, a town in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine.
More on the meeting between Stoltenberg, Erdogan and Kristersson from Reuters:
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is meeting with the leaders of Turkey and Sweden in Vilnius as he seeks to break the deadlock over Stockholm’s NATO membership bid.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson are in the Lithuanian capital for a NATO summit that will start on Tuesday.
NATO last year invited Sweden to join the alliance, but Turkey has been blocking the ratification of that decision.
In an unexpected move, Erdogan said on Monday the European Union should open the way for Ankara’s accession to the bloc before Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s NATO bid.
Here’s our Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer’s take on the meeting between Putin and Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. He writes:
The Kremlin has said the Wagner group head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, met Vladimir Putin on 29 June, five days after his mercenary fighters marched towards Moscow in an aborted rebellion.
The Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Putin invited 35 senior Wagner commanders including Prigozhin to the Kremlin, adding that the meeting lasted three hours.
The Kremlin’s statements reveal Prigozhin has travelled to Russia at least once since the deal brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, under which the warlord abandoned his military march on Moscow in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.
According to Peskov, Prigozhin assured Putin during the meeting that his Wagner troops were loyal to the country and the Russian president.
“The commanders outlined their version of what happened [on 24 June]. They emphasised that they are staunch supporters of the head of state … and also said that they were ready to continue to fight for their homeland,” Peskov said.
Peskov did not comment on Prigozhin’s whereabouts, which remain unclear. Last week, Lukashenko said Prigozhin was in St Petersburg despite Peskov stressing that the deal under which Prigozhin relocated to Belarus “remained relevant”.
Read the article in full here:
The Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg is holding a meeting with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson at the summit in Vilnius to discuss Sweden’s Nato membership bid, Reuters is reporting.
Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has reported on wrangling between Turkey, the US and the EU. He writes:
Joe Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece.
But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”
Erdoğan’s remarks suggest diplomats’ eve-of-summit efforts to lift the year-long Turkish veto on Sweden’s membership of Nato will be even more complex than envisaged. Turkey has been in talks over joining the EU in one form or another since 1987 but there is no enthusiasm for letting such a large country with a questionable human rights record join.
The US president held further last-minute talks with Erdoğan on his flight to Europe on Sunday but no breakthrough occurred during their nearly hour-long conversation, according to the White House.
Read the full article here:
Scholz: Turkey’s EU bid not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Turkey’s EU bid is not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared to introduce a new hurdle for Sweden to clear before joining the military alliance.
The Turkish president told reporters in Istanbul: “Turkey has been waiting at the door of the EU for over 50 years now, and almost all of the Nato member countries are now members of the EU.”
Speaking in Berlin, Scholz responded: “Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership.” He added: “The other question is one that is not connected with it, and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”
Erdoğan did not make it clear if Ankara’s long-stalled bid to join the EU was genuinely a new condition for Swedish accession to Nato, or if it was simply an issue Turkey wanted to get the ball rolling on again.
The White House, like Scholz, sought to downplay any link.
Reuters reports a White House national security council spokesperson said the US had always supported Turkey’s EU membership aspirations, and continued to do so, but added that those discussions were a matter between Turkey and the bloc’s members.
“Our focus is on Sweden, which is ready to join the Nato alliance,” the US spokesperson continued.
Earlier in the day, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, expressed his support for Turkey’s ambition to become an EU member.
Updated
Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership
The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.
The summit will be dominated by discussions on membership options for Ukraine, resolving the dispute between Turkey and Sweden over the latter’s accession to the alliance, and the question of cluster munitions being supplied to Ukraine.
Nausėda said a prospect of membership was extremely important to Ukraine, which had been “heroically fighting the Russian monster for almost one and a half years”, and that “we must avoid Ukraine membership ... becoming a horizon. The more you walk towards it, the farther it is”.
Nato appears to have been clear that the door remains open and that Ukraine is expected to join eventually, but has been hesitant to put a timetable on it.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had sharp words about the prospect, saying: “You know the absolutely clear and consistent position of the Russian Federation that Ukraine’s membership in Nato will have very, very negative consequences for the security architecture, the already half-destroyed security architecture in Europe. And it will be an absolute danger, a threat to our country, which will require from us a sufficiently clear and firm reaction.”
Updated
Norway will extend the presence of its Nato forces in Lithuania until 2024, its government said on Monday.
Norway has been a part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania since 2014, Reuters reports the government said in a statement, adding that its contribution consists of about 150 people.
Canada pledged on Monday to deploy up to 1,200 more troops in Latvia as part of a Nato plan to reinforce its battalions, deterring Russian aggression in the Baltic region.
Updated
The Australian government will send a surveillance aircraft to Germany to help monitor the flow of military and humanitarian supplies into Ukraine.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the deployment after talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin on Monday, a day before attending a Nato summit in Lithuania where the war in Ukraine will dominate discussions.
Albanese also confirmed previous reports that Australia would join the German-led Climate Club, a new international grouping that is expected to focus on reducing emissions in heavy industry and bringing “green steel” and “green hydrogen” on to the market quickly.
Updated
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he wants to work with allies to discuss a pathway for Ukraine to join Nato, but the exact mechanism is up for discussion, his spokesperson said on Monday, following talks with the US president, Joe Biden.
The spokesperson said it would not be appropriate for Ukraine to join Nato when the war with Russia was going on, but Sunak believed Ukraine’s “rightful place” was within alliance.
“We want to work with the US and our allies on the pathway for Ukraine to join,” the spokesperson told reporters.
Updated
Colin Kahl, US undersecretary of defence, visiting the UK alongside President Joe Biden, told an audience at the Chatham House thinktank that there was resistance in the White House to any suggestion “that there’s a degree of automaticity or immediacy” to Nato membership for Ukraine on the eve of the military alliance’s summit.
The idea of Ukrainian membership should not be “temporally bounded, but conditions based” he added, using cautious language in line with previous US comments on the topic. Kahl also emphasised that, from Biden’s point of view, Ukraine had also to engage with “a whole host of domestic and security reform issues,” a reference to clamping down on corruption.
Coming this close to the gathering in Vilnius in Tuesday and Wednesday, the comments do not suggest much hope for Ukraine’s aspirations for a clear and short roadmap to joining Nato, although Kahl was speaking when Biden was in Downing St, meeting Rishi Sunak, where the issue of Ukranian membership was expected to be discussed.
The under secretary also defended the controversial decision by the US to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, banned by over 80 countries but not the Washington or Kyiv, although he insisted it was “really hard” and that the US had “wrestled with the moral issues” involved.
Kahl the move was necessary because west is not making 155m shells fast enough for Kyiv’s needs at present, and so not supplying cluster weapons in the interim would “run the risk the Ukrainians would stall out” and so be unable to fight effectively against the Russian invaders, which in turn could have worse humanitarian consequences.
The issue risks a rift in the alliance of countries supporting Ukraine, although Kahl argued cluster bombs were necessary to building a bridge until US and European arms production ramps up. Supplying them now was a decision of urgency, where a “combination of existential stakes and emergency conditions” tipped the balance, he said.
Updated
Ukraine’s largest western allies are still finalising a joint framework that would pave the way for long-term security assurances for Kyiv, and may wait until the end of a Nato summit this week to announce them, according to European diplomats.
Reuters reports:
The 31-member Nato alliance meets in Lithuania on Tuesday, aiming above all to give Ukraine some kind of path to membership, but still divided over how far to go.
Ukraine knows it will not get entry into the alliance while the war with Russia continues, given that Nato’s article 5 – which says that an attack on one member is an attack on all -could push the alliance into war with Russia. But it wants a firm commitment at the summit that it will be invited to join after the war.
In the meantime, it has sought assurances of current and long-term security commitments to help it defend itself now and deter renewed aggression from Moscow once the war ends.
Nato has assiduously abstained from giving military assistance to Ukraine as an organisation, to avoid entering a direct conflict with Russia, and is keen to continue leaving that to member states and others.
Britain, France, Germany and the United States, known as the Quad, have been negotiating with Kyiv for weeks over a multilateral text that would create a broad framework for member states that want to provide, or keep providing, military aid including advanced weapons, as well as financial assistance.
The European Union, which would pursue its financing of weapons support through its Peace Facility, and Group of Seven (G7) powers including Japan, have also been privy to the discussions.
The multilateral framework makes it easier for countries to conclude detailed individual arrangements with Ukraine.“The Americans do not want to mix discussions on Nato prospects with guarantees, so the guarantees may only be agreed after summit,” said one European diplomat. A second Quad diplomat also said it was heading in that direction.
A French presidency official told reporters on Friday that the discussions were “very advanced”. Two other diplomats said the hope was to complete them by the end of the summit.
A senior German official told reporters that there would be an agreement at the level of the G7, which comprises the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy and Britain, as well as the European Union.
US President Joe Biden, who is en route to Lithuania, told CNN on Sunday that Washington was ready to provide security to Ukraine in the mould of what it provides to Israel: “the weaponry they need, the capacity to defend themselves”.
The US’s military aid for Israel is worth about $3.5bn a year, but the relationship also entails a great deal of political support.
“The possible difference with Ukraine is that the American support is results-driven,” said an Israeli official.
“With Ukraine, the Americans will ask themselves ‘What did we get for $100 bln’ and whether this is sustainable in the long-term as this conflict may not end, may just stay frozen.”
Updated
Reuters reports that Russia will continue to co-operate with Beijing and can count on China’s “friendly shoulder”, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Monday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
“We can count on a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” Valentina Matvienko said.
Putin met with Wagner leader just days after the rebellion
Associated Press reports that Putin has met with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader, just days after a short-lived rebellion by the mercenary chief and his private army.
According to the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, a three-hour meeting took place on 29 June, which also involved commanders from the military company Prigozhin founded.
Prigozhin has had a long standing conflict with Russia’s top military brass which on 24 June culminated in an armed mutiny in which he led his fighters into Russia.
The Wagner group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, will move to Belarus under a deal to end the armed mutiny he led against Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin said on Saturday night.
The deal was brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for about 20 years.
Peskov said the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and that the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
Although Putin had earlier vowed to punish those who participated in the mutiny, Peskov said the agreement had had the “higher goal” of avoiding confrontation and bloodshed.
Prigozhin and all of his fighters vacated the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don that they had previously taken over, the RIA news agency reported.
Updated
According to Reuters, the Kremlin said today that Ukrainian membership of the Nato military alliance would have very negative consequences for Europe’s security architecture and that Russia would consider such a step a threat which demanded a harsh response.
This comes as Nato holds a summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Lithuania, aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine while not yet accepting Kyiv as a member of the alliance.
Updated
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that the EU should open the way for Ankara’s accession to the bloc before Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s bid to join the Nato military alliance.
Speaking ahead of his departure for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Erdoğan said Sweden’s accession hinges on the implementation of a deal reached last summer during the alliance’s summit in Madrid, adding that no one should expect compromises from Ankara.
Last week Jen Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, said that as far as he was concerned Sweden had delivered on the deal.
Erdoğan also said that an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia would ease Kyiv’s Nato membership process.
Turkey was officially recognised as a candidate for full membership of the EU in 1999.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut. Earlier, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.
A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023. Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”. The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.
Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of around 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday. Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s.
Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say “following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato”. The “membership action plan” (MAP) is a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.
The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in London for talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said that foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania. Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.
A substantial announcement on Germany delivering military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.
Updated
The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in Downing Street to meet the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
Miranda Bryant is following developments there on our UK politics live blog. We will bring you any key lines that emerge relating to Ukraine here as well.
Updated
We are expecting a lot of positioning ahead of the Nato summit in Vilnius this week, and on Monday morning, Ukraine’s foreign minister stated that Nato would forgo the “membership action plan” element of Ukraine’s application to join.
Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say:
Following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato. It is also the best moment to offer clarity on the invitation to Ukraine to become member.
MAP is Nato’s “membership action plan”, a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.
The alliance itself describes it as a “programme of advice, assistance and practical support tailored to the individual needs of countries wishing to join the alliance. Participation in the MAP does not prejudge any decision by the alliance on future membership”.
Nato states that Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently participating in the programme.
Updated
Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania, Reuters reports the Turkish foreign ministry as saying on Monday.
Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.
Updated
A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023, and the investigation claimed to have determined with 95% probability that the true figure was between 40,000 and 55,000.
Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action in Ukraine since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.
The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.
If the 47,000 figure is correct, it would mean that three times as many Russian soldiers died in Ukraine in 15 months as Soviet soldiers in the war in Afghanistan over a decade.
The investigation used two parallel techniques: one using information from Russian inheritance registers and the other conducted by Dmitry Kobak, a professor at Tubingen University in Germany, who conducted work to calculate excess mortality rates in 2022.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
A substantial announcement on a German delivery of military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.
Germany is also working on bilateral security guarantees for Ukraine, Reuters reports the official said, adding that it was not the right time for an invitation for Kyiv to join the defence alliance.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass quotes him saying: “The enemy is delaying this process as long as possible.”
Russia spent months trying to claim the city of Bakhmut, with most sources suggesting they sustained considerable losses in besieging the now-ruined city.
Updated
Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.
In a video clip posted to the ministry’s official social media channels, Gerasimov is seen receiving reports about claimed attempts by Ukrainian forces to strike targets in Crimea, Rostov and other regions.
Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, Reuters reports the governor of the region as saying on Monday.
Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s. He added that Russia carried out 36 targeted strikes on 10 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region.
The claims have not been independently verified.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Updated
Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of around 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
It is also likely that civilian medical services have been affected, especially in regions near Ukraine, and that military hospitals are reserving space for officer casualties, it said.
It continued:
As claimed by the head of the Kalashnikov company’s combat medicine training division, it is likely that up to 50 per cent of Russian combat fatalities could have been prevented with proper first aid.
Very slow casualty evacuation, combined with the inappropriate use of the crude in-service Russian combat tourniquet, is reportedly a leading cause of preventable fatalities and amputations.
Poland has detained another member of a Russian spy network, bringing the total number of people rounded up in an investigation to 15, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski has said.
Reuters reports:
A hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, Poland says it has become a major target of Russian spies and it accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise it.
“The Internal Security Agency has detained another member of the spy network working for Russian intelligence,” Mariusz Kaminski said in a post on Twitter.
“The suspect kept surveillance of military facilities and seaports. He was systematically paid by the Russians.”
The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
In June, Poland detained a Russian professional ice-hockey player on spying charges.
In March, Poland said it had broken up a Russian espionage network and detained nine people it said were preparing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail routes to Ukraine.
The following month Poland said it was introducing a 200-metre exclusion zone around its Swinoujscie Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, citing concerns about Russian espionage.
Vladimir Putin’s decision not to dismantle the Wagner mercenary group and prosecute those who took part in last month’s rebellion against Moscow is “placing himself and his subordinates in an awkward position,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
It writes:
Wagner is still reportedly recruiting within Russia while the Russian MoD is reportedly conducting a competing effort to recruit Wagner fighters to sign contracts with the MoD.
Putin’s decision to not dispose of the Wagner Group – previously Russia’s most combat capable force – is making it difficult for Putin and other Russian power players to know how to interact with the Wagner Group and its leaders and fighters.
Joe Biden’s meeting in Downing Street on Monday with Rishi Sunak – their fifth in the past five months and the sixth since Sunak become prime minister – probably carries more significance than any other.
The two men are not just 37 years apart in age, but increasingly a long way apart on how to handle Ukraine. The disagreements will be kept from the public eye, and the hope is that the meeting can narrow the differences.
The US disapproves if the junior partner goes public on any disagreement, or is perceived to be trying to bounce Washington into action. Pushiness, some say, was the undoing of the Nato secretary generalship ambitions of Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, after he tried to force the pace on arms supplies. Similarly, the watchword of Nato, built on consensus, is unity.
But it is self-evident that the two countries lean towards different positions on the war in Ukraine, and its aftermath. At issue are the conditions set for the path for Ukraine’s future membership of Nato, and the security guarantees that Volodymyr Zelenskiy should be provided by an ad hoc alliance of states in the interim.
And behind that lie questions about escalation and Nato’s future relationship with Russia. At one extreme lies a nervous Germany and at the other, impatient Baltic States and Poland.
Read on below:
Expected negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan remain the only hope to extend the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire next week, Russia’s RIA news agency has reported.
Reuters reports:
The Black Sea deal, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from Black Sea ports.
Citing an unnamed source familiar with negotiations, RIA reported “there is no optimism” for the extension of the deal - a position that Moscow has reiterated frequently in recent weeks.
“Our practice shows that it is the negotiations between the two leaders that are able to change the situation, the current difficult period is no exception,” RIA cited the source as saying.
“Today, this remains the only hope.”
Erdogan said on Saturday he was pressing Russia to extend the grain deal, currently due to expire on July 17, by at least three months and announced a visit by Putin in August. The Kremlin said over the weekend there was no phone call scheduled and that there was no certainty about the two leaders meeting.
Ankara angered Moscow with its July 8 decision to release to Kyiv five detained Ukrainian commanders of a unit that for weeks defended a steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, with the Kremlin saying Ankara violated agreements.
Ukraine makes 'a definite advance' to south of Bakhmut, deputy defence minister says
Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar.
In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut.
Earlier Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.
“Fierce fighting” continued in the southern areas of Melitopol and Berdyansk Maliar said, adding that “We are consolidating our gains in those areas.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meanwhile said he felt no “pressure at all” to see success more quickly. “Today, the initiative is on our side,” Zelenskyy told the US broadcaster ABC. “We are advancing, albeit not as fast [as we would like]. But we are advancing.”
Updated
Biden and Sunak to hold talks focusing on Ukrainian membership of Nato
Joe Biden is set to hold talks with Rishi Sunak on Monday, the eve of a two-day Nato summit in Vilnius, with Ukraine set to dominate discussions both in London and in the Lithuanian capital.
The US and the UK are among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, but they differ on Ukraine’s wish to join the military alliance, with Washington much more reluctant than London due to concerns it may provoke Russia.
While all sides have agreed Ukraine cannot join until the war is over, and thus be covered by its guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all, the UK has been pushing for Kyiv to receive fast-track membership, without the need for it to fulfil a Nato membership action plan.
Meanwhile, the US president on Sunday told CNN that Ukraine was “not yet ready” and made it clear that membership was conditional on more than the war’s end.
“Nato is a process that takes some time to meet all the qualifications – from democratisation to a whole range of other issues,” he said, adding that Nato needed to “lay out a rational path” for membership.
He suggested the US could provide military aid similar to the support it has long provided to Israel.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
US president Joe Biden has landed in London and is set to hold talks with British prime minister Rishi Sunak, ahead of a two-day Nato summit in Vilnius. Ukraine is expected to feature high on the agenda, with discussions focusing on a path for Ukraine’s future membership of the military alliance, and security guarantees for Kyiv in the interim.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Ukrainian forces had registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut. Maliar did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut.
Earlier Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.
In other key developments:
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he was hoping for “the best possible result” from the summit, after talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy has said he does not expect Ukraine to actually join Nato until after the war but that he hopes the summit will give a “clear signal” on the intention to bring Ukraine into the alliance.
The US president spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by phone on Sunday and “conveyed his desire to welcome Sweden into Nato as soon as possible”, the White House said. Washington has been increasing pressure on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden’s all-but-cleared Nato membership bid ahead of the Vilnius summit.
Erdogan’s office said separately that the Turkish leader had reaffirmed to Biden his longstanding position that Sweden still needed to crack down harder on suspected Kurdish militants to win Turkey’s support. It said the two presidents would meet on the sidelines of the summit.
The Nato meeting comes as members of Biden’s own Democratic party, rights groups and the UN raised questions about the US decision to send cluster bombs, which have been banned by more than 100 countries, to Ukraine. US senator Tim Kaine told Fox News he had “some real qualms” about the move because it “could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well”.
Germany’s president has said the country should not “block” the US from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, while maintaining its opposition to the use of the weapon. “Germany’s position against the use of cluster munitions is as justified as ever. But we cannot, in the current situation, block the United States,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday.
Russian air defence systems shot down four missiles on Sunday, Russian officials said, one over the annexed Crimean peninsula and three over Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine. Several buildings were damaged in Rostov and Bryansk but no casualties were reported. No casualties or damage were reported in Crimea.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said next month’s Brics summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader. “The Brics summit is going ahead and we are finalising our discussions on the format,” Ramaphosa told South African journalists on Sunday on the sidelines of a conference by the ruling ANC, adding it would be a “physical” meeting.
Updated
