Summary
Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We will be pausing this live blog for now and launching another in the next few hours.
In the meantime, here is a comprehensive run-down of where things stand in Ukraine as of 3am.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the intense battle for Sievierodonetsk is taking a “terrifying” toll on Ukraine, describing the fighting as “one of the most violent battles in Europe”. The human cost of this battle is very high for us. It is simply terrifying. The battle for the Donbas will without doubt be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe,” he said in an address to the nation late on Monday.
- All three bridges to the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed, according to the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai. In a video update, Haidai said Russia had not “completely captured” the city and “a part of the city” was under Ukrainian control. Russian artillery is hitting an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, Haidai added. Ukrainian troops in the city must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk warned.
- Ukrainian authorities said they have discovered a new mass grave of civilians near the Bucha in the Kyiv region. Investigators exhumed seven bodies from makeshift graves in a forest outside the village of Vorzel, less than 10km from Bucha, the scene of previous alleged Russian atrocities. Kyiv region’s police chief Andriy Nyebytov said: “This is another sadistic crime of the Russian army”. One man, he said, “has two injuries. He was shot in the knee with a gun. The second shot was into his temple”.
- Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday. The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
- Zelenskiy accused German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with being too concerned about the repercussions his support for Ukraine would have for Berlin’s ties with Moscow.“We need from Chancellor Scholz the certainty that Germany supports Ukraine,” he said in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF. “He and his government must decide: there can’t be a trade-off between Ukraine and relations with Russia.” Local media reports have speculated that Scholz could make his first trip to Kyiv since the start of the war on Thursday.
- The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, has accused “traitors” of passing on vital information to Russian forces during the bombardment of the southern port city at the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. Boychenko said the destruction of the city’s critical infrastructure, including power supplies, was well-coordinated because these “traitors” had provided Russia with the co-ordinates.
- About 1,200 bodies, including those found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko. Criminal proceedings have been opened over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said. About 75% of the dead are men, about 2% are children and the rest are women, he said.
- Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea). With 61% of these exports, worth €56bn (£48bn), going to the member states of the European Union, the bloc of countries remains Russia’s largest export market.
- Ukraine has lost a quarter of its arable land since the Russian invasion, notably in the south and east, deputy agriculture minister Taras Vysotskiy said. At a news conference on Monday, Vysotskiy insisted food security for the country’s population was not under immediate threat: “Despite the loss of 25% of arable land, crop planting this year is more than sufficient [and] the current situation of crop planting areas... does not pose a threat to Ukraine’s food security”.
- The UN’s rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described the “arbitrary arrests” of a “large number” of anti-war protesters in Russia as “worrying”. Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
- Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has said he expects the war in Ukraine could last up to two years. Kasyanov, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, said he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly and that he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
- More than 15,000 millionaires are expected to flee Russia this year, as wealthy citizens turn their back on Vladmir Putin’s regime after the invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis of migration data by London-based firm Henley & Partners.
- The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, has filed an appeal against a Moscow court decision demanding that it remove information related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing that people have a right to know the facts of the war and that removing information is a violation of human rights.
Wikipedia fights Russian order to remove Ukraine war information
The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, has filed an appeal against a Moscow court decision demanding that it remove information related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing that people have a right to know the facts of the war.
A Moscow court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 5 million roubles ($88,000) for refusing to remove what it termed disinformation from Russian-language Wikipedia articles on the war including ‘The Russian Invasion of Ukraine’, ‘War Crimes during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine’ and ‘Massacre in Bucha’.
In a statement as cited by Reuters, Stephen LaPorte, Associate General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, said:
This decision implies that well-sourced, verified knowledge on Wikipedia that is inconsistent with Russian government accounts constitutes disinformation.
The government is targeting information that is vital to people’s lives in a time of crisis.
We urge the court to reconsider in favour of everyone’s rights to knowledge access and free expression.”
Wikipedia, which says it offers “the second draft of history”, is one of the few remaining major fact-checked Russian-language sources of information for Russians after a crackdown on media in Moscow.
The Moscow court argued that what it cast as the disinformation on Wikipedia posed a risk to public order in Russia and that the Foundation, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California, was operating inside Russia.
The Foundation was prosecuted under a law about the failure to delete banned information. The case was brought by Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor.
The Wikipedia appeal, which was filed on June 6 with details released on Monday, argues that removing information is a violation of human rights. It said Russia had no jurisdiction over the Wikimedia Foundation, which was globally available in over 300 languages.
Zelenskiy earlier asked the German Chancellor to show full support for Kyiv, accusing Olaf Scholz with being too concerned about the repercussions that would have for Berlin’s ties with Moscow.
In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF, Zelenskiy said:
We need from Chancellor Scholz the certainty that Germany supports Ukraine.
He and his government must decide: there can’t be a trade-off between Ukraine and relations with Russia.”
His comments come amid speculation that Scholz could make his first trip to Kyiv since the start of the war on Thursday.
Online magazine Focus, citing Italian newspaper La Stampa, reported that Scholz and his counterparts from France and Italy would travel to the Ukrainian capital on Thursday, adding a specific date to a Bild am Sonntag report on Sunday that they planned to go before a Group of Seven summit at the end of June.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment Monday on any of the reports.
In an interview late on Monday with German public broadcaster ZDF, Zelenskiy said:
To be honest, Germany joined a little later than some of our neighbouring countries, as far as the arms deliveries were concerned. That’s a fact.”
Updated
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has provided a little more detail on the fighting unfolding in Donbas, describing a tactical win against Russian forces.
In the battles in Donbas - and they will surely go down in military history as one of the most brutal battles in Europe and for Europe - the Ukrainian army and our intelligence tactically still beat the Russian military.
And this is despite the significant advantage of the Russians in the amount of equipment, and especially - artillery systems.
The price of this battle for us is very high. It’s just scary. And we draw the attention of our partners on a daily basis to the fact that only a sufficient number of modern artillery for Ukraine will ensure our advantage and finally the end of Russian torture of the Ukrainian Donbas.”
Zelenskiy reiterated Ukraine’s desire to free its entire territory and “drive the occupiers out of all our regions”.
Although now the width of our front is already more than 2,500km, it is felt that the strategic initiative is still ours.”
Volodymr Zelenskiy says he spoke with Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte this afternoon to thank him for “defence assistance” his country was providing to Ukraine.
“Held talks with Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte. Informed about the current situation on the front; thanked for the defence assistance provided to Ukraine by the Netherlands in countering Russian aggression. Discussed Ukraine’s European integration path. We count on the Netherlands’ support!” Ukraine’s president tweeted.
Held talks with 🇳🇱 Prime Minister @MinPres. Informed about the current situation on the front; thanked for the defense assistance provided to 🇺🇦 by the Netherlands in countering Russian aggression. Discussed Ukraine's European integration path. We count on 🇳🇱 support!
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 13, 2022
Updated
Here are some more images from Ukraine on Monday, sent to us by news agencies:
Summary
It’s just past midnight in Kyiv, and here’s where things stand as Russia’s invasion of Kyiv enters its 111th day:
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the intense battle for Sievierodonetsk is taking a “terrifying” toll on Ukraine. The country’s president made the comment during his nightly address to the nation on Telegram: “The human cost of this battle is very high for us. It is simply terrifying. The battle for the Donbas will without doubt be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe”.
- All three bridges to the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed, according to the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai. In a video update, Haidai said Russia had not “completely captured” the city and “a part of the city” was under Ukrainian control. Russian artillery is hitting an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, Haidai added. Ukrainian troops in Sievierodonetsk must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk warned.
- Investigators exhumed seven bodies from makeshift graves in a forest near Kyiv, with officials saying they were civilians killed by Russian forces during their occupation of the area. The bodies were found outside the village of Vorzel, less than 10km from Bucha, scene of previous alleged Russian atrocities. Kyiv region’s police chief Andriy Nyebytov said: “This is another sadistic crime of the Russian army”. One man, he said, “has two injuries. He was shot in the knee with a gun. The second shot was into his temple”.
- Ukraine has lost a quarter of its arable land since the Russian invasion, notably in the south and east, deputy agriculture minister Taras Vysotskiy said. At a news conference, Vysotskiy insisted food security for the country’s population was not under immediate threat: “Despite the loss of 25% of arable land, crop planting this year is more than sufficient [and] the current situation of crop planting areas... does not pose a threat to Ukraine’s food security”.
- Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday. The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
- The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, has accused “traitors” of passing on vital information to Russian forces during the bombardment of the southern port city at the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. Boychenko said the destruction of the city’s critical infrastructure, including power supplies, was well-coordinated because these “traitors” had provided Russia with the co-ordinates.
- About 1,200 bodies, including those found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko. Criminal proceedings have been opened over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said. About 75% of the dead are men, about 2% are children and the rest are women, he said.
- Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea). With 61% of these exports, worth €56bn (£48bn), going to the member states of the European Union, the bloc of countries remains Russia’s largest export market.
- The UN’s rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described the “arbitrary arrests” of a “large number” of anti-war protesters in Russia as “worrying”. Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
- Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has said he expects the war in Ukraine could last up to two years. Kasyanov, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, said he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly and that he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
Zelenskiy: toll of Donbas battle 'terrifying'
The intense battle for Sievierodonetsk is taking a “terrifying” toll on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday evening, as Russian forces moved closer to capturing the strategic eastern city.
Ukraine’s president made the comment during his nightly address to the nation on Telegram, AFP reports, noting the fighting was having a severe effect on civilians and his country’s military:
The human cost of this battle is very high for us. It is simply terrifying.
The battle for the Donbas will without doubt be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov last week said up to 100 of his troops were dying daily and 500 sustaining injuries in the intense fighting against Russian troops, in a rare public disclosure of casualty figures.
Zelenskiy, on 1 June, said his army was losing “between 60 and 100 soldiers” every day, while other estimates are higher, with experts predicting the unsustainable losses could soon bring the conflict to “a tipping point”.
Russian troops have advanced on Sievierodonetsk as part of their large-scale offensive in the eastern Donbas region after failing to take the capital Kyiv. It is the largest city in the eastern Luhansk region, which forms part of Donbas, still under Ukrainian control.
Zelenskiy, who has expressed fears of losing support from the west as the conflict drags on, repeated earlier pleas for more and heavier military weapons from allies including the US and UK:
We are dealing with absolute evil. And we have no choice but to move forward and free our territory.
We draw the attention of our partners on a daily basis to the fact that only a sufficient number of modern artillery for Ukraine will ensure our advantage and finally the end of Russian torture of the Ukrainian Donbas.
Serhiy Haiday, the regional governor of Luhansk, said Monday that Russian forces control 70 to 80% of Sievierodonetsk, but had not encircled or captured it amid fierce Ukrainian resistance.
But he added that evacuations from the city and access to it were impossible because the last of its three bridges has now been blown up.
Here’s my colleague Pjotr Sauer’s latest report on the fight for Sievierodonetsk:
Updated
Russia is again attempting to assert that the main goal of its “special military operation” in Ukraine is merely to “protect” the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.
According to Reuters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov repeated the claim Monday to Russia’s RIA state news agency.
“In general, the protection of the republics is the main goal of the special military operation,” Peskov said.
Donetsk and Luhansk are two breakaway Russian-backed entities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Fighting in the conflict, which began with Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, has focused largely on the Donbas region after strong resistance forced the Russian military to abandon its initial goals including the capture of the capital Kyiv.
Kyiv police: Exhumed civilians murdered by 'sadistic' Russian forces
Ukrainian investigators say they have now exhumed seven bodies from makeshift graves in a forest near Kyiv, with officials saying they were civilians killed by Russian forces during their occupation of the area.
The bodies were found outside the village of Vorzel, Reuters reports, less than 10km from Bucha. In that city, Ukraine has alleged, Russian forces carried out systematic executions in an abortive attempt to capture the capital.
Russia denies the claim.
In a Facebook post, Kyiv region’s police chief, Andriy Nyebytov, said: “This is another sadistic crime of the Russian army in the Kyiv region”.
One of the exhumed bodies was a man around 40, in plain clothes, Nyebytov told Reuters at the site of the graves.
“He has two injuries. He was shot in the knee with a gun. The second shot was into his temple,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request from the agency for comment.
Investigators said it would take time to clearly identify the bodies because they had decomposed.
Ukraine says mass graves were found in April containing more than 400 bodies.
The Associated Press has some extra detail on the uncertainty surrounding German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reported visit to Ukraine to meet counterparts from France and Italy.
Newspaper Bild am Sonntag said Scholz would travel to Kyiv to talk with French president Emmanuel Macron and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi before this month’s summit of G7 leaders in Germany.
Earlier Monday, a spokesperson for Scholz refused to confirm the report, and the AP says the chancellor also fobbed off reporters when he was asked about it this afternoon, saying he had nothing to add to his aide’s (non) statement.
Several European leaders, Germany’s opposition leader and members of Scholz’s own cabinet have visited Ukraine in recent weeks to express solidarity with the country in the face of Russia’s military assault, raising the pressure on the German chancellor to do likewise.
While Germany has contributed considerable financial and military aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion three months ago, Scholz’s government has been criticised at home and abroad for being slower to do so than the US and some smaller European countries.
Updated
Officials: 25% of Ukraine's arable land lost since Russian invasion
It’s Richard Luscombe in the US taking you through the next few hours of developments in Ukraine. Thanks for joining me.
Ukraine has lost a quarter of its arable land since the Russian invasion, notably in the south and east, deputy agriculture minister Taras Vysotskiy has said, according to AFP.
At a news conference on Monday, however, Vysotskiy insisted food security for the country’s population was not under immediate threat:
Despite the loss of 25% of arable land, crop planting this year is more than sufficient [and] the current situation of crop planting areas... does not pose a threat to Ukraine’s food security.
Ukrainian farmers managed to prepare relatively well for sowing before the war started. In February, Ukraine had already imported about 70% of necessary fertilisers, 60% of disease control products and about a third of the required fuel.
National consumption levels, he said, had fallen “due to mass displacement and external migration” as millions fled to escape the fighting.
More than 7m are estimated to have been displaced within Ukraine by Russia’s war, figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) show.
Another 7.3m have fled abroad, more than half of them to Poland.
Despite Vysotskiy’s reassurances, the UN has warned the conflict risks tipping tens of millions around the globe into food insecurity, with the risks of malnutrition, mass hunger and famine.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said about 20-25m tonnes of grain were blocked in Ukrainian ports, a figure which could rise to 70-75m tonnes by the autumn.
Read more about Ukraine’s food secuirty concerns here:
Summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
- All three bridges to the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed, according to the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai. In a video update, Haidai said Russia had not “completely captured” the city and “a part of the city” was under Ukrainian control. Russian artillery is hitting an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, Haidai added. Ukrainian troops in Sievierodonetsk must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk warned.
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Ukrainian authorities said they have discovered a new mass grave of civilians near the Bucha in the Kyiv region. The bodies of seven civilians were found near the village of Myrotske, many with their “hands tied and their knees shot”, according to Kyiv region police chief, Andrii Niebytov. Work is currently under way to exhume the bodies at the site and to identify the individuals, he added.
- Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday. The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
-
The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, has accused “traitors” of passing on vital information to Russian forces during the bombardment of the southern port city at the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. Boychenko said the destruction of the city’s critical infrastructure, including power supplies, was well-coordinated because these “traitors” had provided Russia with the co-ordinates.
-
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, said Russia is using “weapons of mass destruction” in Ukraine. Both sides are using “increasingly heavy” weapons, Niinistö said, including in Russia’s case, thermobaric bombs. Amnesty International accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on Kharkiv - many using banned cluster bombs - had killed hundreds of civilians.
- About 1,200 bodies, including those found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko. Criminal proceedings have been opened over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said. About 75% of the dead are men, about 2% are children and the rest are women, he said.
- Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea). With 61% of these exports, worth €56bn (£48bn), going to the member states of the European Union, the bloc of countries remains Russia’s largest export market.
- The UN’s rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described the “arbitrary arrests” of a “large number” of anti-war protesters in Russia as “worrying”. Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
- Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has said he expects the war in Ukraine could last up to two years. Kasyanov, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, said he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly and that he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
- River crossing operations are likely to be among the most important determining factors in the course of the war over the coming months, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest report. Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large scale river crossings under fire, the report added.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong today as I hand the blog over to my colleague, Richard Luscombe. Thank you.
All bridges out of Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed, says governor
All three bridges to the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed, according to the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai.
In a video update, Haidai said Russia had not “completely captured” the city and “a part of the city” was under Ukrainian control.
Earlier in the day, Haidai said Russians were continuing to storm the embattled city and “having a significant advantage in artillery” pushed back Ukrainian soldiers. “The Russians are destroying quarter after quarter,” Haidai said, adding that the Russian army had been “partially successful at night” and controlled 70% of the city.
The destruction by Russian forces of the remaining two bridges over the Siverskyi Donets River over the last two days leaves stranded civilians with no escape west to the neighbouring city of Lysychansk, which is also being shelled but remains in Ukrainian hands.
More than 15,000 millionaires are expected to flee Russia this year, as wealthy citizens turn their back on Vladmir Putin’s regime after the invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis of migration data.
About 15% of Russians with more than $1m (£820,000) in ready assets are expected to have emigrated to other countries by the end of 2022, according to projects based on migration data by Henley & Partners, a London-based firm that acts as matchmaker between the super-rich and countries selling their citizenships.
“Russia [is] haemorrhaging millionaires,” said Andrew Amoils, the head of research at New World Wealth, which compiled the data for Henley. “Affluent individuals have been emigrating from Russia in steadily rising numbers every year over the past decade, an early warning sign of the current problems the country is facing. Historically, major country collapses have usually been preceded by an acceleration in emigration of wealthy people, who are often the first to leave as they have the means to do so.”
Ukraine is projected to suffer the greatest loss of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) as a proportion of its population, with 2,800 millionaires (or 42% of all HNWIs in Ukraine) expected to have left the country by the end of the year.
The world’s wealthy have traditionally relocated to the US and the UK but Henley said the United Arab Emirates is expected to overtake them as the number one destination for millionaire emigrates. “UK has lost its wealth hub crown, and the US is fading fast as a magnet for the world’s wealthy, with the UAE expected to overtake it by attracting the largest net inflows of millionaires globally in 2022,” Henley said in its report, which is based on “systematically tracking international private wealth migration trends”.
About 4,000 HNWIs are expected to have moved to the UAE by the end of the year, ahead of Australia, which is expected to attract about 3,500, Singapore (2,800) and Israel (2,500).
Large numbers of millionaires are also expected to move to “the three Ms”: Malta, Mauritius and Monaco.
Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, on Twitter on Monday where he argued that Ukraine needed “heavy weapons parity” to defeat Russia and end the war.
That would require, he said, 300 of the multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) – vastly more than seven or so committed thus far by the US and UK – and greater than the 60 or more that other advisers have previously said would meet its needs.
Podolyak’s full list also included “1,000 howitzers” of the Nato 155mm standard, several times more than what has been dispatched so far. The US, the leading arms supplier, had delivered 109 by the end of May.
A special meeting of defence ministers takes place on Wednesday in Brussels, which will be chaired by Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, to discuss future weapons donations, the third such meeting since the war began. Ben Wallace, his UK counterpart, is among those scheduled to attend.
It comes at a time when Ukraine’s military is struggling to resist an intense Russian artillery-led assault on its eastern Donbas region and losing, on some days, 200 soldiers killed in action in the heaviest fighting in Europe since the end of the second world war.
Read Dan Sabbagh’s full story: Ukraine asks the west for huge rise in heavy artillery supply
Britain’s foreign minister, Liz Truss, said she spoke with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, about Russia’s blockade on grain exports from Ukraine.
Spoke to @SecBlinken. We agreed that Russia must release those subjected to abhorrent show trials & end their blockade on grain exports.
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) June 13, 2022
Also discussed our Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. pic.twitter.com/WQDEsqcGTd
Another mass grave of civilians found in Kyiv region, says police
Ukrainian authorities said they have discovered a new mass grave of civilians near the Bucha in the Kyiv region.
The bodies of seven civilians were found near the village of Myrotske, many with their “hands tied and their knees shot”, according to Kyiv region police chief, Andrii Niebytov.
The victims had been tortured, he said in a statement on Facebook.
Work is currently under way to exhume the bodies at the site and to identify the individuals, he added.
The father of a Moroccan man sentenced to death by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on mercenary charges said his son should be treated as a prisoner of war as he is a Ukrainian national who handed himself in voluntarily.
Brahim Saadoun, 21, and two Britons, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, were captured while fighting for Ukraine
and found guilty of “mercenary activities and committing actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order” of the DPR, Russian media said last week.
Friends and family of Saadoun have called for his freedom, telling the Guardian he was an active-duty marine and not a mercenary as claimed by Russian media and pro-Russia officials in eastern Ukraine who announced the sentence.
His father, Tahar Saadoun, told Reuters today that his son received Ukrainian nationality in 2020 after undergoing a year of military training as a requirement to access aerospace technology studies at a university in Kyiv.
Saadoun handed himself in “voluntarily” and should be treated as a “prisoner of war”, his father said.
He added:
We as a family suffer from the absence of contact with the lawyer to exchange legal information and this adds to our ordeal.
Mariupol mayor accuses 'traitors' of passing on vital co-ordinates to Russians
The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, has accused “traitors” of passing on vital information to Russian forces during the bombardment of the southern port city at the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine.
Boychenko, who has left the Mariupol, told the BBC that the destruction of the city’s critical infrastructure, including power supplies, was well-coordinated because these “traitors” had provided Russia with the co-ordinates.
Boychenko said:
They knew where to shell. There were many traitors who gave co-ordinates. Everything we had, everything that is considered the critical infrastructure of the city, was destroyed in the first seven days.
There are 15 power supplies in the city. Even the mayor did not know where they all were. And they knew and in a week destroyed all 15. The city was left without light.
Water points, communication lines and warehouses storing food and medicine were also targeted, he said.
He accused the “traitors” of being city council deputies from the pro-Russian party, The Opposition Platform - For Life, who are now ruling the city under the Russian occupation. It has not been possible to independently verify his claims.
Boychenko also told the BBC that more than 100,000 people are still trapped in the Russian-occupied city where they “don’t have clean water. There is no food, no electricity, no medications”.
He said:
Hospitals have been damaged, doctors have been killed. People do not live there, they survive, fighting for food.
The situation in Mariupol was “catastrophic”, Boychenko said, with “many bodies still under the ruins”. He added:
According to doctors, this summer in Mariupol will be horrible. And it can take thousands of lives.
Britain’s defence ministry said last week that there was a risk of a major cholera outbreak in Mariupol because medical services were likely near collapse.
Today so far...
It is 5pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
- Russian artillery is hitting an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor has said. Serhiy Haidai said a bridge out of the city has been blown up, as fears grow for those who have not yet managed to leave. Ukrainian troops in Sievierodonetsk must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk warned.
- Russian forces have taken most of Sievierodonetsk, where fierce street fighting continues after a fire broke out at the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address that Russia’s military was trying to deploy reserve forces to the Donbas region. Ukrainian troops reportedly remain in control of an industrial area.
-
Russia’s defence ministry said its missiles destroyed a large quantity of weapons and military equipment in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, including some that were sent from the US and Europe. It said high-precision air-based missiles had struck near the Udachne railway station, hitting equipment that had been delivered to Ukrainian forces. It has not been possible to independently verify this claim.
-
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, said Russia is using “weapons of mass destruction” in Ukraine. Both sides are using “increasingly heavy” weapons, Niinistö said, including in Russia’s case, thermobaric bombs. Amnesty International accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on Kharkiv - many using banned cluster bombs - had killed hundreds of civilians.
- About 1,200 bodies, including those found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko. Criminal proceedings have been opened over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said. About 75% of the dead are men, about 2% are children and the rest are women, he said.
- Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea). With 61% of these exports, worth €56bn (£48bn), going to the member states of the European Union, the bloc of countries remains Russia’s largest export market.
- The UN’s rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described the “arbitrary arrests” of a “large number” of anti-war protesters in Russia as “worrying”. Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
- Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has said he expects the war in Ukraine could last up to two years. Kasyanov, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, said he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly and that he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
- River crossing operations are likely to be among the most important determining factors in the course of the war over the coming months, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest report. Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large scale river crossings under fire, the report added.
- A former British soldier has died fighting Russian forces in Sievierodonetsk. The British Foreign Office confirmed Jordan Gatley was shot and killed in Ukraine. He left the British army in March “to continue his career as a soldier in other areas” and had been helping Ukrainian troops defend their country against Russia, his father, Dean, wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
Updated
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Sweden has taken important steps to meet Turkey’s demands for approving the country’s bid to join the military alliance.
Speaking at a press conference with Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Anderson, Stoltenberg said:
I welcome that Sweden has already started to change its counter-terrorism legislation and that Sweden will ensure that the legal framework for arms export will reflect the future status as a Nato member with new commitments to allies.
These are two important steps to address concerns that Turkey has raised.
Updated
The UK has drastically increased the volume of natural gas being pumped to the EU amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, powering a record monthly rise in goods exports to the continent despite Brexit.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show EU goods exports rose for the third consecutive month to £16.4bn in April, the highest monthly level in current prices since comparable records began in 1997.
Reflecting the impact of the war in Ukraine as EU nations seek to diversify energy supplies away from Russia, the data suggests the UK is acting as a hub for liquified natural gas (LNG) imports from the rest of the world before pumping it through pipelines to the continent.
UK fuel exports rose by £500m on the month, driven by gas and crude oil to the Netherlands and Ireland, in a sign of heightened demand on the continent to refill gas storage sites in the run-up to winter.
Much of the rise in total goods exports was driven by the rising value of fuel prices rather than volumes of other products. After adjusting for inflation, goods exports were the highest since December 2020, the last month before the Brexit transition ended.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has contributed to a dramatic rise in global energy prices amid concern over the security of supply, fuelling the highest rates of inflation for decades in several countries including the UK. EU nations reliant on Russia for much of their energy have sought alternative supplies while reducing imports in response to the war.
1,200 bodies remain unidentified in Ukraine, says police chief
About 1,200 bodies, including those found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko.
Police have opened criminal proceedings over the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians, Klymenko said in an interview with Interfax news agency.
More than 1,500 civilians died in Kyiv alone, he said.
Klymenko said:
In Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Borodianka there were a lot of killed people lying right on the streets – snipers shot them from tanks, from armoured personnel carriers, despite the white armbands that the Russian military forced people to wear.
About 75% of the dead are men, about 2% are children and the rest are women, he said.
In Bucha, 116 people were buried in one mass grave, according to Klymenko. Other graves contained between five and seven bodies, he said:
Residents collected the bodies of the dead and buried them in parks.
He added:
About 1,200 bodies have not been identified so far. This is a long process, quite laborious because many bodies are in a state of decay, who were buried, shot, who could not be identified. We take DNA only from direct relatives – father, mother, children. This is the only way we work.
Updated
The UN’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, has described the “arbitrary arrests” of a “large number” of anti-war protesters in Russia as “worrying”.
Speaking at the UN’s human rights council in Geneva, Bachelet also expressed concern about the “increase of censorship and restrictions on independent media” in Russia.
The war in Ukraine continues to “destroy the lives of many, causing havoc and destruction”, she said, with the “horrors inflicted on the civilian population will leave their indelible mark, including on generations to come”.
Bachelet added:
Its social, economic and political ramifications ripple across the region and globally, with no end in sight.
During the council session today, Bachelet also announced she would not seek a new four-year term after the end of the current one, following criticism of her response to China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in western Xinjiang.
Updated
Russia using 'weapons of mass destruction' in Ukraine, says Finland
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said both Ukraine and Russia are using heavier weapons – including, in Russia’s case, thermobaric bombs.
Speaking to reporters during security policy talks at his summer residence in Naantali, Niinistö said:
We are supporting Ukraine with increasingly heavy weaponry. And on the other hand Russia has also begun to use very powerful weapons, thermobaric bombs that are in fact weapons of mass destruction.
Ukraine and Nato countries, including the UK, have accused Russia of using thermobaric weapons, which are more destructive than conventional explosives.
Updated
Ukrainian troops in the besieged eastern city of Sievierodonetsk must “surrender or die”, a Russian-backed separatist leader in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk has warned.
Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People’s Militia Department, was quoted by Russia’s RIA news agency as saying:
They have two options: either follow the example of their fellow soldiers and surrender, or die.
He added:
They have no other option.
Updated
A German government spokesperson has declined to confirm whether the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will travel to Kyiv on Thursday with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi.
The three European leaders are believed to be scheduled to travel to the Ukrainian capital before a G7 summit at the end of June, according to several media reports.
Updated
Our colleague Pjotr Sauer has the full report on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, where the destruction of a bridge has left stranded civilians with only one route out:
Russian artillery is hitting an industrial zone where 500 civilians are sheltering in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor has said, and a bridge out of the city has been blown up, as fears grow for those who have not yet managed to leave.
“Russians continue to storm the city, having a significant advantage in artillery they have somewhat pushed back the Ukrainian soldiers,” said Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, in a morning report on his Telegram channel. “The Russians are destroying quarter after quarter,” Haidai said, adding that the Russian army had been “partially successful at night” and controlled 70% of the city.
The destruction by Russian forces of a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River leaves stranded civilians with just one remaining bridge to escape west to the neighbouring city of Lysychansk, which is also being shelled but remains in Ukrainian hands.
“If after new shelling the bridge collapses, the city will truly be cut off. There will be no way of leaving Sievierodonetsk in a vehicle,” Haidai said.
There are fears that a scenario similar to the one seen in the southern port city of Mariupol, where hundreds of people were trapped for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks, could play out in Sievierodonetsk’s Azot chemical plant, where Haidai said 500 civilians were sheltering, 40 of them children.
Haidai said the Ukrainian side was negotiating the evacuation of civilians from Azot with Moscow but so far failed to reach an agreement. “We are trying to agree, with the help of [Ukrainian deputy prime minister] Irina Vereshchuk, to organise a corridor, so far it has been unsuccessful,” the official said. “Azot’s shelters are not as strong as in Mariupol’s Azovstal, so we need to take people out with security guarantees.”
Sievierodonetsk has become the focal point of Moscow’s efforts to advance in eastern Ukraine, where Russia wants to capture the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, which are collectively known as Donbas, after its failure to quickly seize Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, at the beginning of the war.
Read Pjotr’s full report: Russian forces pound Sievierodonetsk as fears grow for stranded civilians
Updated
Russia earned €93bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war, according to research by Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).
With 61% of these exports, worth €56bn (£48bn), going to the member states of the European Union, the bloc of countries remains Russia’s largest export market.
After China, Germany remains its largest customer, with exports between 14 February and 3 June amounting to €12.1bn.
Other large importers of Russian fossil fuels are Italy (€7.8bn), the Netherlands (€7.8bn), Turkey (€6.7bn) and Poland (€4.4bn).
While the volume of exports fell by around 15% in May, the increase in fossil demand has also created a windfall for the country: Russia’s average export prices were on average 60% higher than last year.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has said its missiles destroyed a large quantity of weapons and military equipment in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, including some that were sent from the US and Europe.
It said high-precision air-based missiles had struck near the Udachne railway station, hitting equipment that had been delivered to Ukrainian forces.
It has not been possible to independently verify this claim.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over the live blog from Jamie Grierson to bring you all the latest developments in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Updated
The world’s nuclear arsenal is expected to increase in the coming years for the first time since the end of cold war at a time that the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and weapons thinktank has said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv have heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said on Monday.
Countries increasing their stockpiles of nuclear warheads included the UK, which in 2021 announced its decision to increase the ceiling on its total warhead stockpile, in a reversal of decades of gradual disarmament.
The increase comes despite a statement from the UN’s five permanent members of the security council in 2021 – the US, Russia, China, the UK and France – stating that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. All P5 members continue to expand or modernise their nuclear arsenals.
The UK has about 195 nuclear warheads, of which 120 are operational, according to an estimate by researchers at the Federation of American Scientists.
While the UK has criticised China and Russia for lack of nuclear transparency, the UK also announced it would no longer publicly disclose figures for the country’s operational nuclear weapon stockpile, deployed warheads or deployed missiles.
In early 2021, France officially launched a programme to develop a third-generation nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) while India and Pakistan appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals, and both countries introduced and continued to develop new types of nuclear delivery system in 2021.
Israel – which does not publicly acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons – is also believed to be modernising its arsenal.
While the number of nuclear weapons fell slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, Sipri said that unless immediate action was taken by the nuclear powers, global inventories of warheads could soon begin rising for the first time in decades.
Read the full article: Global nuclear arsenal expected to grow for first time in decades
Updated
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has described the situation in Sievierodonetsk as ‘severe’. Sievierodonetsk has become the epicentre of the battle for control of the eastern Donbas region.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said on Twitter that to end the war his country need “heavy weapons parity”.
Being straightforward – to end the war we need heavy weapons parity:
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) June 13, 2022
1000 howitzers caliber 155 mm;
300 MLRS;
500 tanks;
2000 armored vehicles;
1000 drones.
Contact Group of Defense Ministers meeting is held in #Brussels on June 15. We are waiting for a decision.
Updated
Reuters have this full report on fighting in Sievierodonetsk:
Russian forces swarmed into the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk and pounded a zone where hundreds of civilians were sheltering, a Ukrainian official said on Monday - a scene that mirrored Moscow’s brutal capture of Mariupol last month.
Ukraine has issued increasingly urgent calls for more western weapons to help defend Sievierodonetsk, which Kyiv says could hold the key to the outcome of the battle for control of the eastern Donbas region and the future course of the war.
In a report that was not confirmed by the Ukrainian side, a Russian-backed separatist said the last bridge into the city had been destroyed on Sunday, effectively blockading its Ukrainian defenders inside.
“They have two options: either follow the example of their fellow soldiers and surrender, or die,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted separatist spokesperson Eduard Basurin as saying. “They have no other option.”
Regional governor Serhiy Haidai said on Sunday evening the last crossing over the Siverskyi Donets River was still standing after another bridge was destroyed earlier in the day.
“The third bridge is working. But the condition of the bridge is threatening: it is half-destroyed, it is impossible for trucks to move on it,” he said.
On Monday, Haidai said fighting was raging in the city, where Ukrainian forces were defending building by building.
“The battles are so fierce that fighting for not just a street but for a single high-rise building can last for days,” he said on social media.
Russian artillery fire also rained down on the Azot chemical plant, where hundred of civilians were sheltering, Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region which includes Sievierodonetsk, said.
Before Mariupol fell to Russia last month, hundreds of civilians and badly wounded Ukrainian soldiers were trapped for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks. Ukrainian officials say cholera is now spreading among remaining residents due to bodies buried in rubble from destroyed residential buildings.
Haidai estimated that Russian forces now controlled about 70% of Sievierodonetsk, and said they were destroying it “quarter by quarter” in one of the bloodiest assaults since the invasion was launched on 24 Febuary.
“Russians continue to storm the city, having a significant advantage in artillery they have somewhat pushed back the Ukrainian soldiers,” Haidai said on Monday.
Updated
My colleague Pjotr Sauer has interviewed Russian stage and screen director Kirill Serebrennikov, whose stage work has been produced across Europe.
Despite frequent run-ins with the authorities, the director never fled Russia. But after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Serebrennikov decided to leave for Berlin at the end of March. He has since become a vocal critic of the war.
“How can I not get enraged over what happens when Ukrainians are dying because of the Russian bombs? When cities get wiped off the map? When civilians get killed?” he said.
“How the hell can one not speak out. How? How can I call this murder a special military operation?”
Updated
An industrial zone where about 500 civilians are sheltering is under heavy artillery fire from Russian forces, Reuters reported the regional governor saying.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that includes Sievierodonetsk, said on Facebook that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city and fighting there was fierce.
Updated
Ukraine said on Monday that its forces have been pushed back from the centre of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, where fighting with Russia has raged for weeks, AFP reports.
“The enemy, with support of artillery, carried out assault operations in the city of Sievierodonetsk, had partial success, pushed our units away from the city centre,” the Ukrainian military said on Facebook.
The local governor, Serhiy Haidai, said “the Russians were partially successful at night” in the city.
They “pushed our troops from the centre and continue to destroy our city,” he said on Facebook.
Haidai said Moscow’s forces were “gathering more and more equipment” to “encircle” Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk.
He added that three civilians were killed by shelling in Lysychansk, across a river from Sievierodonetsk, in the last 24 hours, including a six-year-old boy.
Updated
Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, has told the news agency AFP that he expect the war in Ukraine could last up to two years but is convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
The 64-year-old, who championed close ties with the west while prime minister, added that he felt that Vladimir Putin was already not thinking properly.
“I just know these people and by looking at them I saw that Putin is already out of it. Not in a medical sense but in political terms,” he said. “I knew a different Putin.”
After being sacked by Putin, Kasyanov joined Russia’s opposition and became one of the Kremlin’s most vocal critics. He is now the leader of the opposition People’s Freedom party, or Parnas.
He estimated the war could last for up to two years and said it was imperative that Ukraine win.
“If Ukraine falls, the Baltic states will be next,” he said.
Kasyanov said he believed Putin would eventually be replaced by a “quasi-successor” controlled by the security services.
But a successor would not be able to control the system for long and eventually Russia would stage free and fair elections, the former prime minister added.
“I am certain that Russia will return to the path of building a democratic state,” he said.
Updated
Before I hand you over to my colleague, Jamie Grierson, here are a few images to come out of Kyiv today.
The region around Ukraine’s capital continues to recover from Russia’s aborted assault on the city, which turned many communities into battlefields.
Over the weekend, scenes of eerie normality could be seen.
Updated
River crossing operations likely to determine course of war, UK MoD says
Over the coming months, river crossing operations are likely to be amongst the most important determining factors in the course of the war, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its latest report.
The key, 90km long central sector of Russia’s frontline in the Donbas lies to the west of the Siverskyy Donets River and in order to achieve success in the current operational phase of its Donbas offensive, Russia is “either going to have to complete ambitious flanking actions, or conduct assault river crossings”.
Ukrainian forces have often managed to demolish bridges before they withdraw, while Russia has struggled to put in place the complex coordination necessary to conduct successful, large scale river crossings under fire, the report added.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 13 June 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 13, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/tMxM9CXCRe
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/oV79kZBRi6
Updated
A Canadian official has been condemned for attending Russia Day celebrations at the country’s embassy in Canada.
Foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly said it was “unacceptable” for deputy protocol chief in Canada’s global affairs department, Yasemin Heinbecker, to have attended Friday’s event, first reported by Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
No Canadian representative should have attended the event hosted at the Russian embassy and no Canadian representative will attend this kind of event again,” Joly said.
Joly also reiterated Canada’s support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
This is unacceptable. No Canadian representative should have attended the event hosted at the Russian embassy & no Canadian representative will attend this kind of event again.
— Mélanie Joly (@melaniejoly) June 12, 2022
🇨🇦 continues to stand with 🇺🇦 as it fights against Russia’s egregious invasion. https://t.co/azkvbhupiv pic.twitter.com/iZ2zRn1gJj
Russian forces destroy bridge out of Sievierodonetsk
Russian forces destroyed a bridge connecting the embattled city of Sievierodonetsk to its twin city of Lysychansk, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, according to local officials.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said on Sunday that the Russian military destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi River that linked the two cities, leaving just one of three bridges still standing.
He added that Russian shelling in Lysychansk has killed one woman and destroyed four houses and a shopping centre.
If after new shelling the bridge collapses, the city will truly be cut off. There will be no way of leaving Sievierodonetsk in a vehicle,” Gaidai said, noting the lack of a cease-fire agreement and no agreed evacuation corridors.
Officials added that approximately a third of the city remains under the control of Ukrainian forces and about two-thirds are in Russian hands.
Russia earned €93bn ($98bn) from fossil fuel exports during the first 100 days of its war in Ukraine, with most sent to the European Union and at an average export price about 60% higher than last year, according to new research.
The report from the independent, Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) showed the EU took 61% of Russia’s fossil fuel exports during the war’s first 100 days, worth about €57bn ($60bn).
The top importers were China at €12.6bn, Germany (12.1bn) and Italy (7.8bn) according to the report, as seen by Agence France-Presse.
Russia’s fossil fuel revenues come first from the sale of crude oil (46bn), followed by pipeline gas, oil products, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal.
Even as Russia’s exports plummeted in May, with countries and companies shunning its supplies over the Ukraine invasion, the global rise in fossil fuel prices continued to fill the Kremlin’s coffers, with export revenues reaching record highs.
Russia’s average export prices were about 60% higher than last year, according to CREA.
Some countries have upped their purchases from Moscow, including China, India, the United Arab Emirates and France, the report added.
CREA analyst Lauri Myllyvirta said:
As the EU is considering stricter sanctions against Russia, France has increased its imports to become the largest buyer of LNG in the world.”
Since most of these are spot purchases rather than long-term contracts, France is consciously deciding to use Russian energy in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Myllyvirta added.
Amnesty accuses Russia of war crimes in Kharkiv
Amnesty International has accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on Kharkiv - many using banned cluster bombs - had killed hundreds of civilians.
The rights group said in a report on Ukraine’s second biggest city published on Monday:
The repeated bombardments of residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv are indiscriminate attacks which killed and injured hundreds of civilians, and as such constitute war crimes.
This is true both for the strikes carried out using cluster (munitions) as well as those conducted using other types of unguided rockets and unguided artillery shells.
The continued use of such inaccurate explosive weapons in populated civilian areas, in the knowledge that they are repeatedly causing large numbers of civilian casualties, may even amount to directing attacks against the civilian population.”
Amnesty said it had uncovered proof in Kharkiv of the repeated use by Russian forces of 9N210 and 9N235 cluster bombs and scatterable land mines, all of which are banned under international conventions.
Cluster bombs release dozens of bomblets or grenades in mid-air, scattering them indiscriminately over hundreds of square metres (yards).
Scatterable land mines combine “the worst possible attributes of cluster munitions and antipersonnel land mines”, Amnesty said.
Unguided artillery shells have a margin of error of over 100m.
The report, entitled ‘Anyone Can Die At Any Time’, details how Russian forces began targeting civilian areas of Kharkiv on the first day of the invasion on 24 February.
The “relentless” shelling continued for two months, wreaking “wholesale destruction” on the city of 1.5 million.
People have been killed in their homes and in the streets, in playgrounds and in cemeteries, while queueing for humanitarian aid, or shopping for food and medicine,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser.
“The repeated use of widely banned cluster munitions is shocking, and a further indication of utter disregard for civilian lives.
“The Russian forces responsible for these horrific attacks must be held accountable.”
Kharkiv’s Military Administration told Amnesty 606 civilians had been killed and 1,248 wounded in the region since the conflict began.
Russia and Ukraine are not parties to the international conventions banning cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines.
But, Amnesty stressed, “international humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks and the use of weapons that are indiscriminate by nature.
Launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in death or injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects, constitutes war crimes.”
Summary and welcome
Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you on the Guardian’s live blog as we cover all the latest developments from Ukraine.
Ukrainian defenders are fighting fiercely for “every metre” of Sievierodonetsk - a key eastern city that has become the epicentre of the wider battle for control over Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
Overnight, Russian forces destroyed a bridge to another city across the river, leaving stranded civilians with just one way out.
If you’re just waking up, or dropping in to find the latest information, here’s a summary of the main points you might have missed:
- Russian forces have taken most of Sievierodonetsk, where fierce street fighting continues after a fire broke out at the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. “The key tactical goal of the occupiers has not changed: they are pressing in Sievierodonetsk, severe fighting is ongoing there – literally for every metre,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, adding that Russia’s military was trying to deploy reserve forces to the Donbas region. Ukrainian troops reportedly remain in control of an industrial area.
- Russia’s defence ministry said its cruise missiles destroyed a large depot containing US and European weapons in Ternopil in western Ukraine on Sunday. The strike destroyed a “large depot of anti-tank missile systems, portable air defence systems and shells provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and European countries”, the ministry said, a claim disputed by Ukrainian officials who said no weapons were stored there. Ternopil’s regional governor said the attack destroyed a number of residential buildings and injured 22 people, including seven women and a 12-year-old.
- Russian forces destroyed a bridge connecting the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk to its twin city of Lysychansk, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, according to local officials. Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said on Sunday that the Russian military had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi River that linked the two cities.
-
Amnesty International has accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by indiscriminate Russian shelling using widely banned cluster munitions and inherently inaccurate rockets, the agency said in a new report published on Monday. “Russian forces launched a relentless campaign of indiscriminate bombardments against Kharkiv. They shelled residential neighbourhoods almost daily, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians and causing wholesale destruction, often using widely banned cluster munitions.”
- Security concerns raised by Turkey in its opposition to Finland’s and Sweden’s Nato membership applications are legitimate, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said. “These are legitimate concerns. This is about terrorism, it’s about weapons exports,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Finland on Sunday.
- The bodies of many Ukrainian fighters killed during the siege of the Azovstal steelworks in the southern city of Mariupol are still awaiting retrieval, the former commander of Ukraine’s Azov National Guard regiment said on Sunday.
- A former British soldier has died fighting Russian forces in Sievierodonetsk. The British Foreign Office confirmed Jordan Gatley was shot and killed in Ukraine. He left the British army in March “to continue his career as a soldier in other areas” and had been helping Ukrainian troops defend their country against Russia, his father, Dean, wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
- Friends and family of Brahim Saadoun – the 21-year-old Moroccan sentenced to death alongside two Britons last week – have called for his freedom, telling the Guardian he was an active-duty marine and not a mercenary, as claimed by Russian media and pro-Russia officials in eastern Ukraine who announced the sentence.
- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Sunday the possibility of new talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “Perhaps in the next week, we will talk about what steps we will take, by holding talks with both Mr Putin and Zelenskiy,” he said in regards to solutions for impeded exports as a result of the war.
- The global nuclear arsenal is expected to grow in the coming years for the first time since the cold war, and the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and armaments thinktank said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv has heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
- Ukraine has established two routes through Poland and Romania to export grain and avert a global food crisis, although bottlenecks have slowed the supply chain, Kyiv’s deputy foreign minister said on Sunday.
-
Global trade ministers gathered to tackle food security threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at a World Trade Organization meeting on Sunday. Ministers are expected to agree on a joint declaration on strengthening food security in which they will “commit to take concrete steps to facilitate trade and improve the functioning and longterm resilience of global markets for food and agriculture”.
-
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called for the need to strengthen anti-corruption laws in Ukraine. After meeting with Zelenskiy, von der Leyen said: “There still needs to be reforms implemented, to fight corruption for example, or to modernise the administration, which will also help attract investors.”
- The British defence company QinetiQ will supply Ukraine with 10 Talon sapper robots for de-mining purposes, Ukrainian authorities announced on Sunday. The first deputy head of Ukraine’s patrol police, Oleksiy Biloshitsky, said: “Talon will be deployed to de-mine Ukraine. This is a sapper robot that not only locates ‘gifts’ but also neutralises them. Before the war we had already had more than a dozen of them, now QinetiQ will deliver 10 more.”
- McDonald’s restaurants opened their doors in Moscow under new Russian ownership and a new name, Vkusno & Tochka, which translates to “Tasty and that’s it”. The reopenings took place on Russia Day, a holiday celebrating national pride.
