Summary
It is approaching 10am in Kyiv and here’s a summary of the latest developments.
- Russia’s war in Ukraine could take years, the Nato secretary general said. Jens Stoltenberg said the supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukraine would boost the chance of freeing its eastern region of Donbas from Russian control, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” Stoltenberg said. “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine, even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”
- Russia was sending a large number of reserve troops to Sievierodonetsk from other battle zones to try to gain full control of the besieged eastern city, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region said on Sunday. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will throw in all the reserves they have … because there are so many of them there already, they’re at critical mass,” Serhiy Gaidai said on national television.
- Two top commanders of fighters who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have been transferred to Russia for investigation, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported. Citing an unnamed Russian law enforcement source, Tass said late on Saturday that Svyatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of the Azov battalion, and Serhiy Volynsky, the commander of the 36th marine brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces, were moved to Russia.
- A big explosion rocked an area near Sievierodonetsk on Saturday. Rodion Miroshnik, an official in the self-styled separatist administration of the Luhansk People’s Republic, posted a video of what he said was the cloud on the Telegram messaging app.
- Five civilians were killed on Saturday in Ukrainian strikes on the eastern separatist city of Donetsk, according to local authorities. “As a result of the bombardment by Ukrainian forces, five people were killed and 12 others were wounded in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the authorities said in a statement posted on Telegram.
- Several Russian missiles hit a gasworks in the Izium district in eastern Ukraine, Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said. “A large-scale fire broke out, rescuers localised the fire,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday. Reuters reported him adding that some other buildings had also been damaged.
- Russian missiles destroyed a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, a town in eastern Ukraine. According to the head of the regional administration on Saturday, three people have been sent to the hospital.
- The Pentagon is considering sending four additional rocket launchers to Ukraine, Politico reports. According to US defence department officials, speaking to the outlet on condition of anonymity, the US may likely send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems, making their total number about eight. The decision would be “based on Ukrainian immediate needs”, one official said.
- Russia and Ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange, the Kyiv Independent reports. Five captured Ukrainian individuals were returned to Ukraine on 18 June in exchange for five captured Russian individuals, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate.
- Yuliia Paievska AKA “Taira”, the Ukrainian captured paramedic who was freed from Russian captivity during the week, released a video thanking Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy for her release. “I always believed that everything would be exactly this, and everyone who is now on the other side, they know everything will work out,” she said.
- Zelenskiy presented state awards to border guards in Odesa as he visited troops in southern Ukraine. “I want to thank you from the people of Ukraine, from our state, for the great work you are doing, for your heroic service,” the president said on Saturday. “It is important that you are alive. As long as you live, there is a strong Ukrainian wall that protects our country.”
Hello, I’m Adam Fulton in Sydney and welcome to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
As EU leaders prepare to decide on whether to grant Ukraine candidate status, Politico has this Venn diagram showing which states are applying to join the bloc and Nato:
Alongside Ukraine, EU leaders will also decide next week whether to grant Moldova and Georgia EU candidate status, although full membership would be probably take years. The European Commission has already said Ukraine should be given candidate status, and recommended it for Moldova, but has been more guarded in the case of Georgia.
Ukrainians being hosted by Britons under the Homes for Ukraine scheme face a “cliff edge” of crumbling support when their placements end, and could be blocked from renting privately, refugee organisations have warned.
They said it could be impossible for many refugees to pass checks on prospective tenants in the private sector.
- Families have already reported being frozen out after failing reference tests due to lacking evidence of work or tax history stretching back years
- Even those with secure jobs, savings and no history of debt have been blocked
- Thousands could be affected in the months to come as placements end
- Opora, a network assisting Ukrainians, urged the government to act now to avert problems
Read the full report, by Shanti Das and Mark Townsend, here:
Hello, I’m Clea Skopeliti and I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours. It’s 10.15am in Kyiv.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz says the Group of Seven leading democracies will make clear at their coming summit that Ukraine can expect to receive the support it needs “for as long as necessary”.
In an interview with Germany’s dpa news agency published on Saturday, Scholz said he wanted to use next week’s meeting with fellow G7 leaders in the Bavarian village of Elmau to discuss Ukraine’s long-term prospects.
“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as necessary,” Scholz said. “We want to make sure that Russian president [Vladimir Putin’s] calculations do not work out.
“Putin obviously hopes that everything will fall into place once he has conquered enough land and the international community will return to business as usual,” he added. “That is an illusion.”
Associated Press reported Scholz as saying he and his counterparts from France, Italy and Romania had discussed further weapons supplies for Ukraine, specifically ammunition and artillery, with president Volodymyr Zelenskiy during their visit to Kyiv on Thursday.
The four leaders also backed Ukraine’s bid for membership of the European Union, a stance Scholz said he hoped all of the bloc’s countries would support at a gathering in Brussels next week.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had visited soldiers on the southern frontline in the Mykolaiv region, about 550km (340 miles) south of Kyiv.
“I talked to our defenders – the military, the police, the national guard,” he said in a video on Telegram on Sunday that appeared to have been recorded on a moving train.
“Their mood is assured: they all do not doubt our victory,” Zelenskiy said. “We will not give the south to anyone, and all that is ours we will take back.”
Another video showed Zelenskiy in his trademark khaki T-shirt handing out medals and posing for selfies with servicemen.
Reuters reported Zelenskiy’s office as saying he had also visited national guard positions in the southern region of Odesa to the west of Mykolaiv. The timing of the trips was not revealed.
Zelenskiy has stayed mostly in Kyiv since Russia invaded, although in recent weeks he has made unannounced visits to Kharkiv and two eastern cities near battles.
The besieged city of Sievierodonetsk faced heavy artillery and rocket fire again as Russian forces attacked areas around it, the Ukrainian military said.
The military’s general staff acknowledged its forces had suffered a setback in the settlement of Metolkine, just south-east of Sievierodonetsk, as the battle for the industrial city in eastern Ukraine continued.
“As a result of artillery fire and an assault, the enemy has partial success in the village of Metolkine, trying to gain a foothold,” it said in a Facebook post late on Saturday.
Serhiy Gaidai, the Ukrainian-appointed governor of Luhansk, referred in a separate online post to “tough battles” in Metolkine, Reuters reported.
Russia’s Tass news agency, citing a source working for Russian-backed separatists, said many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered in Metolkine.
Summary
It is approaching 10am in Kyiv and here’s a summary of the latest developments.
- Russia’s war in Ukraine could take years, the Nato secretary general said. Jens Stoltenberg said the supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukraine would boost the chance of freeing its eastern region of Donbas from Russian control, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” Stoltenberg said. “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine, even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”
- Russia was sending a large number of reserve troops to Sievierodonetsk from other battle zones to try to gain full control of the besieged eastern city, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region said on Sunday. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will throw in all the reserves they have … because there are so many of them there already, they’re at critical mass,” Serhiy Gaidai said on national television.
- Two top commanders of fighters who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have been transferred to Russia for investigation, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported. Citing an unnamed Russian law enforcement source, Tass said late on Saturday that Svyatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of the Azov battalion, and Serhiy Volynsky, the commander of the 36th marine brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces, were moved to Russia.
- A big explosion rocked an area near Sievierodonetsk on Saturday. Rodion Miroshnik, an official in the self-styled separatist administration of the Luhansk People’s Republic, posted a video of what he said was the cloud on the Telegram messaging app.
- Five civilians were killed on Saturday in Ukrainian strikes on the eastern separatist city of Donetsk, according to local authorities. “As a result of the bombardment by Ukrainian forces, five people were killed and 12 others were wounded in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the authorities said in a statement posted on Telegram.
- Several Russian missiles hit a gasworks in the Izium district in eastern Ukraine, Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said. “A large-scale fire broke out, rescuers localised the fire,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday. Reuters reported him adding that some other buildings had also been damaged.
- Russian missiles destroyed a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, a town in eastern Ukraine. According to the head of the regional administration on Saturday, three people have been sent to the hospital.
- The Pentagon is considering sending four additional rocket launchers to Ukraine, Politico reports. According to US defence department officials, speaking to the outlet on condition of anonymity, the US may likely send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems, making their total number about eight. The decision would be “based on Ukrainian immediate needs”, one official said.
- Russia and Ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange, the Kyiv Independent reports. Five captured Ukrainian individuals were returned to Ukraine on 18 June in exchange for five captured Russian individuals, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate.
- Yuliia Paievska AKA “Taira”, the Ukrainian captured paramedic who was freed from Russian captivity during the week, released a video thanking Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy for her release. “I always believed that everything would be exactly this, and everyone who is now on the other side, they know everything will work out,” she said.
- Zelenskiy presented state awards to border guards in Odesa as he visited troops in southern Ukraine. “I want to thank you from the people of Ukraine, from our state, for the great work you are doing, for your heroic service,” the president said on Saturday. “It is important that you are alive. As long as you live, there is a strong Ukrainian wall that protects our country.”
Hello, I’m Adam Fulton in Sydney and welcome to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Reference-www.theguardian.com