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Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk are ‘dead cities’, says Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, admitted that Russian forces have the numerical advantage in the battle for the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, but insisted that Ukraine’s forces had “every chance” of fighting back.
Speaking at a briefing in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces defending Sievierodonetsk were “holding on” despite assaults by Russian troops, but that the situation on the eastern front was “difficult”.
The cities of Sievierodonetsk and its sister city of Lysychansk “are dead cities today”, he said.
Moscow’s forces were “more numerous and more powerful”, Zelenskiy said, but he argued that Ukraine’s forces had “every chance” of fighting back and the Ukrainian command would “make decisions according to the situation”.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians are still in Sievierodonetsk, which has been shelled for weeks by Russian artillery, Zelenskiy said.
He said the situation would become very difficult for Ukraine if Russia breaks through in the eastern region of Donbas.
Several dozen more US politicians and media and corporate executives were added to Russia’s list of sanctioned individuals on Monday, according to Reuters.
The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, the energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, and the trade representative, Katherine Tai, are among those now banned from Russia for what the country’s foreign ministry concedes is retaliation for “constantly expanding US sanctions against Russian political and public figures, as well as representatives of domestic business”.
Also included in the new list of 61 are Edward Bastian, the chief executive of Delta Air Lines, the White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, and Jeffrey Sprecher, the chair of the New York stock exchange.
Joe Biden was on a list of 963 individuals sanctioned by Russia last month in a largely symbolic gesture.
That list blocked the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the CIA head, William Burns, from entering Russia.
It also imposed “lifetime” bans on former US senators John McCain, Harry Reid and Orrin Hatch, who are all dead.
Hello, it’s Richard Luscombe in the US, and I’ll be guiding you through the next few hours.
The Associated Press is reporting that Russia has begun handing over bodies of Ukrainian fighters killed at the Azovstal steelworks, the fortress-like plant in the destroyed city of Mariupol where their last-ditch stand became a symbol of resistance against Moscow’s invasion.
The Guardian reported last week that, outside of the steelworks, the number of bodies in the city was overwhelming, with estimates ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 dead.
The AP says dozens of the dead taken from the bombed-out plant’s now Russian-occupied ruins have been transferred to the Kyiv region, where DNA testing is underway to identify the remains, according to both a military leader and a spokesperson for the Azov battalion.
The volunteer battalion was among the Ukrainian units that defended the steelworks for nearly three months before surrendering last month under relentless Russian attacks from the ground, sea and air.
It is unclear how many bodies remain at the plant.
Read more:
Summary
It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
- Russian officials in occupied Mariupol have shut down the southern port city for quarantine over a possible cholera outbreak, according to Ukrainian authorities. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said the Russian-occupied city is bracing itself for an epidemic as dead bodies and litter are piling up in the city.
- President Zelenskiy visited the frontline close to the fiercest fighting between his country’s troops and Russian forces in the east, where a regional official said the situation had worsened for Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the beleaguered city of Lysychansk on Sunday, just a few kilometres south of Sievierodonetsk, the main battlefield in the east, where Russia has concentrated its forces.
- The Ukrainian navy said it has pushed back a fleet of Russian warships more than 100km from its Black Sea coast. The group of Russian vessels were “forced to change tactics” after carrying out a naval blockade on Ukraine’s coast for weeks, the navy command of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Facebook. It has not been possible to independently verify this information.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has urged countries not to trust Vladimir Putin’s promises not to use trade routes to attack the southern port city of Odesa. Putin has said Ukraine could use the ports of Mykolayiv and Odesa for food exports, and that Russia would not use the mine clearance situation to launch “some attacks from the sea”. Kuleba said Putin’s words were “empty”.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, today. My colleague Richard Luscombe will be here shortly to bring you all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. I’ll be back tomorrow.
Dan Sabbagh
Ukraine needs 60 multiple rocket launchers – many more than the handful promised so far by the UK and US – to have a chance of defeating Russia, according to an aide to the country’s presidency.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to the president’s chief of staff, told the Guardian that while he believed the rocket launchers were “a gamechanger weapon”, not enough had been committed to turn the tide in the war.
“The fewer we get, the worse our situation will be. Our troops will continue to die and we will continue to lose ground,” particularly if countries with dozens of systems only “decide to donate four or five”, Arestovych said.
On Monday Britain said it would donate a handful of M270 tracked rocket launchers, carrying missiles with a range of about 50 miles, a few days after the US said it would donate four similar truck-based high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars).
Arestovych said Ukraine needed many more multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), which have a range far greater than anything in the country’s existing arsenal. He said:
If we get 60 of these systems then the Russians will lose all ability to advance anywhere, they will be stopped dead in their tracks. If we get 40 they will advance, albeit very slowly with heavy casualties; with 20 they will continue to advance with higher casualties than now.
The US army has 363 Himars and 225 M270 rocket launchers, and the US Marines have a further 47, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, while the UK has 35 of its version of the M270s – indicating there could be capacity to supply more to Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly said it will intensify its offensive in Ukraine if the longer-range rockets are delivered. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said on Monday:
The longer the range of weapons you supply, the farther away the line from where neo-Nazis [the Ukrainians] could threaten the Russian Federation will be pushed.
Read Dan Sabbagh’s full article: Ukraine needs many more rocket launchers from west, says adviser
Russian warships pushed back 100km, says Ukraine’s navy
The Ukrainian navy said it has pushed back a fleet of Russian warships more than 100km from its Black Sea coast.
The group of Russian vessels were “forced to change tactics” after carrying out a naval blockade on Ukraine’s coast for weeks, the navy command of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Facebook.
The navy’s update said:
As a result of our active actions on the impact of the enemy’s naval forces, the Russian Black Sea Fleet ship grouping was thrown off Ukrainian shores for more than a hundred kilometres. In an attempt to regain control of the north-western part of the Black Sea, the opponent had to change tactics: deployed Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems in Crimea and in Kherson region; redeploy additional forces to Snake Island.
A group of about 30 Russian ships and submarines continue to block civilian navigation, it said, while the situation in the north-western Black Sea remained “difficult”.
The statement continued:
We have deprived the Russian Black Sea Fleet of complete control over the north-west part of the Black Sea, which has turned into the “grey zone”. Meanwhile, the enemy has adopted our tactics, and is trying to reclaim control of the north-west part of the Black Sea through coastal missile complexes and winged air missiles.
It has not been possible to independently verify this information.
US authorities have charged the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich with exporting two planes of US origin to Russia without a licence.
A federal court in New York signed a warrant today authorising the seizure of two planes owned by Abramovich, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and a Gulfstream G650ER, according to court papers.
Prosecutors say both planes were flown in March to Russia, in violation of US sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
Abramovich has been sanctioned by the EU and Britain, but he has not been personally sanctioned by the US.
‘Epidemic’ of cholera has already begun in Mariupol, says official
Russian officials in occupied Mariupol have shut down the southern port city for quarantine over a possible cholera outbreak, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, told Ukrainian television that the city is bracing itself for an epidemic as dead bodies and litter are piling up in the city.
Andryushchenko, who left the city early on in the war, cited his sources still in the city, saying:
The word ‘cholera’ is increasingly heard in the city among local officials and their supervisors. As far as we can see the epidemic has more or less begun already.
He said they were aware of isolated cases in Mariupol, where most of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Russian airstrikes.
The Kyiv Independent reports that Ukraine’s health ministry warned that mass burials and poor access to clean water were creating a risk of cholera in Mariupol.
The ministry began reporting suspected cases of cholera in the region on 1 June, the paper reports.
A quick snap from Reuters, citing the Russian state-owned news agency Tass: president Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ordering the payment of 5m roubles to the families of each member of Russia’s national guard who died in Ukraine and Syria, Tass reports.
Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk are ‘dead cities’, says Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, admitted that Russian forces have the numerical advantage in the battle for the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, but insisted that Ukraine’s forces had “every chance” of fighting back.
Speaking at a briefing in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces defending Sievierodonetsk were “holding on” despite assaults by Russian troops, but that the situation on the eastern front was “difficult”.
The cities of Sievierodonetsk and its sister city of Lysychansk “are dead cities today”, he said.
Moscow’s forces were “more numerous and more powerful”, Zelenskiy said, but he argued that Ukraine’s forces had “every chance” of fighting back and the Ukrainian command would “make decisions according to the situation”.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians are still in Sievierodonetsk, which has been shelled for weeks by Russian artillery, Zelenskiy said.
He said the situation would become very difficult for Ukraine if Russia breaks through in the eastern region of Donbas.
An investigative journalist known for his coverage of Russian security agencies said he had been placed on a wanted list and that Russian authorities had frozen his bank accounts.
Andrei Soldatov, who co-founded the Agentura.ru website, tweeted that his accounts in Russian banks were “under arrest, plus I’m placed on Russia’s wanted list”.
In a separate post on Telegram, Soldatov said the case against him had been filed in a manner similar to that of two journalists accused of spreading “fake information” about Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Russia’s interior ministry website listed Soldatov as wanted under an unspecified article of the criminal code, Reuters reports.
Italy summoned Russia’s ambassador to protest over allegations by Moscow that the Italian media were waging an anti-Russian propaganda campaign through their coverage of the Ukraine war.
Italy’s foreign ministry said it called in ambassador Sergey Razov to reject “insinuations concerning the alleged involvement of our country’s media in an anti-Russian campaign”, it said in a statement.
It added that it “firmly rejected accusations of amorality” levelled at unnamed Italian officials and journalists by the Russian foreign ministry.
On Saturday, the Russian embassy in Rome posted on Facebook purported extracts from a report by the Russian foreign ministry on the “violation of Russian citizens’ rights” abroad.
The report criticised “an open anti-Russian campaign in the Italian media” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a “biased approach” which it said “has a key influence on the attitude of Italians towards Russians”.
The “great campaign launched in Italy against Russian culture and its representatives has led to a series of unpleasant incidents”, it said, including alleged discrimination in the healthcare and banking sectors.
In a separate post, the embassy said Razov had repudiated the criticism during his meeting with the secretary general of Italy’s foreign ministry.
Razov “pointed out that the propaganda line that is dominating in the Italian media can hardly be qualified otherwise than as hostile”, the embassy said.
It claimed the ambassador “called for moderation and balance, traditional for Italian foreign policy, in the interest of maintaining positive relations and cooperation between the Russian and Italian peoples in the long term”.
Nadia Khomami
The UK Ministry of Justice has announced a second tranche of support for the international criminal court’s (ICC) investigations into war crimes in Ukraine, including the deployment of a specialist legal and police team.
Karim Khan QC, the court’s chief prosecutor, was due in London on Monday to provide an update on the progress of the investigation, although his trip was later cancelled due to illness. The deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, will present further support to the independent investigation on top of the £1m of funding provided earlier this year.
The package includes a police liaison officer based in The Hague to lead on information sharing between the UK and the ICC, and seven legal experts to support the ICC with expertise in international criminal law and the handling of evidence to be presented to court.
The UK will also provide two police officers with expertise in the collection of intelligence through publicly available data sources, ongoing defence analysis and monitoring of events in Ukraine, as well as war crimes investigation training to Ukrainian police on behalf of the ICC, in collaboration with Norwegian police.
Raab said:
The UK has responded swiftly to a request from the international criminal court for more police and lawyers to aid their investigation into Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Russian forces should know that they will be held to account for their actions and the global community will work together to ensure justice is served.
The attorney general, Suella Braverman, added:
Following my appointment of war crimes expert Sir Howard Morrison as an independent adviser to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, I am determined that British expertise continues to be available to our friends in Ukraine in their search for justice. We will stand side by side as they uncover the truth and hold those responsible in Putin’s regime to account for their actions.
The ICC launched its war crimes investigation into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March after an unprecedented number of countries backed the move and Boris Johnson called the military intervention “abhorrent”.
Zelenskiy: 75m tonnes of grain could be stuck in Ukraine by autumn
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said there could be as much as 75 million tonnes of grain stuck in Ukraine by this autumn, and that Kyiv wanted anti-ship weapons that could secure the safe passage of its exports.
Zelenskiy told a briefing in Kyiv that Ukraine has been discussing with Britain and Turkey the idea of a third country’s navy guaranteeing the passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Russia-dominated Black Sea.
The strongest guarantee of their safe passage, though, would be Ukrainian weaponry, Reuters reports he told the media.
As well as the court fine for Radio Liberty/Radio Free Moscow, today was the day that US media outlets were due to be summoned to Russia’s foreign ministry.
Guy Faulconbridge is reporting for Reuters what they claim to be an exclusive from sources who have said what happened at the meeting.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, is said to have outlined the difficulties for Russian journalists there, including over visa renewals, blocked bank accounts and alleged harassment by US intelligence agencies, according to three Reuters sources with direct knowledge of the meeting.
Zakharova warned the outlets that if Russian journalists were not able to work freely in the US, their reporters in Russia risked facing similar difficulties with their visas, media accreditation and bank accounts.
According to the Reuters report, she told the US media representatives that unless things changed, the US journalists would have to leave. She added that Russia did not want to do this but was being forced to because of the plight of Russian journalists.
Zakharova did not respond to a written request to comment on the meeting from Reuters. It is not known whether the timing of the meeting – on 6 June, when Ukraine is celebrating a day recognising journalists – was deliberate or coincidental.
The RIA state news agency said that representatives of the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Associated Press and NPR attended the meeting.
President Vladimir Putin signed a law in March imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military, prompting some western media to pull their journalists out of Russia.
Radio Free Europe fined 20m roubles for broadcasting what Russian court deems ‘fake’ information about war on Ukraine
A Moscow court has fined US-backed broadcaster Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe 20m roubles (£260,000/$325,214) over what it deems to be “fake” content about Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, according to reports from Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Reuters notes that Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor blocked the websites of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and some other foreign media in early March.
Here are some more of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the newswires.
Patrick Wintour
European unity over the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proving difficult to maintain in the face of the war’s impact on inflation and living standards across the continent, Estonia’s prime minister has said.
Kaja Kallas also criticised the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for trying to provide Vladimir Putin with a diplomatic way out of the conflict, saying the only effect was to give the Russian leader the belief that he will not be isolated or face justice for his army’s war crimes.
“We are at a point when sanctions start to [damage] our side,” said Kallas, who has gained a growing reputation for standing up to Putin.
At first the sanctions were only difficult for Russia but now we are coming to a point when the sanctions are painful for our own countries, and now the question is how much pain are we willing to endure. It is different for different countries. The unity is very hard to keep. It is getting more and more difficult because of high inflation, and energy prices.
She added:
Gas might be expensive, but freedom is priceless. People living in the free world do not really understand that.
She said that as a teenager she had been liberated from a Russian totalitarian prison – Estonia was annexed by the USSR until 1991. “I know what it feels like and this is the experience of central and eastern countries,” she said.
But this is an experience that some western European countries do not have, so the values might go out of the window as soon as you feel the pain on your side.
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