Local residents remove debris from a courtyard of an apartment building located in Vannikova street following recent shelling in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in Donetsk, Ukraine June 20, 2022. (Reuters)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: A top ally of President Vladimir Putin told Lithuania on Tuesday that Moscow would respond to its ban on the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU to Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad in such a way that citizens of the Baltic state would feel the pain.
Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday that its missiles had struck an airfield near the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Reuters reported quoting Russian news agencies. It said it had carried out the strikes in response to a Ukrainian attack on gas production platforms in the Black Sea.
Ukraine acknowledged difficulties in fighting in the east of the country as Russian forces captured territory and intensified pressure on two key cities (Sievierodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk) ahead of a European Union summit this week expected to welcome Kyiv’s bid to join the bloc.
Demonstrators supporting Ukraine gather outside the United Nations. (AP)
European leaders and businesses are sweating over fears that Russia’s manipulation of natural gas supplies will lead to an economic and political crisis next winter or perhaps sooner. Here are key things to know about the energy pressure game over the war in Ukraine.
Russia last week reduced gas supplies to five European Union (EU) countries, including Germany, the biggest economy of the bloc that is heavily dependent on Moscow’s gas to generate electricity and power industry. Read More
Germany faces certain recession if already faltering Russian gas supplies completely stop, an industry body warned on Tuesday, as Italy said it would consider offering financial backing to help companies refill gas storage to avoid a deeper crisis in winter.
European Union states from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Adriatic in the south have outlined measures to cope with a supply crisis after Russia's invasion of Ukraine put energy at the heart of an economic battle between Moscow and the West.
The EU relied on Russia for as much as 40% of its gas needs before the war - rising to 55% for Germany - leaving a huge gap to fill in an already tight global gas market. Some countries have temporarily reversed plans to shut coal power plants in response. (Reuters)
US Attorney General Merrick Garland will visit Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss efforts to identify, arrest and prosecute those involved in war crimes and other atrocities committed during Russia's invasion, a Justice Department official said.
Garland will meet with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, the official said. (Reuters)
A top ally of President Vladimir Putin told Lithuania on Tuesday that Moscow would respond to its ban on the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU to Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad in such a way that citizens of the Baltic state would feel the pain.
With relations between Moscow and the West at a half-century low over Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania banned the transit of goods sanctioned by the European Union across its territory to and from the exclave, citing EU sanction rules.
Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB spy who is now the secretary of Russia's Security Council, said Lithuania's "hostile" actions showed that Russia could not trust the West, which he said had broken written agreements over Kaliningrad. (Reuters)
The British government is determined to impose further sanctions on Russia and will continue to do so until Moscow fully withdraws from Ukraine, foreign minister Liz Truss said on Tuesday.
"We are determined to provide more weapons, impose more sanctions and back Ukraine in pushing Russia out of their territory," Truss told parliament.
Truss said she would be travelling to Turkey on Wednesday to discuss options to help get grain out of Odesa, saying that there was only a matter of weeks to find a solution.
Britain, the United States and the European Union have coordinated in imposing massive sanctions on Moscow for what they call an invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has termed it a military operation.
The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday that its missiles had struck an airfield near the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Russian news agencies reported.
It said it had carried out the strikes in response to a Ukrainian attack on gas production platforms in the Black Sea.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.
The Russian-installed leader of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Monday that Kyiv had struck Black Sea drilling platforms owned by a Crimean oil company. (Reuters)
Ukraine has detained a senior government official and a business leader suspected of being part of an alleged Russian spy network, the Security Service of Ukraine said on Tuesday.
The Security Service (SBU) did not name the two suspects but identified them as a senior official in the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers and a department head at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business lobby.
It said in a statement on the Telegram app that it had carried out a "multi-stage special operation" to neutralise the alleged spy ring.
"As a result: in Kyiv, the head of a department of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers and the head of one of the directorates of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry were detained," the SBU said. (Reuters)
The Baltic states on Tuesday asked for more financial support from the EU to handle Ukrainian refugees, the Lithuanian president's office said.
"We must share the financial burden, which at the moment is unproportionally assigned to national budgets. EU solidarity is very important to assure proper support to war refugees from Ukraine", Lithuania's president Gitanas Nauseda said in a statement. (Reuters)
Luhansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday described the 'catastrophic destruction in Lysychansk' on Tuesday.
The eastern industrial city has come under intense shelling from Russian forces, including 'heavy' strikes on Monday, according to Gaiday, who added that one person had been killed.
'We are determining the final number of victims, because yesterday it was almost impossible to move inside the city safely,' he said. (DW)
European countries are united in their support for granting Ukraine the status of European Union member candidate, Luxembourg's foreign affairs minister said on Tuesday.
"We are working towards the point where we tell Putin that Ukraine belongs to Europe, that we will also defend the values that Ukraine defends," Jean Asselborn told reporters before a meeting with other EU ministers. (Reuters)
Indonesian President and current chair of the G20 Joko Widodo is due to visit Moscow later this month to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indonesia's state news agency cited the country's security minister as saying.
"Yes, that is the president's agenda," the coordinating security minister Mahfud MD told reporters at the presidential palace on Monday.
The Antara news agency reported that the Indonesian leader, widely known as Jokowi, was scheduled to meet Putin on June 30. (Reuters)
The European Union ambassador to Russia has arrived at the Russian foreign ministry, the RIA news agency said on Tuesday.
The governor of Kaliningrad region said on Monday that the ministry would summon EU ambassador to Moscow Markus Ederer over Lithuania's ban on the transit of goods under EU sanctions through Kaliningrad. (Reuters)
Russian television has begun to air in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, the Russian army said on Tuesday in an area where Moscow has already implemented its currency — the ruble — and started handing out Russian passports.
Moscow's forces have "reconfigured the last of the seven television towers in the Kherson region to broadcast Russian television channels" for free, the army said.
Bordering the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the Kherson region became occupied by Russian forces shortly after the Kremlin's offensive got underway on February 24.
One of the pro-Moscow officials in the region, Kirill Stremousov, said Tuesday that the territory could join Russia "before the end of the year." (DW)
The Danish Energy Agency issued a first level "early warning" alert over gas supplies.
The European Union has three levels of alerts to allow member states to signal energy supply issues: "early warning," "alert," and "emergency." The system allows for mutual assistance from EU countries.
Danish Energy Agency deputy director Martin Hansen said that "this is a serious situation we are facing and it has been exacerbated by the reduction in supplies." Currently Denmark's stocks are around 75% full.
Danish energy company Orsted announced at the end of May that delivery of Russian gas would be suspended after June 1, after the company refused to settle the payment in rubles as Moscow had requested. (DW)
Ukrainian forces last week claimed their first successful use of Western-donated Harpoon anti-ship missiles to engage Russian forces, the British Military Intelligence said on Tuesday.
"The target of the attack was almost certainly the Russian naval tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, which was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island in the north-western Black Sea," the defence ministry said in its daily Twitter update.
The war has entered a brutal attritional phase in recent weeks, with Russian forces concentrating on Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donbas, which Russia claims on behalf of separatists. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Africa was a "hostage" in the war with Russia, which had contributed to rising food prices on the continent. In a speech to African Union leaders, Zelenskyy said the continent had been caught up in a situation not of its making.
"(I) address you in a state of emergency, when we have a war. In an emergency for the whole world, when Africa is actually taken hostage. Hostage of those who started the war against our state," Zelenskyy said in a video speech to the Bureau of the Assembly of the African Union.
"This war may seem very distant to you and your countries. But catastrophically rising food prices have already brought it home to millions of African families." (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin fears the "spark of democracy" spreading to his country, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, adding that he was trying to divide Europe and return to a world dominated by spheres of influence.
Scholz was responding to a question in an interview with the Muenchner Merkur newspaper, published on the government website on Monday, on whether Putin would accept Ukraine moving closer to the European Union.
"The Russian President must accept that there is a community of law-based democracies in his neighbourhood that is growing ever closer together," he said. "He clearly fears the spark of democracy spreading to his country."
The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected the comments, writing on social media: "German sparks have spread onto us a couple of times. We will not allow any more fires." (Reuters)
➡️ Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Ukraine's Luhansk region, scene of the heaviest Russian onslaughts in recent weeks, said the situation was "extremely difficult" along the entire front line and the Russian army had gathered sufficient reserves to begin a large-scale offensive.
➡️ Gaidai said Russian forces controlled most of the city of Sievierodonetsk, apart from the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians have been sheltering for weeks. He also said the road connecting Sievierodonetsk and sister city Lysychansk to the city of Bakhmut was under constant shell fire.
➡️ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had predicted Moscow would escalate attacks ahead of the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. In his nighttime address to the nation on Monday, he was defiant, while also referring to "difficult" fighting in Luhansk for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
➡️ Ukrainian officials reported three civilian deaths in Russian shelling in the Donetsk region on Monday and another three in shelling in the Kharkiv region.
➡️ A Russian missile destroyed a food warehouse in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa after the Russia-installed leader of the annexed Crimea peninsula said Ukrainian forces had attacked drilling platforms owned by a Crimean oil and gas company. (Reuters)
Moscow's separatist proxies claimed to have captured Toshkivka, a town on the mostly Ukrainian-held western bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, south of Sievierodonetsk.
Gaidai acknowledged a Russian attack on Toshkivka had "had a degree of success" and confirmed Russia's claim to have captured Metyolkine.
Russia's military kept grinding down Ukraine's defenses Monday, with combat in eastern areas said to be entering a "decisive" phase, as the war's consequences for food and fuel supplies increasingly weighed on minds around the globe.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai told The Associated Press on Monday that the situation in Sievierodonetsk was "very difficult," with the Ukrainian forces maintaining control over just one area... the Azot chemical plant, where a number of Ukrainian fighters, along with about 500 civilians, are taking shelter.
The Russians keep deploying additional troops and equipment in the area, he said. "It's just hell there. Everything is engulfed in fire, the shelling doesn't stop even for an hour," Haidai said in written comments. (AP)