irefighters work at the scene of a residential building following explosions, in Kyiv, Ukraine, June 26, 2022. (AP)Russia-Ukraine War News Live Updates, July 02 2022: Powerful explosions rocked the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv early on Saturday, the mayor said, a day after authorities said at least 21 people were killed when Russian missiles struck an apartment building near the Black Sea port of Odesa. Explosions flattened part of an apartment building while residents slept on Friday, the latest in a series of what Ukraine says are Russian missile attacks aimed at civilians.
In his nightly video address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the strikes as “conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terror and not some sort of error or a coincidental missile strike.” Kyiv says Moscow has intensified its long-range missile attacks, hitting civilian targets far from the frontline. Russia says it has been aiming at military sites. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cited President Vladimir Putin’s statements “that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets”.
In another development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday over the ongoing situation in Ukraine, reiterated India’s long-standing position favouring dialogue and diplomacy. Speaking over phone on the phone, the two leaders also discussed the state of global energy and food markets, PM Modi’s office said in a statement.
A woman covers her ears reacting to a Russian air raid in Lysychansk, Luhansk region, Ukraine, June 16, 2022. (AP)
Russian forces are pounding the city of Lysychansk and its surroundings in an all-out attempt to seize the last stronghold of resistance in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk province, the governor said Saturday.Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city and to keep it from falling to Russia, as neighboring Sievierodonetsk did a week ago.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took control of an oil refinery on Lysychansk's edge in recent days, but Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported Friday that fighting for the facility continued. “Over the last day, the occupiers opened fire from all available kinds of weapons,” Haidai said Saturday on the Telegram messaging app.Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk are the two provinces that make up the Donbas region, where Russia has focused its offensive since pulling back from the northern Ukraine and the capital, Kyiv, in the spring.
Global hunger, already reeling from the effects of climate change and Covid-19, suffered another blow In import-dependent countries of Africa, prices of food staples reached levels never seen before, amplifying inequality, hunger, and poverty.
The region saw bread prices increase over 50 per cent after one month of the war. The UN’s Food Price Index, which measures the change in international food prices, said food commodity prices increased 12.6 per cent from February to March. This is the sharpest increase in prices since the 1990s.
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Russian forces are pounding the city of Lysychansk and its surroundings in an all-out attempt to seize the last stronghold of resistance in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk province, the governor said Saturday.
Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city and to keep it from falling to Russia, as neighboring Sievierodonetsk did a week ago. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took control of an oil refinery on Lysychansk's edge in recent days, but Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported Friday that fighting for the facility continued.
“Over the last day, the occupiers opened fire from all available kinds of weapons,” Haidai said Saturday on the Telegram messaging app. (AP)
The chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, has inspected divisions of Russian troops involved in Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine, the defence ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry published still photographs of Gerasimov at work. It was not immediately clear when the visit took place or if Gerasimov had visited Ukraine itself.
The ministry issued a similar statement about Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu last week. (Reuters)
➡️ US basketball star Brittney Griner went on trial in Moscow to face drug charges that could see her face up to 10 years in prison.
➡️ Two Britons were charged with "mercenary activities" in the Russian-backed separatist region of Donetsk, Russian agency TASS reported. Last month, another two Britons accused of the same charge were sentenced to death.
➡️ Russia's ambassador to Bulgaria said she would ask Moscow to close its embassy in Sofia after 70 Russian diplomatic staff were expelled.
➡️ Ukraine's nuclear power operator said it had re-established its connection to surveillance systems at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, which is occupied by Russian forces.
A German official has warned that Russia could be planning to use a regular maintenance break on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline as an opportunity to cut the gas supply to Germany completely.
Klaus Müller, the head of the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzwerkagentur), said that made it crucial to save as much gas as possible. He told Saturday newspapers from the Funke Media Group that the question was whether the planned 11-day maintenance period, due to start July 11, will "become a longer [period] of political maintenance."
He said that if the gas supply from Russia "was reduced longer for political reasons, we have to talk more seriously about ways to cut consumption." Russia has already cut or reduced its gas supply to several European countries amid tensions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. (DW)
Russian gas producer Gazprom said its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point was seen at 42.15 million cubic metres (mcm) on Saturday compared with 42.1 mcm on Friday.
An application to supply gas via the Sokhranovka entry point had again been rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said. (Reuters)
In his nightly video address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the strikes as "conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terror and not some sort of error or a coincidental missile strike."
➡️ Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "I would like to remind you of the president's words that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets."
➡️ Russians have been shelling the eastern city of Lysychansk from different directions, the regional governor said. Russian forces have captured an oil refinery, one report said, citing Russia's defence ministry.
Authorities said at least 21 people were killed when Russian missiles struck an apartment building near the Black Sea port of Odesa.
Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odesa regional administration, said 21 people had been confirmed killed, including a 12-year-old boy. Among the fatalities was an employee of the Children's Rehabilitation Center set up by Ukraine's neighbour Moldova in the resort.
The strike on Serhiivka took place shortly after Russia pulled its troops off Snake Island, a strategically important outcrop about 140 km (85 miles) southeast of Odesa that it seized on the war's first day. (Reuters)
According to the EU Commissioner for the Environment Virginijus Sinkevicius, plans to rebuild Ukraine will need to address restoring the country's war-torn ecosystems.
"The [environmental] price tag every day is increasing, because we see the barbaric actions of the Russian side [are] not stopping," Sinkevicius said.
"They bomb chemicals facilities" and have put nuclear power plants at risk, he said, adding that "hundreds of thousands of tons" of destroyed Russian military machinery would need to be cleared.
He said environmental damage was "a crime of the biggest scale" that would "take generations to deal with." (DW)
The US Defense Department does not believe there is any credence to Russia saying its retreat from Snake Island was a gesture of goodwill, said a senior American official on Friday.
"We view this development as that the Ukrainians were very successful at applying significant pressure on the Russians, including by using Harpoon missiles that they recently acquired to attack a resupply ship," the official said.
According to him, the Ukrainians made it very hard for the Russians to sustain their operations there and made them very vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes. "So, that of course, is why Russia left the island," the official said.
The official, who was not named but whose comments were published on the DOD website, said that reclaiming Snake Island would make it easier for Ukraine to defend Odesa and to open shipping lanes in the future with Russia no longer controlling the island in the Black Sea. (DW)
Powerful explosions were heard in early hours on Saturday the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said in a social media post.
"There are powerful explosions in the city! Stay in shelters!" Senkevich wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
It was not immediately known what caused the explosions. Air raid sirens sounded across the whole Mykolaiv region before the blasts. (Reuters)
Satellite image from June 8 shows the impacts of artillery strike in a field near Krasnopillia, in eastern Ukraine.
Norway on Friday pledged 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion) to help Ukraine defend itself, support people in need and for reconstruction in the wake of Russia's invasion. Addressing a news conference in Kyiv alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said Norway wanted to express its solidarity with Ukraine's fight for survival.
"I'm here to say that Ukraine's fight is not only for Ukraine. This is about some fundamental principles of the world we are going to offer to our children. This is about security in Europe, this is about the fate of your neighbour," he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said that France will deliver swiftly the equipment Ukraine needs to defend it self. This will include six more Caesar howitzers and a significant number of armoured vehicles. "France, the allies and European partners are and will be there," he said on Twitter.
An international film festival in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary kicked off Friday amid controversy following a protest by Ukraine over the screening of a Russian film alongside Ukrainian-made movies. Prior to the start of the 56th edition of the festival, several leading Ukrainian filmmakers along with Ukraine’s ambassador to Prague protested the scheduled screening of “Captain Volkonogov Escaped.”
Ukrainian Ambassador Yevhen Perebyinis said in an open letter that it would be “inhuman" to screen Ukrainian films alongside a Russian movie made with support from Russia's Culture Ministry at a time when Russian troops had “committed atrocities" during their invasion of his country.Organizers said they consider the Russian movie - whose world premiere was at last year’s Venice Film Festival - as being indirectly critical of the current Russian leadership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said political pressure from the West was pushing Russia to accelerate its integration with neighbouring Belarus. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu last week said the two countries must take urgent joint measures to improve their defence capabilities and troops' combat-readiness.