Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that its correspondents have heard explosions in Kyiv. The local authority has said that air defence is in operation. The attack comes shortly after South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in the capital as part of a peace delegation which is also expected to visit Moscow. An air alert is in place across much of Ukraine with reports of Kalibr cruise missiles being fired from the Black Sea.
More details soon …
Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels have failed to reach agreement over the alliance’s first defence plans since the end of the cold war, two officials told Reuters on Friday (See post at 11:43).
“While regional plans were not formally endorsed today, we anticipate these plans will be part of a series of deliverables for the Vilnius summit in July,” a senior US official said.
Speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin has said that Russia’s public finances were generally balanced and that it had had to increase defence spending to reinforce its security.
The Russian president said:
Naturally, additional funds were needed to strengthen defence and security, to purchase weapons. We were forced to do this to protect our country’s sovereignty.
I should say that on the whole this justifies itself from an economic point of view, he added.
Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s economy may grow by up to 2% this year as it bounces back from last year’s contraction in the face of sweeping western sanctions.
Putin’s forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth, delivered at Russia’s flagship economic forum in St Petersburg, is similar to those of other Russian authorities, Reuters reports.
The International Monetary Fund in April forecast Russian GDP growth at 0.7%, up from 0.3% in a previous estimate, but lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3% from 2.1%.
Vladimir Putin has started speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. You can watch a live feed of the speech at the top of the blog.
The forum, being held between 14 and 17 June, has for decades been Russia’s vehicle for touting its development and seeking investors.
The Russian president’s appearances at the forum have been highly visible and he often used the occasion to hold roundtable discussions with international news executives.
The spectre of the Russia-Ukraine war looms large over the forum this year, with many notable absentees, including no representation from Europe or the US.
Yury Ushakov, a top Kremlin foreign policy aide, said on Friday that Russia was unlikely to quit the Black Sea grain deal before it comes up for renewal on 17 July, state media reported.
Russian officials have said, however, they see no grounds to extend it beyond that, Reuters reports.
Vladimir Putin said this week that Moscow was considering withdrawing from the deal – which enables Ukraine to ship grain from its Black Sea ports – because it had been “cheated” by the west over promises to remove barriers to Russia’s own grain and fertiliser exports.
Two children and an elderly woman have been injured in the Kyiv region after a Russian missile attack, with more than 30 houses being damaged, the Kyiv Post cited the regional police as saying (See post at 10:58).
The South African president’s security team has been stuck on a plane in Poland for several hours, the BBC has reported.
Radio Zet, a Polish radio station, reportedly claimed that the SAA plane that has been stuck on the tarmac at an airport in Warsaw will not be able to disembark.
“It turns out that some of the delegation do not have the documents to leave the airport. Secondly, unofficially, the president’s additional bodyguards have weapons. They do not have the proper permits for them,” Radio Zet was quoted as saying.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya reassured people that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived safely in Kyiv by train, despite the delays experienced by some of his security team.
He said:
I would like to assure all South Africans that there has been no compromise whatsoever to the president’s safety as a result of the impasse that involved the charter flight with the presidential protection services team and the media.
We acknowledge the regrettable nature of that incident. Our officials are engaging with their Polish counterparts to resolve the impasse.
Vladimir Putin hailed Russia’s ties with the United Arab Emirates on Friday as he met the leader of the oil-rich nation, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in St Petersburg (See post at 11:12)
“The Emirates are a very good partner,” Putin said in televised comments at the start of the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of an economic summit in Russia’s second city.
Putin thanked Sheikh Mohammed for the role the UAE has played in prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and the US, AFP reports.
Sheikh Mohammed said he was in favour of “de-escalation” and a “political solution” to the Ukraine war during the talks, in which the pair discussed their countries’ “strategic partnership”, according to the UAE official news agency WAM.
Russia and UAE have closely cooperated as members of the OPEC+ oil alliance and Dubai is one of the rare world capitals to have maintained direct flights to Moscow following the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
South Africa’s presidency has just posted some videos from Kyiv’s St Michael’s Square on Twitter. They were filmed receiving a briefing by representatives of Ukraine’s ministry of defence.
African leaders have began a peace mission, hoping to mediate between Ukraine and Russia (See post at 07:56).
African leaders, including South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and Senegalese president Macky Sall, began their trip by visiting the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv.
Ukraine says Russian occupiers carried out executions, rapes and torture in Bucha, and international investigators are collecting evidence of war crimes. Russia denies the allegations.
As Ukraine pushes on with its counteroffensive, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and other senior officials from Nato member countries are continuing into a second day of ministerial meetings in Brussels.
Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s general secretary, left open the prospect that his term may be extended as senior officials from alliance member countries openly endorsed the idea on Thursday.
Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, was previously tipped as a contender owing to his role in supporting Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its forces had repelled numerous attempted counterattacks by the Ukrainian army at different frontline locations in the last 24 hours, inflicting heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces.
Ukraine says its forces have recaptured at least seven villages and 100 square km in the early stages of a counteroffensive it hopes will gather greater momentum as it commits more soldiers, Reuters reports.
In its daily update on fighting, Russia’s defence ministry said it had inflicted significant losses on Ukrainian troops during what it described as unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the South Donetsk and Donetsk directions.
It said Russia had used ground troops, air strikes and artillery fire to repel Ukrainian troops, and that in the last 24 hours at various locations had killed about 500 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed five tanks.
Many armoured vehicles and other items of Ukrainian military hardware had also been destroyed, it added. These claims could not be immediately independently verified.
There are bridges being built to strengthen the partnership between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE’s president, told Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a forum in St. Petersburg on Friday.
“I am pleased to be here today with you, your excellency, and we wish to build on this relationship and we put our trust in you to do so,” Sheikh Mohammed was quoted by Reuters as saying.
When Putin makes his annual keynote speech at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, he will reportedly be joined on stage only by the president of Algeria, as Western companies have almost universally shunned the self-styled “Russian Davos”.
Kyiv’s mayor reported there was no damage to Ukraine’s capital after a missile attack by Russia on Friday morning. According to information provided by the Ukrainian air force, the city’s defences shot down six Kinzhal ballistic missiles, six Kalibr cruise missiles and two reconnaissance drones.
Explosions from the action of air defences were reported in Ukraine’s capital as the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and other African leaders were in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy as part of a peace initiative. The leaders are due to head to Moscow and meet Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, said “The Russian missile attack took place just when the leaders of African countries arrived in the capital. Putin wants to demonstrate that he is willing to disregard the safety of foreign leaders, he actually doesn’t care because he feels complete impunity.”
Kherson’s regional authority has said that 1,649 houses in 17 settlements on the right bank of the Dnipro remain flooded after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam. They also claim that 17 settlements remain flooded on the opposite bank, which is occupied by Russian forces.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi has posted a video which claims to show Ukrainian forces taking out Russian positions near the town of Bakhmut. In a short message on Telegram, the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces said “The enemy is steadily losing equipment near Bakhmut, our soldiers are knocking the Russians out of their positions.”
Russian troops who have destroyed German-made Leopard tanks and US-supplied armoured vehicles being used by Ukraine will receive bonus payments, the defence ministry said on Friday. The ministry said this was part of a wider reward scheme under which more than 10,000 Russian servicemen had received individual bonuses since the start of the war nearly 16 months ago.
150 children have been illegally taken from the Luhansk region to Russia, according to Ukraine’s National Resistance Centre. It said the children were taken from the occupied region’s Starobilsk district on 8 June to two centres in the Prikuban district of Russia’s Karachay-Cherkess republic.
Ukraine has regained control of more than 100 sq km (38 sq miles) of territory in its counteroffensive, senior Ukrainian military commander Brig Gen Oleksii Hromov has claimed. The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said there was a “gradual but steady advance” but that Russian forces were putting up “powerful resistance” on the southern front.
Suspilne reports that Kyiv sustained no damage or injuries in this morning’s Russian missile attack. On its official Telegram channel it wrote:
Mayor Klitschko clarified that the explosions in the Podilsky district of Kyiv were heard due to the work of the air defence forces in the region. There is no damage in Kyiv after the missile attack.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has commented on Telegram about this morning’s attack on Kyiv by Russia.
The Russian missile attack took place just when the leaders of African countries arrived in the capital.
Putin wants to demonstrate that he is willing to disregard the safety of foreign leaders, he actually doesn’t care because he feels complete impunity. And anyone can be in the place of the leaders of African countries.
We remember that rockets flew also when US president Joe Biden and UN secretary general António Guterres arrived in Ukraine.
Yermak continued:
The world must understand that consolidation and the toughest possible position towards Russia are now necessary. It is necessary to show strength to the state that undermines global security and acts with terrorist methods.
We must unite around the peace formula of president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. There is no alternative to it. And we must discuss further steps at the Global Peace Summit.
Only strong diplomacy and a strong position can put an end to Russian terrorism. Because it concerns everyone, every state that wants to exist and preserve the world order.
Daniel Boffey reports from Kyiv for the Guardian:
The all clear has sounded in Kyiv. According to information just provided by the Ukrainian air force, the city’s defences shot down six Kinzhal ballistic missiles, six Kalibr cruise missiles and two reconnaissance drones. And life goes on as normal on the streets of the Ukrainian capital.
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2023-06-16 12:51:35Z
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