The latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence said over the past 48 hours “significant” Ukrainian operations have taken place in several sectors of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have “likely made good progress” and “penetrated the first line of Russian defences”, the MoD added. However, in other areas “Ukrainian progress has been slower”.
Meanwhile, Russian performance has been “mixed”, with some units “likely conducting credible manoeuvre defence operations while others have pulled back in some disorder, amid increased reports of Russian casualties as they withdraw through their own minefields”.
The update added: “The Russian Airforce has been unusually active over southern Ukraine, where the airspace is more permissive for Russia than in other parts of the country. However, it remains unclear whether tactical airstrikes have been effective.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that he planned to speak to Russian president Vladimir Putin on the phone soon, to urge him to withdraw troops from Ukraine.
Speaking at a convention of the German Protestant church in Nuremberg, Scholz said he had spoken to Putin on the phone in the past. “I plan to do it again soon,” the chancellor added.
Here’s some more on Justin Trudeau’s visit to Ukraine.
Trudeau paid his respects at a memorial site in central Kyiv to Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed fighting pro-Russian forces since 2014, Reuters reported.
Nato member Canada, which has one of the world’s largest Ukrainian diasporas, has supplied military and financial assistance to Ukraine during the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.
Russian activists and dissidents from the Anti-War Human Rights Coalition say volunteers are reporting that 1,842 left bank residents including 338 urgent cases around Olekshy, and nearby, are being prevented from leaving by Russian authorities. They also include 148 children and 243 elderly people.
The Anti-War Human Rights Coalition has sent a letter to the US calling for diplomatic pressure to be put on Moscow to allow humanitarian relief.
The letter adds:
The Ukrainian government has appealed to the United Nations and the Red Cross, but currently did not receive any feedback.
We request you to use diplomatic means to ensure that the Russian side provides assistance to the affected residents of Oleshki, or that the Russian side stops hindering the work of the volunteers willing to help the victims.
“At the same time we would like to appeal to the Red Cross to interfere and provide humanitarian aid as it is near impossible for local volunteers to evacuate such an amount of people with the means available.
Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has arrived in Kyiv.
Footage from the BBC shows Trudeau in the capital.
A £150m fund to help Ukrainians into their own homes has been announced by the UK government.
More than 124,000 people have arrived in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
The new money will go to councils to help Ukrainian families into private rented accommodation and find work. It will also go towards continuing sponsorship arrangements, as many guests are in their second year in the UK.
The funding is being divided according to the number of Ukrainians in each nation – England will receive about £109m, Scotland £30m, Wales £8m and Northern Ireland £2m.
Read the full report here.
Here are some images coming to us from the wires.
The southern reach of the Dnipro River is likely to return to its banks by 16 June after the breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam this week, a Russian-installed official said on Saturday.
Vladimir Saldo, who heads the Russian-controlled part, said the water level at Nova Kakhovka, the town adjacent to the dam on the downstream side, had now dropped by 3 metres (10 feet) from Tuesday’s peak, Reuters reported.
“The pumping of water and garbage collection from the streets have started,” he said, adding that more than 6,000 people had been evacuated from the flooded districts of Nova Kakhovka and from Oleshky and Hola Prystan.
He said preliminary calculations by the Russian hydroelectricity producer RusHydro indicated the Dnipro would return to its usual course below the now-destroyed Kakhovka power station by 16 June.
This could not be independently verified.
Here’s more from Prof Snyder.
When asked whether he believed the counteroffensive would make good progress, he said:
Military history teaches us that these things are very, very difficult to predict, but I think a lot of it hangs on, just as it does generally in war, whether the Ukrainian advances generate political pressure in Moscow and whether that political pressure leads back towards panic in the Russian front lines.
I think in general, the Ukrainians have done better than people expect, and I would cautiously predict that they will do better than people expect this time as well.
Yale historian Prof Timothy Snyder, who has written about Ukraine and Russia, and also about tyranny and the erosion of democracy, said he did not believe the destruction of the Kakhovka dam would ultimately affect Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I don’t think … it will have fundamental implications for the Ukrainian counteroffensive for now.
It’s diverting Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainian soldiers are evacuating people. Ukrainian soldiers are using their drones to drop water onto roofs instead of grenades into Russian tanks.
I think that will make a difference for a few days or a few weeks, but I think there are plenty of other directions the Ukrainian counteroffensive was meant to take, and remarkably, it’s still taking those.
He added it was “remarkable” that Ukraine is able to carry out a counteroffensive and a rescue operation at the same time.
The latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence said over the past 48 hours “significant” Ukrainian operations have taken place in several sectors of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have “likely made good progress” and “penetrated the first line of Russian defences”, the MoD added. However, in other areas “Ukrainian progress has been slower”.
Meanwhile, Russian performance has been “mixed”, with some units “likely conducting credible manoeuvre defence operations while others have pulled back in some disorder, amid increased reports of Russian casualties as they withdraw through their own minefields”.
The update added: “The Russian Airforce has been unusually active over southern Ukraine, where the airspace is more permissive for Russia than in other parts of the country. However, it remains unclear whether tactical airstrikes have been effective.”
Russia has fired missiles and attack drones at the central Ukrainian region of Poltava overnight, inflicting “some damage of infrastructure and equipment” at the Myrhorod military airfield, according to the regional governor.
The attack using ballistic and cruise missiles also damaged eight private residential homes and several vehicles, but no casualties were reported.
– Reuters
German investigators are examining evidence suggesting a sabotage team used Poland as an operating base to damage the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Investigators have fully reconstructed the two-week voyage of the “Andromeda”, a white pleasure yacht suspected of being involved in damaging the pipelines that supply Russian gas to Europe.
It was pinpointed the yacht had deviated from its target to venture into Polish waters, using data from the Andromeda’s radio and navigation equipment, satellite and mobile phones, Gmail accounts “and DNA samples left aboard, which Germany has tried to match to at least one Ukrainian soldier”.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office and Poland’s Office of Chancellery of the prime minister did not immediately respond for comment.
The Washington Post reported this week that the US had learned of a Ukrainian plan to attack the pipelines three months before they were damaged by the underwater explosions. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy told German media that Ukraine did not attack Nord Stream pipelines.
Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine:
A drone attack by Russian forces has killed three people and injured at least 10 more in Ukraine’s Odesa oblast region in the early hours of Saturday morning, according to Ukraine’s southern command.
Debris from the attack hit a high-rise residential building, causing a fire that has been extinguished. The blast wave also damaged surrounding residential buildings.
Emergency services said 27 people, including three children, were wounded, but the fire had been rapidly put out and 12 people were rescued from the building.
Russian forces used Iranian-made drones to attack the region, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian forces, according to reports.
The UN has helped boost Russian exports of food and fertilisers, facilitating a steady flow of ships to its ports ahead of an important grain deal deadline.
Top UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan met with Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin as Moscow threatens to walk away from a deal allowing the safe export of food and fertiliser from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on 17 July if obstacles to its own shipments are not removed.
To convince Moscow to agree to the pact known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative – brokered by the UN and Turkey in July last year – a three-year agreement was struck at the same time under which UN officials agreed to help Russia with its own food and fertiliser exports.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said “the past months have shown tangible progress” on improving Russian exports, but added: “Challenges remain but we will spare no effort to overcome all remaining obstacles.”
Russia’s ambassador to Turkey said that while Moscow continues talks with the UN on the Black Sea grain deal, there are no grounds to extend it beyond 17 July.
The Wagner group has been accused of stoking “anarchy” on Russia’s frontlines after one of the Kremlin’s military commanders claimed Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries had kidnapped and tortured his soldiers during the battle for Bakhmut.
In a video posted online, Lt Col Roman Venevitin also accused Wagner soldiers of stealing arms, forcing mobilised soldiers to sign contracts with Wagner, and attempting to extort weapons from the Russian defence ministry in exchange for releasing kidnapped soldiers.
For more details, here’s the full story:
Russia and Ukraine are tussling over control of Ukraine’s counteroffensive narrative as both Moscow and Kyiv reported heavy fighting in the south-central Zaporizhzhia region.
Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed the Ukrainian offensive had begun but said the troops “did not achieve their goals in any sector”. Ukraine’s president Voldymyr Zelenskiy did not make direct reference to developments in the battlefield but praised his soldiers’ “heroism”.
While some bloggers have described the first sightings of German and US armour signalling that the Ukrainian counteroffensive was under way, there’s virtually no independent reporting from the frontlines.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is ultimately expected to involve thousands of troops trained and equipped by the west. The US announced an extra $2.1bn in security assistance on Friday, including air defence and ammunition.
UN’s top aid official Martin Griffiths has warned Ukraine faces a “hugely worse” humanitarian situation than before after the collapse of the Kakhova dam.
This is a viral problem. The truth is this is only the beginning of seeing the consequences of this act.
Griffiths says an “extraordinary” 700,000 people are in need of drinking water and the flooding of agricultural land in one of the world’s most important breadbaskets will cause a “cascade of problems”, including lower grain exports, higher food prices around the world, and less to eat for millions in need.
Working mainly through Ukrainian aid groups, the UN has reached 30,000 people in flooded areas under Ukrainian control. Griffiths said he met with Russia’s UN ambassador for access to Russian-controlled areas in order to help flood victims.
Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, I’m Yang Tian bringing you the latest.
UN’s top aid official warns Ukraine’s humanitarian situation has been made “hugely worse” with the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Martin Griffiths said an “extraordinary” 700,000 people are in need of drinking water and flooding in one of the word’s critical breadbaskets could lead to lower grain exports and less food for millions in need.
More details shortly, in other key developments:
Russian president Vladimir Putin said Ukraine had begun its counteroffensive against Russian troops but that efforts “so far have failed” after Moscow said it repelled several Ukrainian assaults. However, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy made no formal announcement of specific developments on the battlefield, but praised the “heroism” of his country’s soldiers fighting “tough battles”.
Water levels are gradually receding in parts of southern Ukraine that were flooded after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, according to officials. Meanwhile, evidence is growing that the dam was blown up after seismic data showed there was a blast at the site in the early hours of Tuesday. Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array, said signals from a regional station in Romania pointed to an explosion at 2.54am. Norsar did not draw conclusions on who was responsible.
The US said Russia appeared to be deepening its defence cooperation with Iran and had received hundreds of one-way attack drones that it is using to strike Ukraine. Citing newly declassified information, the White House said the drones were built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea and then used by Russian forces against Ukraine.
The Wagner group has been accused of stoking “anarchy” on Russia’s frontlines after one of the Kremlin’s military commanders claimed Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries had kidnapped and tortured his soldiers during the battle for Bakhmut. In a video posted online, Lt Col Roman Venevitin also accused Wagner soldiers of stealing arms, forcing mobilised soldiers to sign contracts with Wagner, and attempting to extort weapons from the Russian defence ministry in exchange for releasing kidnapped soldiers.
Iceland announced it would suspend work at its embassy in Russia as of 1 August, the first country to do so, and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik. “The current situation simply does not make it viable for the small foreign service of Iceland to operate an embassy in Russia,” foreign minister Thordis Gylfadottir said.
Russia will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after the facilities are ready on 7-8 July, Putin told his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Friday in a meeting in Sochi, Russia.
Nato allies on Friday condemned Russia’s decision to withdraw from the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE).
Hungary said on Friday it had received a group of Ukrainian prisoners of war from Russia, a release that Ukraine welcomed while expressing concern that it had not been informed.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has thanked Joe Biden for his $2.1bn (£1.6bn) security assistance package. In a tweet, Zelenskiy said the contribution is “more important than ever” since the Kakhovka dam collapse.
The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, told Zelenskiy on Friday that Japan will offer emergency humanitarian aid worth about $5m (£3.9m) after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, a Japanese government spokesperson has said.
Ukraine’s domestic Security Service (SBU) said on Friday it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian “sabotage group” blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam in southern Ukraine. A one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation featured two unidentified men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian. One of the men said “Our saboteur group is there. They wanted to cause fear with this dam. It did not go according to the plan. More than they planned.”
The Kremlin on Friday accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilian victims of flooding caused by the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine in repeated shelling attacks, including one pregnant woman. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the purported attacks “barbaric”. Russia did not provide any evidence to back up its claims.
Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on Friday that Crimea’s water supply will not be affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, and the peninsula had enough water reserves for 500 days. A canal from the destroyed reservoir fed drinking water to the peninsula. Kyiv cut access to the canal in 2014, after Russia illegally seized Crimea and claimed to annex it.
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2023-06-10 10:03:36Z
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