Ukraine war: Ukraine and Russia both claim control over Lysychansk - BBC

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Ukraine's eastern city of Lysychansk is at the centre of competing claims, with both Russian and Ukrainian forces saying they are in control.

Ukraine says its forces are enduring intense Russian shelling there but insists the city has not been seized.

However, Russian-backed separatists say they have successfully entered the city and reached its centre.

Russian media showed videos of separatist or Russian forces apparently parading through the streets.

Russian sources have also tweeted video of the Soviet flag allegedly being placed on the city's ruined administrative centre, but that has not been verified.

It is the last Ukrainian-held city in Luhansk, part of the industrial Donbas region. Russia captured the nearby city of Severodonetsk last month.

The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haida, said there had been no let-up in the assault on Lysychansk, with Russian forces approaching the besieged city from all sides.

Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Russia of the pro-Moscow breakaway Luhansk People's Republic, told Russian television that Lysychansk had been "brought under control" but was "not yet liberated".

Images of Chechen Russian soldiers inside the city were shared by defence blogger Rob Lee.

More photos of Chechen Rosgvardia troops in front of the city administration building. 2/https://t.co/eDX2VT2V3Qhttps://t.co/nLV7txFxbs pic.twitter.com/rbuiX9sAyb

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) July 2, 2022

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Since Russia invaded on 24 February, claiming it wanted to "demilitarise" and "de-Nazify" Ukraine after it moved closer to Nato, thousands of civilians and combatants have been killed or wounded, while at least 12 million people have fled their homes.

Western states have responded by arming Ukraine and placing unprecedented sanctions on Russia, a nuclear superpower and global energy supplier.

• Can we say how many people have died in Ukraine?
• What weapons are being supplied to Ukraine?
• Why Russia couldn't hold Snake Island

In another development, railway tracks and electricity lines in the northern city of Kharkiv were damaged in a series of attacks. No casualties were reported.

The southern city of Mykolaiv - on a key route to the port city of Odesa - was shaken by several explosions.

The Russian defence ministry said its air force had destroyed five Ukrainian command posts and several ammunition dumps, but that claim has not been independently verified.

The blasts came a day after the Russians were accused of killing more than 20 people in a missile strike on a block of flats near Odesa.

Later on Saturday, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said his country's air defences had shot down Ukrainian missiles, though he did not specify where. He is a close ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin and allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from Belarus in February.

"They are provoking us... Three days ago, maybe a bit more, an attempt to strike military facilities on Belarusian territory was made from the territory of Ukraine," he said. "But, thank God, the Pantsir anti-aircraft systems managed to intercept all the missiles."

He added that "we are not seeking to fight in Ukraine".

In its latest intelligence update, the UK Defence Ministry accuses Russia of using Soviet-era anti-ship missiles "in a secondary land attack role" - not what they were designed for. The Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles were "likely" the ones that killed many civilians in Kremenchuk and Odesa, the ministry says.

Slovyansk, a major Donbas city held by Ukrainian forces, has also been shelled again by the Russians. Its mayor Vadym Lyakh said banned Russian cluster munitions killed four people there - another claim the BBC was unable to verify.

War in Ukraine: More coverage

• STOLEN GRAIN: Tracking where Russia takes Ukraine's grain
• ANALYSIS: Why Russia couldn't hold Snake Island
• FACT CHECKED: Russia's claims about shopping centre attack
• READ MORE: Full coverage of the crisis

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2022-07-02 23:32:07Z
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'It's hard to leave': Moscow's fresh wave of missile attacks rekindle Kyivans' fear - Financial Times

Viktoriia Vasylieva, a wedding photographer, and her eight-year-old daughter returned to their home in Kyiv in recent weeks — enjoying the relative peace in a city that felt distant from the brutal artillery war raging in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

But the calm was shattered again this week in a deadly rocket attack. In a series of missile strikes across Ukraine from Kremenchuk to Odesa, Moscow sent a message: it is still willing to kill civilians, wherever they live. Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine became the latest city to face bombardment, in a barrage on Friday and early Saturday morning.

“I understand that remaining here can be dangerous,” said Vasylieva, who moved to Kyiv from Crimea years ago. “But I feel that this is my home.”

She and her daughter have grown familiar with the “rule of two walls” for when air-raid sirens sound, scurrying for shelter in a corridor or bathroom. But having fled Kyiv three days after Russia invaded in February, they are not about to up sticks again. “There is nothing worse than being a refugee,” said Vasylieva.

Months after Russian troops shelled parts of the capital and brutally occupied Irpin and Bucha, two leafy north-western suburbs, Kyivans are trying to restore something resembling normality.

Viktoriia Vasylieva, with her daughter

Cafés and bars in the city centre — which before the war were a magnet for a growing middle class and foreigners seeking a Berliner hipster vibe at Ukrainian prices — are beginning to hum again. By 6pm, cocktail drinkers on Reitarska Street are spilling on to the pavement. The 11pm curfew means some parties start a little earlier.

But escaping signs of war is impossible.

A display of destroyed Russian military hardware brings gawkers to the central Mykhailivska Square. Murals honour war dead. A huge banner on mayor Wladimir Klitschko’s administrative building calls — in English — for the fighters captured by Russia after it destroyed Mariupol to be freed.

Cars must still weave in and out of antitank barricades of spiked steel known as “izhaki”, or hedgehogs, which are scattered along the capital’s streets. Sandbags cover statues and buttress official buildings.

Some of the city’s leading creative lights wonder if a candle has been snuffed out by Putin’s invasion.

“Everything was flourishing, the whole country was booming. Kyiv was the new Berlin. The art scene was huge,” said Darko Skulsky, who moved to the city from Philadelphia and became executive producer of Radioaktive Film, one of the companies behind the Chernobyl HBO series. “It had the coolest bars and nightclubs in the world, great restaurants. Then this happened.”

Skulsky now lives in Warsaw. “There’s definitely tears. All the time,” he said.

Moments after a missile strike on Kyiv on Sunday 26 June © Derek Brower/FT

Almost 4mn people lived in Kyiv before the invasion on February 24. The population plunged as Russian troops neared. It has recovered to around 2.7mn now, but the trauma lingers.

“The city is different. It’s empty,” said Vladyslav Piontkovskyy, a 29-year-old analyst who left Kyiv with his wife and infant daughter in March. They returned a few weeks ago.

“Subtle things have changed. Your favourite restaurant is no longer selling your favourite dish . . . We did a rabies jab for our pets, and the vet told us they were running out of everything.”

Like many others, his anxieties stretch far beyond Kyiv. As the Russians invaded, his grandparents chose to remain near Kharkiv, in a town now occupied by Russia. The family lost contact with them in March.

Many in the city have similar stories of a country ripped apart by war. But the mood is also defiant.

Just hours after the missile strike on Sunday, music was pumping just down the road at HVLV, a “pre-party” hang-out, where hipsters smoked rolled cigarettes, browsed vinyl records and shared cocktails with sunburned soldiers.

The men had been involved in the retreat from Severodonetsk a few days earlier, but were preparing to return to Lysychansk, another town where Russians are pressing their Donbas offensive.

“We are going back to take the Donbas,” said Serhii Filimonov, a soldier with a “Victory or Valhalla” tattoo across his chest.

Anti-tank ‘hedgehogs’ on Independence Square in central Kyiv © Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA/Zuma Press/eyevine

In the central Brodsky Synagogue, Rita Korol and her husband Viktor Prister talked of living through the second world war and Nazi invasion, when both lost relatives. Many members of their synagogue left Kyiv this time, too, fearing Putin’s army. Few had returned. Korol and Prister remained.

“It’s hard at our age to leave,” she said. Did they feel safe? “No.” The couple have no bunker to hide in. “When I hear the sirens, I am scared.”

While many foreign brands have closed stores or suspended operations, local businesses are showing more steel. The kosher deli next to the synagogue is still managing to sell goods imported from the US and Israel. Inside the Gulliver shopping mall up the road, which remained open during the invasion, the high-end Silpo supermarket is stocked with ripe fruit, choice meats and fine wines.

Piontkovskyy, the analyst, is one of many native Russian speakers in Kyiv trying to switch to speaking Ukrainian, eschewing the invaders’ language, literature and music. It is another identity adjustment for people who never believed Russia posed a threat.

Vasylieva, the photographer, says she now picks up business taking pictures of Kyivans who return briefly for one final visit to their city.

She has fallen out with her Russian-supporting father in annexed Crimea, who denies the news of Russian atrocities and missile strikes. But her daughter’s mental state, not her father’s, is her priority.

“I don’t want her to see something awful,” she says. “Her psychological condition depends on me.”

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2022-07-02 13:44:38Z
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Texas migrant deaths: Truck driver 'unaware air conditioner had stopped working' - BBC

Reuters

The suspected driver of a truck where 53 migrants died from heat in Texas did not know that the air conditioner had stopped working, an informant says.

According to charging documents filed in federal court, Homero Zamorano did not know of the issue. Officials say he was found hiding near the truck.

The Texan is one of four people charged in the deadliest human trafficking incident in US history.

Several children found in the vehicle are still being treated in hospital.

In another development, another truck carrying migrants has been found in the same part of Texas.

Mr Zamorano, 45, and alleged conspirator Christian Martínez, 28, are accused of sending text messages to each other about the smuggling operation both before and after the truck was discovered in sweltering temperatures.

A confidential government informant working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Texas police told officials that the two had spoken after the deaths were reported.

Mr Martínez allegedly told the informant: "The driver was unaware the air conditioning unit stopped working and was the reason why the individuals died," according to court documents.

The documents add that the informant and Mr Martínez were standing within several metres of each other when the conversation with the driver took place.

• 'How could I let this happen to my children?'

Mr Zamorano was found hiding in bushes near the truck. Mexican officials say he initially tried to pass himself off as one of the survivors.

He was arrested when surveillance photos showed him driving the truck past a US Border Patrol checkpoint in Laredo, Texas, on Monday. According to one Texas congressman, he was high on methamphetamine when he was caught.

Both men face the death penalty if found guilty of smuggling and conspiracy charges.

Two other men accused of being involved, Juan Claudio D'Luna-Méndez and Francisco D'Luna-Bilbao, have been charged with firearms possession and with being in the US illegally. Both are Mexican citizens.

Mexican authorities say a total of 67 migrants were inside the lorry, while prosecutors in San Antonio have put the number at 64.

On Friday, the Bexar County medical examiner's office said it had "conclusively identified" six of the 53 victims from Monday's incident.

In addition, 42 "potential identifications" have been made. Five remain unidentified.

The victims have so far included 27 Mexican citizens, as well as 14 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and two Salvadorans.

Also on Friday, the Bexar County Sheriff's office began investigating an apparently abandoned 18-wheel truck found in a residential area just a few miles north of where the first vehicle was found.

About 13 migrants were found in the most recent truck, officials tell CBS, the BBC's partner in the US.

"Preliminarily, it appears no individuals have suffered any major injuries," the sheriff's office posted on Facebook, adding that more details would be released once they were available.

People-smuggling is a major industry along the US-Mexico border.

In May, a record 239,000 undocumented migrants were detained crossing into the country from Mexico.

Mass deaths of this kind have been uncovered on a number of occasions around the world in recent times. Among the worst cases are:

• Austria, 27 August 2015: An abandoned Hungarian-registered lorry was found containing the bodies of 71 Iraqi, Syrian and Afghan migrants. Three years later, four men received 25-year jail terms in Hungary in connection with the deaths
• Libya, 20 February 2017: Dozens of African migrants were found locked in a shipping container, including 13 people who had suffocated to death
• UK, 23 October 2019: A total of 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex. Four men were jailed for their manslaughter in January 2021

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2022-07-01 23:25:23Z
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Brittney Griner: 'No higher priority' than bringing her home - BBC

Reuters

There is "no higher priority" than bringing basketball star Brittney Griner home, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Friday, as her drug trial in Russia begins.

Ms Griner, a three-time WNBA league champion and seven-time All-Star, was seen arriving handcuffed at a court in the town of Khimki, outside Moscow.

She faces 10 years in prison.

The US says she is being wrongfully held. Russia denies that her detention is motivated by US-Russia tensions.

Speaking outside the courthouse, a senior US embassy official said she had spoken to Ms Griner who was "as well as can be expected".

"She asked me to convey that she is in good spirits and is keeping up the faith," said Elizabeth Rood, the deputy chief of mission in Moscow.

Ms Griner was detained on 17 February at a Moscow-area airport after cannabis oil was allegedly found in her luggage.

A veteran of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), she is considered one of the most dominant players in her sport's history.

Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman involved with her case, told the BBC on Friday that Ms Griner was "being used as a political pawn".

"This is a sham trial," he said. "But I do think that we're going to get Brittney home".

On the eve of Ms Griner's trial, her wife Cherelle Griner, told CNN the Biden's administration had not done enough to bring her partner home.

"I have to push people to make sure the things they are telling me are matching their actions," she said. "It's really really difficult."

• Players step up calls for Griner's release from Russian prison
• The troubling tale of a vanished basketball star

The US State Department declined to comment.

On Friday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in tweet that US officials attended Ms Griner's trial in Moscow.

"We - and I personally - have no higher priority than bringing her and other wrongfully detained Americans, including Paul Whelan, home," he said. Mr Whelan, a US citizen and former marine, was first detained in Russia in December 2018.

Ms Griner had travelled to Russia to play for EuroLeague team UMMC Ekaterinburg, where she had worked since 2014 during the US off-season. Roughly half of WNBA players compete overseas in the off-season.

For most, it's a way to augment their domestic income, with WNBA players being paid roughly five times more in Russia than they do in the US.

The 10-year maximum prison sentence faced by Ms Griner applies to "large-scale transportation of drugs".

However, even if acquitted at the trial, the government in Russia has the authority to overturn any decision and still send her to prison.

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2022-07-01 16:48:22Z
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Ukraine takes back Snake Island from fleeing Russians - The Times

Ukrainian forces were celebrating yesterday as Russian troops retreated from the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island after being bombarded for days with long-range weaponry donated by western allies.

An image posted online by Ukraine’s military command showed columns of smoke billowing from the outcrop, about 90 miles south of Odesa, after the last Russians were forced to flee in two boats. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian president, wrote on Twitter: “Kaboom! No Russian troops on the Snake Island any more. Our armed forces did a great job.” Ukrainian soldiers are expected to return soon to take control of the island.

The Russian retreat will bolster Ukraine’s morale after a torrid week in the east of the country, where its

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2022-06-30 23:01:00Z
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Turkey's Erdoğan threatens to derail Nato enlargement again - Financial Times

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed that Sweden must extradite 73 people Ankara accuses of terrorism or face the risk that his nation’s parliament will reimpose a veto on the country’s bid to join Nato.

No such commitment appeared in the text of a joint memorandum that was signed by Turkey along with Sweden and Finland this week in an eleventh-hour deal on the eve of a Nato summit that appeared to have overcome Turkey’s objections to the admission of the two Nordic nations to the western military alliance.

The text said that Stockholm and Helsinki would “address” Turkey’s pending deportation or extradition requests. But Erdoğan told reporters: “Sweden has given us the promise that 73 terrorists will be extradited and deported to Turkey . . . We will see whether they will give them or not.”

The Turkish president warned that Sweden and Finland’s entry into Nato “would not happen” unless ratified by his nation’s parliament, which is controlled by his ruling Justice and Development party and its ultranationalist allies. He said: “Sweden and Finland must keep their word. If they don’t, this [ratification] will not come before parliament.”

Erdoğan’s insistence, made in the final press conference of the Nato summit, sours what had up to then been an event focused firmly on projecting western unity around opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and support for beefing up Nato’s high-alert defences in Europe.

Sweden’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but officials in Stockholm have previously stressed that decisions on extraditions are made by the Swedish judicial system rather than politicians.

The demand is a significant increase on the number of people that Erdoğan asked to be extradited in earlier stages of the negotiations — a request that was rebuffed by Swedish officials, according to a person briefed on the talks.

Turkish officials hailed the deal reached with the two Nordic nations as a victory for Erdoğan, who also secured a long-coveted meeting with US president Joe Biden after dropping his objections to their admission.

Biden said that he used the meeting with his Turkish counterpart in Madrid to stress that the White House supported the sale of US F-16 jets to Turkey, which is seeking the aircraft to plug a gap in its air force.

“We should sell them the F-16 jets and modernise those jets as well,” Biden told reporters. “It’s not in our interest not to do that.”

But Biden said his backing for the F-16 sale was not a “quid pro quo”, even if he believed he could help convince Congress to give its blessing, as is required for US arms exports.

The US president praised Turkey after Tuesday’s deal, arguing that the admission of Sweden and Finland would “strengthen Nato’s collective security and benefit the entire transatlantic alliance.”

Analysts cautioned, however, that the vague language of the memorandum struck by the three countries and brokered by senior Nato officials left huge scope for disagreements.

The text promised that Stockholm and Helsinki “will not provide support” to Kurdish groups that Ankara views as terrorists or the Gülen movement that Turkey accuses of plotting a 2016 failed coup. It also indicated that they would drop a de facto arms embargo against Turkey, in place since 2019.

Some western officials fear that Erdoğan, who faces a challenging campaign for re-election in a vote that must be held before June 2023, could reignite the row in an attempt to shore up his public support.

“It seems the memorandum of understanding between Turkey-Sweden-Finland is a manifestation of deep misunderstanding,” Toni Alaranta, a Turkey expert at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, wrote on Twitter in response to Erdoğan’s remarks.

He said that the three countries would have a “huge task to actually solve this before we get to any ratification”.

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2022-06-30 17:06:20Z
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Russian forces withdraw from Snake Island - Financial Times

Russia withdrew forces from the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island in what the defence ministry described as a “gesture of goodwill” to help restore Ukrainian grain shipments, but which Kyiv claimed was a humiliating retreat.

The ministry on Thursday said its troops had “finished fulfilling their tasks” and “demonstrated that Russia is not blocking the UN’s efforts to organise a humanitarian corridor to export agricultural goods from Ukraine”.

Kyiv rejected this, saying it had driven Russian forces from Snake Island with an artillery bombardment. Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said the victory showed that allies “should not be wary of providing Ukraine with more heavy weapons”.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, posted a picture on Twitter of plumes of smoke billowing from the island and hailed the “great job” of the armed forces.

The recapture of Snake Island gives Ukraine a strategic outpost close to key shipping lanes and other contested areas of the Black Sea, as well as an important symbolic victory.

Little more than an outcrop of rock, the 0.2 sq km island received global attention in the early days of the conflict when a Russian cruiser demanded the Ukrainian contingent based there surrender, only to receive the reply: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” The response became Ukraine’s rallying cry and was immortalised on a stamp showing a trooper giving a Russian ship the middle finger.

Ukraine’s army posted a video showing what they said was a Ukrainian-made Bohdana howitzer hitting targets on the island. Russia evacuated troops overnight in two speedboats, the southern command of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed.

“The occupiers have left Snake Island after failing to cope with fire from our artillery, rocket, and air strikes,” Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a statement.

Zaluzhny thanked “foreign partners for supplying offensive weapons” but did not say what other weapons Ukraine used to attack the island.

Ukraine’s allies have recently given it the longest-range and heaviest weaponry in the four-month conflict so far. These include US artillery rocket systems and French howitzers, but Kyiv says it needs significantly more weapons systems and ammunition to reclaim occupied territory.

Ukraine this month said it used US-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles to sink a Russian tugboat, the first time it has said it used western weapons against Russian targets in the Black Sea.

The increased Ukrainian firepower made the costs of retaining Snake Island too difficult for Russia, said defence analysts, and offers hope for unblocking grain shipments from the nearby port of Odesa.

Russia has blockaded all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, seized ports in the neighbouring Azov Sea and repeatedly struck key infrastructure for Ukraine’s grain exports, including railways and grain silos.

The UN is leading four-way talks with Turkey to end the blockade, which has shut off export routes for 80 per cent of Ukraine’s grain and threatened to cause a famine in many Middle East and African nations that buy its wheat and corn.

Putin blames Ukraine for the crisis and has said Russia will only end the blockade if the west relaxes sanctions on shipping, payments and insurance that Moscow claims are impeding its own agricultural exports.

The defence ministry said its withdrawal from Snake Island would prevent Kyiv from speculating “on the coming food crisis by saying it cannot transport grain because of Russia’s total control of the north-western part of the Black Sea”.

However, Kyiv said UN-led talks have stalled because Moscow was intent on using them to cement its dominance of the Black Sea. Ukraine is also reluctant to clear mines from its coast, which it says does not affect export routes and is necessary to guard against coastal assaults.

Russia has regularly used its presence in the Black Sea for missile strikes on the Ukrainian mainland. The crossfire has trapped some ships in Ukraine’s ports and deterred others from using the Black Sea’s shipping lanes.

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2022-06-30 12:52:12Z
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