Russian strike hits residential building in MykolaivMore on the attack on Mykolaiv, from Reuters:
At least three people were killed and five wounded by a Russian missile strike on a residential building in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday, said local authorities who have launched a rescue effort for survivors.
Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said eight missiles had hit the city, and urged residents to evacuate. He said the building appeared to have been hit by a Russian X-55 cruise missile.
Photographs from the scene showed smoke billowing from a four-storey building with its upper floor partly destroyed.
Nato leaders pose for family photo during summit in Madrid. Photograph: WPA/Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photograph: JuanJo Martin/EPAThe UK has announced new sanctions against 13 individuals and entities, including a cousin of Vladimir Putin as well as the oligarch Vladimir Potanin, described by the British government as Russia’s second-richest man.
Potanin, known as Russia’s “Nickel King”, has continued “to amass wealth as he supports Putin’s regime, acquiring Rosbank, and shares in Tinkoff Bank in the period since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, a UK government press notice accompanying the announcement said.
He was included in the latest wave of sanctions listings because he was “obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia by owning or controlling Rosbank”, it said.
Also among those newly sanctioned are Vladimir Putin’s cousin, Anna Tsivileva, who is president of the JSC Kolmar Group coal mining company. Tsivileva’s husband, Sergey Tsivilev, is governor of the coal-rich Kemerovo region and the couple are said to have “significantly benefited” from their relationship with the Russian leader.
A UK government spokesperson:
As long as Putin continues his abhorrent assault on Ukraine, we will use sanctions to weaken the Russian war machine.
Today’s sanctions show that nothing and no-one is off the table, including Putin’s inner circle.
Peter Walker
A Ukrainian MP in Madrid to lobby world leaders at the Nato summit has warned that more efforts are needed to unblock grain supplies to avoid rising food prices and unrest worldwide.
Oleksiy Goncharenko, an MP in the Odesa region, told reporters that Vladimir Putin was “acting just like a terrorist – he has taken hundreds of millions of people as hostages by starving them” through the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.
Goncharenko said Ukraine needed more weaponry to help remove the blockade, noting that direct Nato intervention seemed unlikely due to the “risk of direct clashes”.
He reiterated Ukrainian calls for more land weaponry, notably rocket launchers, saying the country needed “multiples of 10” more than what had so far been sent by other countries.
“If we had thousands, we would finish everything in days. But I understand that even the Nato countries themselves probably don’t have thousands,” he said.
A last-minute agreement has been reached between Turkey, Finland and Sweden to allow the two Nordic countries to become Nato members on the eve of the military alliance’s summit in Madrid.
Finland and Sweden to join Nato ‘as quickly as possible’ – videoToday so far … Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russian leader Vladimir Putin Tuesday of becoming “a terrorist” leading a “terrorist state” and urged Russia’s expulsion from the United Nations. In a virtual address to the UN security council, Zelenskiy urged the UN to establish an international tribunal to investigate “the actions of Russian occupiers on Ukrainian soil” and to hold the country accountable. The Ukraine president also called for the United Nations to visit the site of a missile strike on a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk. “I suggest the United Nations send either a special representative, or the secretary general of the United Nations … so the UN could independently find out information and see that this indeed was a Russian missile strike,” he said of Monday’s attack, which killed at least 18 people. The Russian army claimed on Tuesday it had hit a nearby weapons depot with the explosion sparking the blaze at the shopping centre, which according to Moscow was “not operational” at the time. At least three people were killed and five wounded by a Russian missile strike on a residential building in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday, according to local authorities who have launched a rescue effort for survivors. Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said eight missiles had hit the city, and urged residents to evacuate. He said the building appeared to have been hit by a Russian X-55 cruise missile. Russia has claimed to have destroyed a training base for foreign mercenaries near Mykolaiv in its latest military operational briefing. Fighting continues in all settlements of the Lysychansk community, according to Serhai Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk. “The shelling continues constantly, the destruction is catastrophic” he said. Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine will continue until Ukraine stops shelling Donbas and until no threat comes from its territory, Russian first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. He criticised the supply of arms to Ukraine, saying: “By supplying your weapons, you only prolong the agony of the criminal Kyiv regime that is ready to sacrifice its own population.” Finland and Sweden will be invited to join Nato at its Madrid summit after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday lifted his opposition following crunch talks with the leaders of the two Nordic countries. US president Joe Biden congratulated Turkey, Finland and Sweden on reaching an agreement. Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said he expected a swift ratification of Sweden and Finland’s membership of the military alliance. He told reporters: “After invitation, we need a ratification process in 30 parliaments. That always takes some time but I expect also that to go rather quickly because allies are ready to try to make that ratification process happen as quickly as possible.” Stoltenberg also said the alliance’s new strategic concept will “state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security”. Zelenskiy will address the Nato summit in Madrid virtually today. Nato allies will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons in its war against Russia for as long as necessary, German chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Madrid. British prime minister Boris Johnson will urge his Nato allies to boost their defence spending in response to Russia’s invasion “to restore deterrence and ensure defence in the decade ahead”, his office said. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in occupied Kherson, has said a date for a referendum for the region to join the Russian Federation had not yet been chosen, but that he expected the vote in “the coming half-year”. Russia-installed officials in Ukraine’s Kherson region said their security forces had detained Kherson city mayor Ihor Kolykhayev on Tuesday after he refused to follow Moscow’s orders, while a Kherson local official said the mayor was abducted. In an interview with the NBC network in the US, Zelenskiy has compared scenes he saw at Bucha to a war movie, saying: “It was just so quiet, everything was destroyed, dead people, destroyed army equipment. There was this sense of death. When they found people in the bottom of wells, hands bound, raped, and murdered – they’d done everything to them. I just didn’t know that this could be done by people who, 30 years previously, we had lived together in the Soviet Union, in one country. I just never had thought that humanity could be capable of this, and this changes how you look at people.” Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has arrived in Kyiv this morning, where he will meet Zelenskiy. The Indonesian president is the current chair of the G20 group, and his European trip is also expected to include a visit to Moscow and meet Russian president Vladimir Putin. UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has echoed Boris Johnson’s words about Putin and “toxic masculinity”, saying in an interview that the Russian president has got “small man syndrome … in spades”. Wallace also described Maria Zakharova’s regular appearances as press secretary for Russia’s foreign ministry as a “comedy turn”. “Old Freud during his lifetime would have dreamed of such an object for research!” is the response of Russia’s presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov to UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s claim that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he were a woman and his statement that the war is a “perfect example of toxic masculinity”.
Peskov’s words came in response to the RIA Novosti news agency asking him about Johnson’s comments.
Occupied Kherson region referendum on joining Russian Federation expected in ‘the coming half-year’Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in occupied Kherson, has told Reuters that a date for a referendum for the region to join the Russian Federation had not yet been chosen, but that he expected the vote in “the coming half-year”
Russia has claimed to have destroyed a training base for foreign mercenaries near Mykolaiv in its latest military operational briefing.
The update also claims that Russia has virtually destroyed Ukraine’s 108th battalion, destroyed four command posts in a day including two in Kharkiv, shot down a MiG-29 aircraft, two Su-25 aircraft, an Mi-8 helicopter and nine Ukrainian drones.
The briefing claims that “the food situation is critical” for several units of Ukraine’s armed forces, suggesting that “numerous cases of abandonment of positions and desertion of military personnel are recorded due to hunger”.
None of the claims have been independently verified.
Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has arrived in Kyiv this morning, where he will meet Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The Indonesian president is the current chair of the G20 group and one of six world leaders the United Nations appointed as “champions” of a global crisis response group, formed to address the threat of an hunger and destitution posed by the war in Ukraine.
Reuters notes that before the war, Ukraine had been one of Indonesia’s biggest wheat suppliers.
Handout picture from Indonesia’s presidential palace shows Indonesian president Joko Widodo (front right) walking with aides and escorting military personnel upon his arrival in Kyiv. Photograph: Presidential palace/AFP/Getty ImagesOften known as ‘Jokowi’, the Indonesian president and his wife arrived in Ukraine by train, and his European visit will next call on Moscow where he is expected to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin.
US president Joe Biden has announced new US deployments in Europe, saying: “At a moment Putin has shattered peace in Europe … US and allies are stepping up, proving Nato is more needed than ever, and more important than ever.”
BREAKING: @Potus announces new US military deployments to Europe:
1. Create permanent HQ for US 5th Army Corps in Poland
2. Deploy additional rotational brigade to Romania
3. Deploy 2 additional F-35 squadrons to the UK
4. “Enhance” rotational deployments in Baltics
— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) June 29, 2022