Ukrainian troops will be forced to leave Sievierodonetsk – official
Ukrainian troops defending the key eastern city of Sievierodonetsk will “have to be withdrawn”, the regional governor confirmed this morning.
“Remaining in positions smashed to pieces over many months just for the sake of staying there does not make sense,” Sergey Haidai told Ukrainian television.
Haidai earlier released a morning report to Telegram, writing:
Unfortunately, we will have to remove our military from Sievierodonetsk, because staying in broken positions makes no sense – the number of dead is growing.”
The governor added that 90% of homes in Sievierodonetsk had been damaged or destroyed.
There are accusations and counter-accusations flying across Telegram this morning. The official Ukrainian account for the occupied city of Mariupol is accusing Russian forces there of building fortifications “under the guise of residential buildings”. It quotes mayor Vadym Boychenko saying:
The occupiers begin to build alleged residential buildings. The works are underway in the north-western part, almost on the outskirts of the city. That is, from the approximate direction of a counter-offensive. There is information from Mariupol residents that the occupiers are immediately digging trenches and deploying equipment behind these new buildings.
At the same time, Rodion Miroshnik, the ambassador to Russia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, has claimed of a missile shot down overnight that “based on the flight path and calculated data, the target was the administration of the head of the Luhansk People’s Republic.”
Neither of the sets of claims have been independently verified. Russia is the only UN member state to recognise the Luhansk People’s Republic as a legitimate authority.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just posted another comment on the decision of the EU to grant Ukraine candidate country status to Telegram. He writes:
It is officially recognized that Ukraine is not a bridge, not a pillow between the West and Russia, not a buffer between Europe and Asia, not a sphere of influence, not a “grey” zone, not a transit territory. Not the border between orcs and elves. Ukraine is a future equal partner for at least 27 EU countries. Ukraine is a candidate for accession to the European Union!
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has given an interview to state television in Belarus, and the Russian foreign ministry has put out what they regard as the key lines on social media, with Lavrov talking about “cancel culture” again. It quotes Lavrov saying:
The West fears honest competition. Hence, a desire to cancel the culture of any country that stands on its own, nationally-oriented positions.
When at last the Ukrainians have the grace to suggest resuming the diplomatic process, we will see what situation has emerged on the ground.
Ukraine tried to build its sovereignty by cancelling its own history. The West encouraged that approach and that conceptual vision of the Ukrainian state just to harm Russia.
Ukrainian troops will be forced to leave Sievierodonetsk – official
Ukrainian troops defending the key eastern city of Sievierodonetsk will “have to be withdrawn”, the regional governor confirmed this morning.
“Remaining in positions smashed to pieces over many months just for the sake of staying there does not make sense,” Sergey Haidai told Ukrainian television.
Haidai earlier released a morning report to Telegram, writing:
Unfortunately, we will have to remove our military from Sievierodonetsk, because staying in broken positions makes no sense – the number of dead is growing.”
The governor added that 90% of homes in Sievierodonetsk had been damaged or destroyed.
Ukraine repels attack on outskirts of Lysychansk – officials
Ukrainian troops have repelled an attack on the southern outskirts of Lysychansk, according to the region’s governor.
The city of Lysychansk is the last fully Ukrainian-controlled city in the region of Luhansk and has been a target for Russian forces in recent weeks.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, one of two in the eastern Donbas, took to his Telegram account early this morning, saying:
The attack on Lysychansk was repulsed … the bodies of two victims were found.”
Haidai said Lysychansk and the neighbouring village of Borivske were hit by Russian air strikes overnight resulting in multiples houses being destroyed.
He added that a Russian offensive in the Borivskyi area was also successfully stopped.
Russia had, however, taken control of the village of Mykolaivka, located near a key highway to Lysychansk, which has been the focus of heavy fighting, he added.
Russian forces trying to encircle troops in Lysychansk
The battle for two key cities in eastern Ukraine is edging towards “a fearsome climax” as Russian forces attempt to encircle Ukrainian troops defending Lysychansk, officials say.
Russia’s efforts to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk – the two remaining cities under Ukrainian control in Luhansk – have turned into a bloody war of attrition, with both sides inflicting heavy casualties. Moscow, over the last two weeks, has managed to make steady gains.
“The fighting is entering a sort of fearsome climax”, Oleksiy Arestovych said.
Russian forces are trying to encircle Ukrainian troops defending Lysychansk, senior Ukrainian defence official Oleksiy Gromov said in a briefing on Thursday.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, one of two in the eastern Donbas, added that Russian forces had been successful in their advances.
He said that enemy forces had captured Loskutivka, a settlement to the south of Lysychansk, which threatened to isolate Ukrainian troops.
The official also said that all Lysychansk was within reach of Russian fire and that Ukrainian troops there might retreat to new positions to avoid being trapped.
“In order to avoid encirclement, our command could order that the troops retreat to new positions,” Haidai said in a post on Telegram.
The Russian state news agency, Tass, cited Russian-backed separatists saying Lysychansk was surrounded and cut off from supplies after Russia captured a road linking the city to Ukrainian-held territories.
‘Ukraine’s future is in the EU’: Zelenskiy
Zelenskiy immediately welcomed the move to grant Ukraine EU candidate status, calling it “a unique and historic moment” in relations with the 27-nation bloc.
“Ukraine’s future is in the EU,” he tweeted.
“It’s a victory,” he later added on Instagram. “We have been waiting for 120 days and 30 years,” he said, referring to the duration of the war and the decades since Ukraine became independent on the breakup of the Soviet Union. “And now we will defeat the enemy.”
In a televised address shortly after the announcement from Brussels, Zelenskiy said:
I believe this is what will always be the starting point of Europe’s new history. Europe without division. Europe without ‘grey’ zones. Europe that is truly united and that knows how to defend itself, its values, its future.
Today you have adopted one of the most important decisions for Ukraine in all 30 years of independence of our state.
However, I believe this decision is not only for Ukraine. This is the biggest step towards strengthening Europe that could be taken right now, in our time and in such difficult conditions, when the Russian war is testing our ability to preserve freedom and unity.”
EU approves Ukraine for candidacy
European leaders granted Ukraine candidate status late on Thursday, in a historic decision that opens the door to EU membership for the war-torn country and deals a blow to Vladimir Putin.
EU leaders meeting in Brussels approved Ukraine’s candidate status nearly four months after the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, launched his country’s bid to join the bloc in the early days of the Russian invasion. Moldova was also given candidate status.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, declared it was “a good day for Europe”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was historic decision that sent “a strong signal towards Russia in the current geopolitical context”.
The move from applicant to candidate usually takes years, but the EU has dramatically accelerated the process, amid outrage over the brutality of the unprovoked Russian attack, and to show solidarity with Ukraine’s defenders.
“Ukraine is going through hell for a simple reason: its desire to join the EU,” von der Leyen had tweeted on the eve of the summit. The commission last week called on EU leaders to grant Ukraine’s candidate status.
Earlier, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said candidate status would “draw a line under decades of ambiguity and set it in stone: Ukraine is Europe, not part of the ‘Russian world’”.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, said earlier this week that the EU had moved at “lightning speed” by its standards.
Summary and welcome
Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you as we continue to report all the latest news from Ukraine.
Here are all the major developments as of 8am in Kyiv.
- The European Union has approved the application of Ukraine to become a candidate country for admission to the 27-strong bloc in a step Kyiv and Brussels hailed as an “historic moment”. EU leaders meeting in Brussels followed the recommendation of the European Commission, which was made on 17 June.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, immediately welcomed the move, saying: “Ukraine’s future is in the EU.” “It’s a victory … we have been waiting for 120 days and 30 years,” he added, referring to the duration of the war and the decades since Ukraine became independent on the breakup of the Soviet Union. “And now we will defeat the enemy.”
- The US will send another $450m in military aid to Ukraine, including some additional medium-range rocket systems. The latest package includes four high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and tens of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition as well as patrol boats, Pentagon officials announced on Thursday. With the latest shipments, the US contribution to Ukraine’s military will amount to $6.1bn so far, White House spokesperson, John Kirby, added.
- Russian forces captured two villages in eastern Ukraine and are fighting for control of a key highway in a campaign to cut supply lines and encircle frontline Ukrainian forces, according to British and Ukrainian military officials.
- The battle for two key cities in eastern Ukraine is edging towards “a fearsome climax”, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, has said. Russia is now believed to control all of Sievierodonetsk with the exception of the Azot chemical plant.
- No town is safe for residents in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk as fighting intensifies, local officials claim. “There is no place, no town in Donetsk region where it would be safe,” Pavlo Kyrylenko told Agence France-Presse, citing latest intelligence data. “It is extremely dangerous for residents to stay in any places of the region.”
- The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said Britain was willing to assist with de-mining operations off Ukraine’s southern coast. Asked if Britain was ready to help Ukraine de-mine the area, Johnson said: “Yes, I don’t want to get into the technical or military details, but you can take it from what we have already done in supplying equipment to the Ukrainians to help themselves protect that we are certainly talking to them at a technical level to help de-mine Odesa.”
- The UK is also offering its expertise to help escort Ukraine’s grain from its ports, the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said. Boris Johnson added Britain was considering offering insurance to ships to move millions of tonnes of grain stuck in the country, telling Reuters: “What the UK possibly has to offer, most of all, is expertise when it comes to maritime insurance, and a lot of expertise in moving goods through should we say contested areas of the sea.”
- More than 150 cultural sites in Ukraine have been partially or totally destroyed, according to a Unesco report. The damage includes 70 religious buildings, 30 historical buildings, 18 cultural centres, 15 monuments, 12 museums and seven libraries.
- Ukraine is recording 200 to 300 war crimes committed by Russian forces on its territory every day, the prosecutor general has claimed. “War crimes are our trouble. Every day we have 200 to 300 of them … We have a duty: when there is a crime, we have to start an investigation,” Iryna Venediktova told Ukrainian television.
- Ukraine has held a preliminary hearing in its first trial of a Russian soldier charged with raping a Ukrainian woman during Moscow’s invasion – the first of what could be dozens of such cases. The suspect, Mikhail Romanov, 32, who will be tried in absentia, is accused of breaking into a house in March in a village in the Brovarsky region outside Kyiv, murdering a man and then repeatedly raping his wife while threatening her and her child.
- The US embassy in Russia has been pressing the Kremlin this week to reveal the whereabouts of two Alabama men captured in Ukraine, according to the mother of one of the taken Americans. Lois “Bunny” Drueke also said that her son, Alexander Drueke, and the other captured US military veteran, Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, were not mercenaries but volunteers, pushing back on statements from a Kremlin spokesperson who said the American pair were facing execution.