Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Zelenskiy says Borodyanka ‘much worse’ than Bucha; Johnson to meet Scholz – live

The European Union has approved an embargo on Russian coal imports and the closing of the bloc’s ports to Russian vessels over the Ukraine war.

The measure will take effect from mid-August, a month later than originally planned, following pressure from Germany to delay, reports Reuters news agency.

That package also includes a 10 billion euro ban on exports to Russia, including high-tech goods, and the freezing of several Russian banks’ assets.

The French presidency of the European Council said the sanction was estimated to be worth 4bn euros ($4.4bn) per year.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that, if not natural gas, oil would follow soon.

The new coal sanction had to be agreed by all 27 member states and there had been concerns from some members about the impact. The EU nations import 45% of their coal from Russia, worth 4 billion euros a year.

In addition to the sanctions, the EU also backed a proposal to boost its funding of arms supplies to Ukraine by 500 million euros, taking it to a total of 1.5 billion euros.

It is the first time the Europeans have targeted the Russian energy sector, on which they are heavily dependent.

In addition to the sanctions, the EU also backed a proposal to boost its funding of arms supplies to Ukraine by 500 million euros, taking it to a total of 1.5 billion euros.

“Once swiftly approved this will bring to 1.5 billion euros the EU support already provided for military equipment for Ukraine,” European Council chief Charles Michel tweeted, also thanking EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell for proposing the extra funding.

Boris Johnson is set to meet the German Chancellor as they look to discuss how to help European countries wean themselves off Russian gas following the attack on Ukraine.

The prime minister will host Olaf Scholz at Downing Street on Friday, with a press conference planned for the afternoon, PA Media reports.

Johnson is expected to offer assistance to Berlin, which is still heavily reliant on Russian gas, to reduce its dependence on Moscow’s energy exports in a bid to starve Vladimir Putin’s war machine of funds.

It comes after UK foreign secretary Liz Truss, following a meeting of Nato counterparts in Brussels on Thursday, said she hoped to see “more countries” commit to banning Russian energy imports.

The UK has pledged to end all imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of 2022, with gas to follow as soon as possible.

Germany has faced criticism from Ukraine and other European nations, including Poland, with claims it has been too slow to phase out Russian energy.

Robert Habeck, the German economy and energy minister, has announced plans to stop importing oil and coal from Russia this year, and gas by mid-2024.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that the situation in the town of Borodyanka was “much worse” than in nearby Bucha, where Russian forces’ suspected killings of civilians received global condemnation.

Officials believe more than 300 people were killed by Russian forces in Bucha, 35km northwest of the capital Kyiv, and around 50 of them were executed.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians and says images of bodies in Bucha were staged by the Ukrainian government to justify more sanctions against Moscow and derail peace negotiations.

“The work on dismantling the debris in Borodyanka began… It’s much worse there,” Zelenskiy said in a late-night national address.

The town is about 25 km from Bucha.

Zelenskiy did not provide any further detail or evidence that Russia was responsible for civilian deaths in the town.

Earlier on Thursday, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said 26 bodies had been found under two ruined buildings in Borodyanka.

She did not say if the authorities had established the cause of death, but accused Russian troops of carrying out airstrikes on the town, which is being searched by Ukrainian authorities after Russian troops occupying it withdrew.

Speaking in a televised briefing, Venediktova said:

Borodyanka is the worst in terms of destruction and in terms of the uncertainty about [the number of] victims.”

On Tuesday, Venediktova said the number of victims in Borodyanka would be higher than anywhere else, but did not provide further details.

Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine’s north to Belarus and Russia, the UK’s ministry of defence has said.

The latest intelligence report, released just after 6am, reads:

In the north, Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia. At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas.

At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas.

Many of these forces will require significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east, with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum.

Russian shelling of cities in the east and south continues and Russian forces have advanced further south from the strategically important city of Izium which remains under their control.”

We have a little more detail on the Fox News correspondent who was wounded in Ukraine.

Benjamin Hall said he sustained serious injuries in the attack that killed two of his colleagues but felt “pretty damn lucky” to have survived.

Benjamin Hall was riding in a vehicle with Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova last month when it was struck by incoming fire near Kyiv. Zakrzewski, 55, and Kuvshynova, 24, were killed.

“To sum it up, I’ve lost half a leg on one side and a foot on the other. One hand is being put together, one eye is no longer working, and my hearing is pretty blown,” Hall said in a Twitter post along with a photo of himself on a stretcher, wearing an eye patch.

“But all in all I feel pretty damn lucky to be here – and it is the people who got me here who are amazing!,” Hall said.

In an earlier tweet, his first since the attack, Hall paid tribute to his two fallen colleagues.

Zakrzewski was a veteran war-zone photographer who had covered multiple conflicts for Fox News, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Based in London, he had been working in Ukraine since February.

Kuvshynova had been helping Fox’s crews navigate Kyiv and the surrounding area while gathering information and speaking with sources.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments. Here is a comprehensive rundown of where the situation currently stands:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the situation in the town of Borodyanka was “much worse” than in nearby Bucha, where Russian forces’ suspected killings of civilians received global condemnation. Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, added: “Borodyanka is the worst in terms of destruction and in terms of the uncertainty about [the number of] victims.”

• Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said 26 bodies had been found under two ruined buildings in Borodyanka, a town about 25km west of Bucha. She did not say if the authorities had established the cause of death, but accused Russian troops of carrying out airstrikes on the town, which is being searched by Ukrainian authorities after Russian troops occupying it withdrew.

• Zelenskiy highlighted the bravery of his nation in his latest late-night national address. “Being brave is our brand,” he said, while calling for bolder sanctions on Russia. He also claimed Russian troops were preparing “elaborate propaganda scenarios” to make it look like civilians they had killed in Mariupol were killed by Ukrainian soldiers.

• Boris Johnson is set to meet the German Chancellor as they look to discuss how to help European countries wean themselves off Russian gas following the attack on Ukraine. Johnson will host Olaf Scholz at Downing Street on Friday, with a press conference planned for the afternoon, PA Media reports.

• The European Union approved an embargo on Russian coal imports and the closing of the bloc’s ports to Russian vessels over the Ukraine war. The measure will take effect from mid-August.

• In addition to the sanctions, the EU also backed a proposal to boost its funding of arms supplies to Ukraine by 500 million euros, taking it to a total of 1.5 billion euros.

• Ukraine is bracing for a renewed Russian offensive on its eastern front, as Russian forces withdraw from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their attacks across the Donbas region. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the besieged southern city of Mariupol was holding out and that he believed the Russian efforts to surround Ukrainian troops in the east would be in vain. The mayor of Dnipro, a city in central-eastern Ukraine, urged women, children and elderly people to leave. Similar calls were made by authorities in the Luhansk region, east of Dnipro.

• The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, says more than 100,000 people still urgently need to be evacuated from the city. Speaking on national television, he described the situation in the Russian-besieged Ukrainian port city as a humanitarian catastrophe.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had confirmed more than 100 attacks on health services in Ukraine, as it called for humanitarian access to the besieged city of Mariupol.

• The United Nations general assembly voted to suspend Russia from the UN human rights council over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” by invading Russian troops in Ukraine. Ninety-three countries voted in favour of the US-led motion, while 24 countries voted against and 58 countries abstained.

• Russia will probably renew its attack on Kyiv if it succeeds in taking full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Hruzevych, said. The Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, earlier warned that Russian forces were biding their time as Moscow ramped up intelligence operations there and learned how best to fight Ukrainian troops.

• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin contradicted these claims, saying he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has given up on conquering Kyiv after his forces were beaten back by the Ukrainian military.

• General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the war would be a “long slog” at the US Senate armed services committee in a hearing in Washington DC.

• Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said allies had agreed to strengthen support for Ukraine, and were providing “a wide range” of weapon systems, as well as cybersecurity assistance and equipment to protect against chemical and biological threats. There was no sign Vladimir Putin intended to pull back, he added.

• The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining Nato was part of the discussion between foreign ministers from the military alliance in Brussels this week, a senior US State Department official said.

• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called for more heavy weaponry from western allies and “ruinous” sanctions against Moscow, warning: “Either you help us now – and I’m speaking about days, not weeks – or your help will come too late, and many people will die.”

• German intelligence agencies have intercepted radio messages from Russian soldiers discussing the killings of civilians in Ukraine, according to reports. Two separate communications are said to have been intercepted in which Russian soldiers describe how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and then proceed to shoot them, the Washington Post cited an intelligence official as saying.

• Russia has imposed sanctions on Australian and New Zealand citizens, including their prime ministers, the Russian foreign ministry announced.

• Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was wounded in Ukraine during an attack that killed two of his colleagues, said on Thursday that he had sustained serious injuries but felt “pretty damn lucky” to have survived.