Ukraine building 1m strong army to recapture south, says minister
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has asked military chiefs to draw up plans to gather a “million-strong” fighting force equipped with western weapons to recapture its southern territory from Russia, the country’s defence minister said.
Zelenskiy has ordered his military to recover occupied areas around the Black Sea coast that are vital to the country’s economy, Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview with the Times.
Reznikov said:
We understand that, politically, it’s very necessary for our country. The president has given the order to the supreme military chief to draw up plans. After that the general staff are doing their homework and say to achieve this goal we need XYZ.
Reznikov said he was writing letters to his counterparts in partner countries to talk about “why we need this kind of weaponry and then we get the political decisions”.
His British counterpart, Ben Wallace, was “key” to helping shift the approach to providing Nato standard artillery, guided multiple launch rocket systems and hi-tech drones, he said.
Reznikov said he had a “great relationship” with Wallace and the UK’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, adding that he saw “a lot of Ukrainian flags” while in London.
He said he was satisfied with the support Ukraine was receiving from Nato partners but said it needed “more, quickly, to save the lives of our soldiers”.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here taking over from Martin Belam to bring you all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Key events:
The United Nations says it will monitor the war in Ukraine for violations against children, including killings, injuries, recruitment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, the Associated Press reports.
UN secretary-general António Guterres said Monday in his annual report to the security council on children and armed conflict that Ukraine, and conflicts in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Africa’s central Sahel region, have been added to 21 others already being monitored for violations of the rights of children. He said the latter conflicts saw “a high number of grave violations” in 2021.
Guterres said the protection of children was severely affected by escalating conflicts, the multiplication of armed groups, land mines and improvised explosive devices, explosive weapons in populated areas, intensified humanitarian crises, and violations of humanitarian and human rights law.
Virginia Gamba, UN special envoy for children and armed conflict, said at a news conference that “forays of extremely violent armed groups, military coups and instability, and violent electoral processes in fragile states, left 19,100 child victims of grave violations during 2021 in the 21 country and regional situations we monitored”.
80% of Donetsk residents have fled, governor says
The governor of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which has been the focus of intensive Russian attacks in recent weeks, says about 80% of its pre-war population has now evacuated, the Kyiv Independent reported Monday.
Pavlo Kyrylenko said about 340,000 people, or 20% of the local population before Russia’s full-scale invasion began on 24 February, remain.
Kyrylenko urged the region’s remaining population to flee last week, after Russia stepped up its offensive. Recent missile attacks on Donetsk have resulted in numerous civilian deaths, with Ukraine accusing Moscow of deliberately targeting residential areas.
Donetsk is the last remaining eastern province of Ukraine partially under Kyiv’s control, and its military has been fighting to hold ground.
“The destiny of the whole country will be decided by the Donetsk region,” Kyrylenko said last week “Once there are less people, we will be able to concentrate more on our enemy and perform our main tasks.”
Summary of the day so far
It’s 10pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
- The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a five-storey apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Saturday night rose to at least 26 . Emergency crews worked to pull people trapped in the rubble. The strike destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of the town, inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories.
- Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Moscow of purposely targeting civilians in the attack and promised “punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer”. “Anyone who gives orders for such strikes, anyone who carries them out in ordinary cities, in residential areas, kills absolutely deliberately,” Zelenskiy said in a national address.
- Zelenskiy asked military chiefs to draw up plans to gather a “million-strong” fighting force equipped with western weapons to recapture its southern territory from Russia, the country’s defence minister said. Ukraine’s military has been ordered to recover occupied areas around the Black Sea coast that are vital to the country’s economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.
- At least six people died after Russian rocket attacks on Monday morning on Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office. Among those killed were a father and his 17-year-old son, who were driving on their way to pick up a certificate for his university admission, Ukrainian regional police official Serhiy Bolvinov said.
- Residents in southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were urged to evacuate as Ukraine prepares to launch a counter-offensive to retake the area. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were occupied by Russian troops in late February after they crossed the bridge from Russia-annexed Crimea.
- Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte met Zelenskiy in Kyiv today to reiterate his country’s support for Ukraine “now and in the years to come”.
The war in Ukraine may last longer than anyone had hoped, Rutte warned during a visit to the capital. After their meeting, Zelenskiy welcomed the “constructive” talks with the Dutch leader and the decision to supply weapons to Ukraine.
- Putin plans to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in the near future after the pair discussed efforts to facilitate grain exports from Ukraine, according to the Kremlin. Erdoğan told Putin that it was time to act on a UN plan to set up a sea corridor for Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea during a phone call on Monday, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency said.
- Russian lawmakers proposed extending a ban on “gay propaganda”, broadening a law that human rights activists say has put LGBTQ people at risk and led to increased discrimination and violence. The ban on the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relationships to minors could be broadened to include adults, a senior legislator said.
- Lithuania expanded restrictions on trade through its territory to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, as phase-ins on earlier announced European Union sanctions begin. Goods sanctioned from Monday morning include concrete, wood, alcohol and alcohol-based industrial chemicals. The governor of Kaliningrad, Anton Alikhanov, has proposed a total ban on the movement of goods between the three Baltic states and Russia, in response to what authorities in the exclave have called a “blockade”.
Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, said on Monday he is leaving the media business to conform with a law designed to curb the influence of oligarchs, Reuters reports.
In a statement to the news agency, Akhmetov said Media Group Ukraine would hand over licences for its television channels and print media to the Ukrainian state, and cease online media
The statement described the move as “involuntary”.
Ukraine passed a law last year ordering oligarchs to register and stay out of politics, and proposed identifying them with criteria such as those with “significant impact on the media”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the legislation as a historic chance to reform Ukraine, even as some foreign diplomats in Kyiv called it largely cosmetic.
Akhmetov cited the law in his statement:
I made an involuntary decision that my investment company SCM will exit its media business.
Being the largest private investor in the Ukrainian economy, I have repeatedly stated that I have never been and am not going to be an oligarch.
He added that his investment company was unable to sell its media business on market terms because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a six-month deadline given by the anti-oligarch legislation for the sale of media assets.
It’s Richard Luscombe in the US taking over the blog from my colleagues in London. I’ll be guiding you through the next few hours. Thanks for joining me.
The pro-Moscow head of a village occupied by Russian troops in northeast Ukraine died after his car was blown up, Russian media reported on Monday, according to AFP.
State news agency Tass said Yevgeny Yunakov, head of Velikiy Burluk, in the Kharkiv region, died after an explosion.
The “military civilian administration” – which Tass said had been recently formed in the region – called the explosion a “terror attack” organised by Ukrainian authorities.
The claims could not immediately be verified.
Russian forces have partially occupied the region of Kharkiv but the eponymous city – Ukraine’s second biggest – remains under the control of Kyiv.
The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has launched an international anti-corruption organisation he has promised will be “completely transparent and understandable”.
Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, political scientist Francis Fukuyama, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum and Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, are among those who will sit on the fund’s advisory board, Navalny’s Telegram channel said.
The announcement comes a year after the Russian opposition leader’s Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) was outlawed as extremist.
Navalny appeared by video link last month in his first court session since he was transferred to a high-security prison in June.
It was a rare appearance for the Russian opposition leader, who has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison in a series of cases that appear designed to keep him behind bars indefinitely.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has condemned a decree from Vladimir Putin that makes it easier for Ukrainian citizens to acquire Russian citizenship.
In a statement, the ministry called on its partners to impose new sanctions on Russia and step up supplies of heavy weapons to Kyiv to punish Moscow for the move.
The ministry described the decree as an encroachment on Ukrainian sovereignty and said it was inconsistent with principles of international law.
Previously, a simplified procedure for acquiring Russian citizenship applied only to residents of the self-proclaimed breakaway territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, as well as the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, according to the Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
Russia may extend ‘gay propaganda’ ban to include adults
Russian lawmakers have proposed extending a ban on “gay propaganda”, broadening a law that human rights activists say has put LGBTQ people at risk and led to increased discrimination and violence.
The ban on the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relationships to minors could be broadened to include adults, a senior legislator said.
Russia’s existing “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, has been used to stop gay pride marches and detain LGBTQ rights activists.
Under the proposed changes, any event or act regarded as an attempt to promote homosexuality could incur a fine, Reuters reported.
The head of the State Duma’s information committee, Alexander Khinshtein, said on Telegram:
We propose to generally extend the ban on such propaganda regardless of the age of the audience (offline, in the media, on the internet, social networks and online cinemas).
The existing law envisages fines of up to 1m roubles (£13,400) or up to 15 days in jail for propagating “non-traditional sexual relations among minors”.
Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, met Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv today to reiterate his country’s support for Ukraine “now and in the years to come”.
The war in Ukraine may last longer than anyone had hoped, Rutte warned during a visit to the capital.
In his first trip to Kyiv since the Russian invasion, Rutte said his country would supply Ukraine with more long-range artillery and an aid package for €200m.
Rutte said:
This war may last longer than we all hoped or expected. But that does not mean we can sit back and passively watch how it unfolds.
We have to stay focused and continue to support Ukraine every day politically, by frequently and openly stating our support, by keeping the pressure on Putin’s Russia, and by strengthening political cooperation with Ukraine bilaterally and multilaterally.
After their meeting, Zelenskiy welcomed the “constructive” talks with the Dutch leader and the decision to supply weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he spoke with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, about the importance of unblocking Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and resuming grain exports.
Zelenskiy’s tweet came after the Kremlin said Erdoğan had also spoken with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, earlier today.
Held talks with 🇹🇷 President @RTErdogan. Thanked for condolences over new civilian victims of the Russian aggression. We appreciate 🇹🇷 support. Discussed the importance of unblocking 🇺🇦 ports and resuming grain exports. We must also prevent Russia from taking our grain from TOT.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 11, 2022
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, plans to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in the near future after the pair discussed efforts to facilitate grain exports from Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
Erdoğan told Putin that it was time to act on a UN plan to set up a sea corridor for Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea during a phone call today, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency said.
In a statement, the Kremlin said:
An exchange of views on the situation around Ukraine continued, including in the context of coordinating efforts to ensure the safety of navigation in the Black Sea and grain exports to global markets.
It also said the two leaders discussed Syria, where both countries have deployed armed forces.