Ukraine news from July 6: President says the head of the mutinous mercenary force is not in Belarus, as believed, but back in Russia after armed rebellion.
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Ukraine can count on the Czech Republic’s further support as it defends itself against Russia’s aggression, Czech President Petr Pavel has said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Thursday, Pavel also expressed support for Ukraine’s bid to join NATO and the European Union
Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, and its land is changing hands.
Ukraine might not look like a good financial investment after more than a year at war with no end in sight, but Harvard, Saudi Arabia, a handful of oligarchs, and the United States investment manager The Vanguard Group see it differently.
They are just a few of the investors who have been buying up Ukrainian land – and its rich, fertile soil – en masse, while many Ukrainian farmers argue it should stay in Ukrainian hands.
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Romania has said it would launch a regional hub to train pilots including Ukrainians to fly US-made F-16 fighter jets, which Kyiv has said the country needs to fight off Russia’s invasion.
“Together with other allies and the company designing this fighter jet, a regional hub will be created in Romania for training pilots who will fly these planes,” read a press release issued after a meeting of Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defence.
“Romanian pilots operating F-16 aircraft will be trained here, and the facility will later be opened to pilots from NATO allies and partners, including Ukraine,” it said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has landed in the Czech capital Prague as part of a tour to drum up support for a fast track to NATO membership for Kyiv ahead of a summit next week.
Ukraine is seeking a clear signal from NATO at a July 11-12 summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, that it can join the military alliance when the war ends.
“The visit of the Ukrainian president is intended to be an expression of appreciation for the support that the Czech Republic has provided to Ukraine since the beginning of Russian aggression and to bring mutual assurance that this support will continue,” the office of Czech President Petr Pavel said in a statement.
“At the meeting, the presidents should coordinate their positions before the NATO summit in Vilnius, where it is expected to discuss, among other things, security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Ukrainian military leaders say their troops are making small advances in the east and south of the country in a counteroffensive against Russia.
Moscow’s defence ministry says its troops have repelled Ukrainian attacks around Donetsk, killing and injuring dozens of soldiers.
Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig reports from the front line in the Donetsk region where he met Ukrainian drone units who have been working closely with front-line troops in the counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has condemned the bombing of a historic building in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and expressed “its sincere condolences” to the families of five victims.
“This attack, the first to take place in an area protected by the World Heritage Convention since the outbreak of the war on 24 February 2022, is a violation of this Convention,” the UNESCO said, adding that the Russian strike also violated “the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict”.
Zelenskyy is visiting Prague on Thursday, the Czech president’s office has said, and is due to meet President Petr Pavel in a show of thanks for continued support in Kyiv’s battle against Russia’s invasion.
The Bulgarian parliament has approved a declaration in support of Ukraine’s NATO membership after the end of the war by a majority of 157 votes.
A total of 57 representatives of the pro-Russian Socialists and the nationalist and pro-Russian party Vasrashdane (Rebirth) voted against the measure.
Zelenskyy is in Sofia for talks with the Bulgarian government, a NATO member.
Ukraine’s military spy chief says the threat of a Russian attack on the vast Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is receding, but that it could easily return as long as the facility remained under occupation by Moscow’s forces.
The intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, made the comment in an interview with Reuters after days of warnings by Ukrainian and Russian officials accusing each other of plotting an attack at Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
“The threat is decreasing”, said Budanov, who is the head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defence, declining to say how he was able to say.
“Sorry, I can’t tell you what happened recently but the fact is that the threat is decreasing”, he said. “This means that at least we have all together with joint efforts somehow postponed a technogenic catastrophe”.
Melinda Simmons is leaving her post as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Ukraine, the UK Foreign Office has said.
The ambassador, who has helped maintain the UK’s close relationship with the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, will transfer to another diplomatic post.
She will be replaced in September by Martin Harris, who has previously served as deputy head of mission in both Kyiv and Moscow during his diplomatic career.
The US is expected to announce a new Ukraine weapons package including the provision of cluster munitions, two US officials have told Reuters.
A weapons aid package that includes cluster munitions fired by a 155 millimetre Howitzer cannon was expected to be announced Friday, the two US officials said speaking on condition of anonymity.
The White House said sending cluster munitions to Ukraine is “under active consideration” but it had no announcement to make at this time.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says Ukraine plans to abandon conscription and move to a professional army after the war to bring Kyiv closer to NATO standards.
After a meeting with top officials where reforms known as “the Ukrainian shield” were discussed, Shmyhal said the government would continue to focus on increasing its domestic weapons production.
“The primary task is to complete the transition of the Security and Defence Forces of Ukraine to NATO standards. In all aspects: from equipment and weapons to planning and analysis,” he said on Telegram.
“After the end of the war, Ukraine will abandon the draft as it existed before the war. The foundation of our defence will be a professional army.”
Ukraine wants to join NATO and hopes to receive a clear signal on its membership prospects during the bloc’s summit in Lithuania next week.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Sweden’s NATO membership is within reach after a meeting in Brussels to overcome Turkish objections.
Stoltenberg said leaders of Sweden and Turkey will meet in Vilnius on Monday on the eve of a NATO summit in the city later in the week.
“My main ambition is now to get this agreed by the summit,” Stoltenberg said after meeting with Swedish, Turkish and Finnish officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Countries that want to join the military alliance must be approved by all NATO members. So far, Turkey and Hungary have yet to clear Sweden’s bid.
“We are hoping and looking for a positive decision next week,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told reporters in Brussels.
Russia and Ukraine have swapped 45 prisoners of war in the latest exchange between the warring countries.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential staff, Andriy Yermak, said 45 service personnel and two civilians had been returned to Ukraine.
In a post on Telegram, Yermak said some of those freed had fought in Mariupol and the southern city’s Azovstal steel plant, and others had fought on the front line elsewhere.
In a separate post, he said that two children aged six and 10 had been allowed to return to Ukraine following the release of their mother, a military medic, last October.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, added that most of those freed were “seriously injured” and all would undergo rehabilitation.
At least five people have been killed after a Russian missile hit a residential building in Lviv.
Regional authorities put the death toll at five, including a 32-year-old woman and her 60-year-old mother.
Emergency services said at least 36 others were wounded, and seven were pulled out from the rubble.
The roof and top floor of the building were destroyed in what Lviv’s mayor called the biggest attack on civilian infrastructure in Lviv.
Alongside video of the damage, Zelenskyy said on Twitter, “Lviv. Consequences of the night attack by Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the relatives!
“There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A strong one.”
Lviv. Consequences of the night attack by Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the relatives!
There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A strong one. pic.twitter.com/9yl1MT6Eu4
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 6, 2023
Zelenskyy said Ukraine and Bulgaria have agreed on more active cooperation in the defence sector and that he had invited Sofia to take part in Ukraine’s reconstruction.
During a joint news conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov in Sofia, Zelenskyy said, “We discussed the military aid which Bulgaria gives to our country. We count on the continuation of the cooperation, which has already saved many lives.”
He also thanked his hosts for their support.
Zelenskyy invited Bulgaria to participate in the reconstruction effort in Ukraine, particularly in the rebuilding of the education sector.
Bulgaria is a NATO member and part of the European Union, two Western groupings that Ukraine hopes to join.
Zelenskyy will visit Turkey on Friday for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the Black Sea grain deal and to discuss the war in Ukraine, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.
The two leaders will hold face-to-face talks and also attend inter-delegation meetings, Anadolu added.
Turkey and the United Nations brokered the grain deal last year to aid a growing food crisis that was being worsened by the continuing war.
Russia has repeatedly threatened to leave the grain deal and said earlier this week that it does not see enough grounds to extend it beyond July 17.
Governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said Ukrainian shelling killed one man in the village of Novopetrovka.
Attacks on Russian border regions ramped up in recent months, with Russian officials blaming either Ukrainian forces or pro-Ukrainian saboteurs.
Ukraine does not publicly claim responsibility for attacks inside Russia.
During the Wagner Group’s mutiny last month, its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, repeatedly said that the rebellion was not targeted at the Kremlin but towards Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu and commander of the armed forces, Valery Gerasimov.
Shoigu, who was once seen as Putin’s successor, has been criticised by Prigozhin numerous times for his failings on the battlefield.
But who exactly is the general that Prigozhin went to war over?
Here is everything you need to know.
Ukraine targeted Crimea with more than 70 drone attacks this year and also attacked southern Russia’s Krasnodar and Rostov regions, the Russian RIA Novosti news agency quoted the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, as saying.
“The targets, as a rule, are energy and industrial infrastructure facilities, the destruction or damage of which threatens peaceful life and human health,” Patrushev was quoted as saying during a security meeting in Krasnodar.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014
The New York Times reports that the US is expected to announce it will give cluster munitions to Ukraine to fight back against Russian forces, according to an unnamed senior Biden administration official.
Last month, a senior Pentagon official said the US military believes cluster munitions would be useful for Ukraine but they had not been approved for delivery due to congressional restrictions and concerns among allies.
More than 120 countries have banned cluster munitions, which release large numbers of bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area and pose a threat to civilians.
Earlier in the day, Human Rights Watch said both Russian and Ukrainian forces had used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians.
Russia says it is expelling nine diplomats from Finland in a tit-for-tat measure after Finland expelled nine Russian diplomats whom it accused of working on intelligence missions.
The Russian foreign ministry said the Finnish consulate in St Petersburg would also be closed in response to Finland’s “confrontational” policy towards Moscow.
“It was noted that the currently discussed parameters of Finland’s entry into NATO pose a threat to the security of the Russian Federation, and encouraging the Kyiv regime to go to war and pumping it with Western weapons amount to clearly hostile actions against our country,” a statement from the ministry said.
“This line of the Finnish authorities cannot remain unanswered.”
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto called the measures “a harsh and unsymmetrical response to Finland’s expulsion decisions”.
He added that Helsinki was preparing to close the Russian consulate in Turku in response.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says the United States ambassador will be allowed to visit detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich “on a reciprocal basis”.
Ambassador Lynne Tracy visited Gershkovich this week for the second time since he was detained in March on espionage charges, which he, his employer and Washington all deny.
Russian embassy staff were given access on the same day to Vladimir Dunaev, a Russian national in pre-trial detention in Ohio on cybercrime charges.
Earlier this week, the Kremlin said there were “certain contacts” with the US over Gershkovich’s case but “they must be carried out and continued in complete silence.”
Pavel Felgenhauer, a defence and military analyst based in Moscow, says the Wagner leader made a brief visit to Belarus and then returned to Russia.
“There is, I would say, a ceasefire between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Kremlin, a freeze of the situation that was agreed together with President Lukashenko of Belarus, and this is an uneasy ceasefire, but both sides are more or less holding it,” he said.
Felgenhauer explained that while it’s a ceasefire, the Wagner Group is still a credible fighting force that the Kremlin is not ready to take on.
“Especially as Ukrainians are counter-attacking … They’re keeping the ceasefire negotiated by Lukashenko. Lukashenko maybe would want these men to move to his country and have his own mercenaries … but it’s a frozen situation. The mutiny was not crushed. It ended in a ceasefire,” Felgenhauer added.
Read the full interview here.
The Kremlin says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Bulgaria shows that Kyiv is doing all it can to drag as many countries as possible into the conflict.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said discussions, like those Zelenskyy was having in Bulgaria, would not affect the outcome of its “special military operation” in a big way and pointed to the situation on the front line as evidence.
Earlier, Zelenskyy said he was in the Bulgarian capital Sofia for talks with the country’s president and prime minister on security and next week’s NATO summit.
The Kremlin says it is not tracking the movements of Wagner Group’s leader after Belarus’s Lukashenko said Yevgeny Prigozhin was no longer in Belarus.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that no date had been set for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko and said he could not yet confirm discussion details.
Lukashenko had earlier said Prigozhin would be discussed.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has shot dead a 38-year-old Russian man as he allegedly made preparations to blow up an energy facility in the Tyumen region of Siberia, Russian investigators say.
The FSB said an unspecified number of Russian citizens had been preparing to commit an act “at the request of representatives of Ukrainian paramilitary groups”.
The Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, published footage of officers using metal detectors in a field and said a man had shot at and tried to kill FSB officers.
“He did not respond to warnings. The attacker was killed by return fire,” the committee said.
Blasts have occurred at several Russian energy, railway and military facilities since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Bulgaria to begin talks with its president and prime minister on issues including security and next week’s NATO summit.
Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter: “I will hold substantial talks with Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov, meet with President Rumen Radev, government officials, parliamentarians, politicians, and journalists.”
He said they would discuss “defence support, Euro-Atlantic integration, the NATO Summit, security guarantees and the implementation of the Peace Formula”.
Sofia. Bulgaria 🇧🇬. I will hold substantial talks with Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov, meet with President Rumen Radev, government officials, parliamentarians, politicians, and journalists. Defense support, 🇺🇦 Euro-Atlantic integration, the @NATO Summit, security guarantees, and…
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 6, 2023
Belarus’s Lukashenko says the issue of relocating forces from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has not yet been resolved, the TASS news agency reported.
Last month, Lukashenko brokered a deal to end an armed mutiny in Russia by allowing the Wagner Group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to come to Belarus.
But after a brief visit to the country, Lukashenko said Prigozhin had returned to Russia.
Lukashenko said his offer to accommodate some of Wagner’s fighters in Belarus still stood.
The fighters, Russia said, can go to Belarus and sign up with its regular armed forces or demobilise.
Russian news agency TASS reported that Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has suggested that Russia and Ukraine come to the negotiating table with no preconditions.
During a meeting with foreign and Belarusian media representatives, Lukashenko said: “We have to stop now. We have already done a lot of bad things. But it could be worse. Therefore, we need to stop now, sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions. We must decide everything at the negotiating table.”
According to Lukashenko, a conversation with Ukraine about peace is only possible now because it will not happen after its counteroffensive.
He added that a peace settlement in Ukraine should not depend on Washington, noting that “this is the business of Russia and Belarus”.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says Ukraine will try to demonstrate its power against Russia before the NATO summit in Lithuania next week, the Russian news agency TASS reported.
Lukashenko also warned that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would insist on NATO entering into direct conflict with Russia following its acceptance into the alliance.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who last month brokered a deal to end an armed mutiny in Russia, says Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was no longer in Belarus.
Lukashenko said on June 27 that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus as part of the deal.
“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko told reporters.
The United Nations’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is seeking increased access to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of planning acts of sabotage at what is Europe’s largest nuclear power facility.
The IAEA said it wants additional access to the Zaporizhzhia plant to “confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site”.
“With military tension and activities increasing in the region where this major nuclear power plant is located, our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a statement.
Recent inspections at the site by IAEA staff had not found “any visible indications of mines or explosives”, but additional access “would help clarify the current situation at the site” at a time when “unconfirmed allegations and counter allegations” are circulating, Grossi said.
Read more here.
Russian state TV has launched a fierce attack on Yevgeny Prigozhin, the exiled boss of the Wagner mercenary force, saying that an investigation into the private army’s short-lived mutiny against the Moscow military leadership was still under way.
In a programme called 60 Minutes broadcast on Russia’s state Russia-1 TV channel, the Wagner boss was branded a “traitor” and viewers were told that the criminal case against Prigozhin was in full swing.
The host of the 60 Minutes programme, Russian lawmaker Yevgeny Popov, said Prigozhin was a “traitor” and footage shot during police raids of Prigozhin’s office and residence in Saint Petersburg was shown as proof of the Wagner chief’s criminality.
Read more here.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says slow weapons deliveries to Ukraine delayed Kyiv’s planned counteroffensive, allowing Russia to bolster its defences in occupied areas, including with mines.
Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Zelenskyy revealed that he had sought to begin the counteroffensive against Russia “much earlier” than its actual start in early June.
“Our slowed-down counteroffensive is happening due to certain difficulties in the battlefield. Everything is heavily mined there,” Zelenskyy said via a translator in the pre-taped interview.
“I wanted our counteroffensive happening much earlier, because everyone understood that if the counteroffensive will be unfolding later, then much bigger part of our territory will be mined.”
Human Rights Watch says both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians.
The international advocacy group called on both Russia and Ukraine to stop using the weapons.
More than 120 countries have signed on to an international treaty banning the weapons, which typically scatter a large number of smaller so-called bomblets over a large area that can kill or maim unwary civilians months or years later.
Moscow and Kyiv have declined to sign the treaty.
“Cluster munitions used by Russia and Ukraine are killing civilians now and will continue to do so for many years,” Mary Wareham, the group’s acting arms director, said in a statement. “Both sides should immediately stop using them and not try to get more of these indiscriminate weapons.”
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko says the death toll from a Russian missile attack in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv climbed to four and that 32 others were injured.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said around 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged.
Sadovyi addressed residents in a video message, saying the attack was the largest on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the full-scale invasion last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack, offered his condolences to the relatives of those killed in Lviv and promised a “strong” response “to the enemy”.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from other areas to the east have sought refuge in Lviv.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says more than 30 people injured in attack on residential apartment building in the city.
The NATO chief has been leading the world’s largest military alliance since 2014.
Officials acknowledge stiff resistance from Russian forces as they make incremental advances in east and south.
International Atomic Energy Agency seeks access to rooftop of Zaporizhzhia reactors to check for presence of explosives.
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