Ukraine
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Russia to change from NATO's 'strategic partner' to 'main threat'
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is hosting the NATO summit, told Cadena Ser radio that Russia will be identified as the alliance's "main threat" in its new strategic concept.
The country was previously considered a strategic partner. -
Putin 'proved completely wrong' in hopes of shrinking NATO
Boris Johnson said Vladimir Putin has been "proved completely wrong" in his hopes of reducing NATO's dominance.
"The first lesson really from today is that if Vladimir Putin was hoping he would be getting less NATO on his western front as a result of his unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine, he's been proved completely wrong - he's getting more NATO," he said as he arrived at the summit."This is a historic summit in many ways, but we've already got two new members coming in, Finland and Sweden, a huge step forward for our alliance.
"And what we're going to be doing now is talking about what more we can do as an alliance to support the Ukrainians but what we also need to do to make sure that we think about the lessons of the last few months and the need for NATO to revise its posture on its eastern flank." -
'We have to defeat Russia first, negotiate later' - UK foreign secretary
The UK's foreign secretary told a NATO panel that negotiations with Vladimir Putin now would fail to result in peace.
"It's absolutely imperative that we secure Russia’s defeat in Ukraine," Liz Truss said.
"And it's imperative for the sake of European security, freedom and democracy, and it's the only way that we are going to achieve a lasting peace in Europe."There are some who are saying that there could be some possibility of negotiations now whilst Russia is still in Ukraine, but I think that would bring a false peace and it would lead to further aggression in the future.
"We have to learn the lessons of the past, the failures of the Minsk protocol for example, in being able to secure a lasting peace in the area.
"So my very strong message is we have to defeat Russia first, and negotiate later." -
Russian forces withdraw from strategic Black Sea island
Russian forces have abandoned the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island this morning, in a major victory for Ukraine that could loosen a Russian grain export blockade threatening to worsen global hunger.
Russia's defence ministry said it had decided to withdraw from the outcrop as a "gesture of goodwill" that showed Moscow was not obstructing UN efforts to open a humanitarian corridor allowing grains to be shipped from Ukraine's ports.
Ukraine said it had driven the Russian forces out after a massive artillery and assault overnight.
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Russia 'accidentally sinks own ship in Black Sea' - reports
The Russian navy has reportedly blown up one of its own ships in the Black Sea near the occupied southern city of Mariupol.
A landing craft was destroyed when it hit a Russian sea mine, according to reports on Telegram.
It is understood the crew of the Black Sea Fleet D-106 survived the incident.
"Near Mariupol, a landing craft of the Black Sea Fleet D-106 blew up on a mine,' said a social media account linked to Moscow. -
Ukrainian troops find 'classified' Russian hard drive full of military data
Ukraine has found a hard drive containing some 100 GB of Russian military data, according to the State Border Service.
It was discovered in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine while border guards were "performing tasks", according to Kyiv.
The hard drive contains a staff list and biographical data of Russian military from one specific air defence artillery unit.
It also contains details of Russian weapons, as well as data about military exercises.
A number of the documents were reportedly labelled "classified".
"Ukrainian law enforcement officers now have photos, characteristics, copies of passports, and other documents of the invaders," the State Border Service says. -
Turkey detains Russian ship carrying grain
Turkish customs authorities have detained a Russian cargo ship carrying grain, which Ukraine says is stolen, Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey said.
Ukraine had previously asked Turkey to detain the Russian-flagged Zhibek Zholy cargo ship, according to an official and documents viewed by Reuters.Reuters reporters saw the Zhibek Zholy ship anchored about 1km from shore and outside of the Karasu port, with no obvious signs of movement aboard or by other vessels nearby.
"We have full co-operation. The ship is currently standing at the entrance to the port, it has been detained by the customs authorities of Turkey," Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said on Ukrainian national television.
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Russia in control of Luhansk
Russia said it had taken full control of the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk today after capturing the final Ukrainian bastion of the city of Lysychansk, where Kyiv said it had withdrawn to save the lives of its troops.
The region's capture, a major Russian war aim, is a political victory for the Kremlin after weeks of grinding advances and shifts the battlefield focus to neighbouring Donetsk region, where Kyiv still controls swathes of territory.Since abandoning an assault on the capital Kyiv, Russia has concentrated its military operation on the industrial Donbas heartland that comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting Ukraine since 2014.
Russia says it is capturing Luhansk region in order to give it to the Russian-backed Luhansk People's Republic whose independence it recognised on the eve of the war. -
Ukraine war: Kremenchuk shopping centre attack claims fact-checked
Source: By Reality Check and BBC Monitoring
Within hours of the attack on a shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, false and unproven claims began circulating online.
Stories were spread by Russian Telegram channels and by Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations. They included rumours that the attack was "false" or "staged" - and were repeated on Russian television.
On Tuesday, Russia's defence ministry released a statement claiming the shopping centre was "non-functioning" and that the bombing of a nearby ammunitions dump sparked a secondary fire at the centre. Those claims were denied by Ukrainian officials. -
What's the truth?
Claim: The shopping centre was 'non-functioning'
This claim is false. BBC reporters on the ground have spoken to shoppers and employees who were inside the building at the time of the attack.
Multiple posts listing details of missing people who were either working at the shopping centre on the day or went shopping there, were published in a local Telegram channel in the hours after the attack.
One pro-Kremlin "fact-checking" channel suggested that no photographs from inside the shopping centre had been posted on Instagram since March. However, a woman who lives in a nearby village and regularly goes shopping in Kremenchuk, told the BBC that the shopping centre had been "constantly open" and her family had visited it at least once a week.She also shared video she had taken at the shopping centre from 25 June, showing open shops and people walking inside the building.
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Some Telegram channels claimed there were no women or children at the shopping centre - implying that the building had been turned into a military facility. That claim is false, according to several eyewitness accounts and online videos.
Claim: The bombing of a weapons depot spread fire to the shopping centre
The Russian Defence Ministry claimed a strike on an arms storage facility detonated ammunition which set the shopping centre on fire.
"Western-manufactured weapons and ammunition stockpiled in the warehouse to be sent to a Ukrainian military grouping in Donbas were hit with a high-precision strike," the ministry said.
Ukrainian officials have denied there was a weapons depot nearby.
CCTV footage captured near a pond roughly 600 metres north of the shopping centre, on the other side of a factory building, shows two missile strikes in the area. -
Matching the exact spots where the two missiles land in the CCTV video with aerial images of the area, it appears one missile hit close to the eastern end of the shopping centre, while the other struck the northern end of the factory, near the southern edge of the pond.
The factory mentioned by the Russian defence ministry is located roughly 300 metres north of the shopping centre. The buildings are separated by a wall, vegetation and rail tracks, making the claim that "secondary explosions" caused a large fire with multiple casualties in the shopping centre unlikely.
According to the Ukrainian online publication Kyiv Independent, a press officer of the regional administration confirmed that the machinery plant had been hit, injuring two individuals.
Svitlana Rybalko, from the regional State Emergency Service, denied there were weapons stored at the facility."It's a place for making road equipment, machines for road construction," she told the BBC. -
"There's also a greenhouse nearby where workers grow cucumbers."
Satellite images of the area, along with a video released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky provide further evidence that these were the locations of the strikes.
This video also supports an earlier Ukrainian assessment that the missile was an air-launched Kh-22 weapon.
This is a medium-range cruise missile developed in the 1960s, originally to attack large warships. There is also a land-attack variant.
The weapon is large, liquid-fuelled and supersonic - but inaccurate by today's standards.
The relatively shallow angle of impact further points to its cruise nature. A ballistic missile follows a much more parabolic path.
Ukraine says the missiles were launched from bombers in the Kursk region of Russia, some 300km (185 miles) away. -
Claim: The attack was 'staged' or a 'provocation'
This claim contradicts the official Russian defence ministry statement - even though top diplomats such as Mr Polyanskiy, the deputy UN ambassador, described the Kremenchuk attack as "a new Bucha-style Ukrainian provocation" on Twitter.
There's simply no evidence - nor has any been offered - that Ukraine bombed the shopping centre, or that the attack was "staged".It's the latest example of a common tactic used by supporters of the Russian government - throwing multiple, conflicting, evidence-free narratives out in the immediate aftermath of an attack.
The claim echoes other, debunked false assertions by Russia and its supporters, for instance that the attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol and the killings of civilians in Bucha were somehow faked or staged. -
Russia will 'almost certainly' switch to capturing the Donetsk region, MoD says
The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has provided its latest intelligence report amid the crisis in Ukraine.
In its report, the ministry states that fighting in and around the eastern region of Luhansk has "intensified" over the past week and Russian forces are "making steady progress".The report goes on to say that now Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Lysychansk, which was the last remaining major city in the Luhansk region under Ukrainian control, Russia will "almost certainly" switch to capturing the Donetsk region - a large portion of which remains under the control of Ukrainian forces.
"The fight for the Donbas has been grinding and attritional and this is highly unlikely to change in the coming weeks," the ministry says.
Evidence of the MoD's prediction can already be seen with heavy shelling in Slovyansk, which looks set to a new focus for intense fighting. -
Putin to meet Iranian and Turkish leaders in Tehran next week
Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss Syria during a visit to Tehran next week, the Kremlin has said.
The visit will be Mr Putin's second foreign trip since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, following a trip to Tajikistan at the end of June.
Russia and Iran are the key military and political backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey has provided military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups still fighting against Assad's forces in northwest Syria.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Mr Putin would also have a separate meeting with the Turkish president. -
Iran preparing to supply Russia with weapon-capable drones, White House says
Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with "hundreds" of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, the White House has said.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said it was unclear whether Iran had already provided any of the unmanned systems to Russia, but said the US has "information" that indicated Iran was preparing to train Russian forces to use them as soon as this month.
"Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline," Mr Sullivan told reporters.
Mr Sullivan went on to say the move was proof that Russia's overwhelming bombardments in Ukraine was "coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons".
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DML, what are some recent stats? Civilians who’ve left, civilian and combatant casualties, cities gained/lost, net current activity?
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OttoNorse wrote:
Date: 4 July 2022DML, what are some recent stats? Civilians who’ve left, civilian and combatant casualties, cities gained/lost, net current activity?
From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 3 July 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 11,152 civilian casualties in the country: 4,889 killed and 6,263 injured.Source: UN Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights
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YOU wrote:
Russia has claimed to capture over 126,000 sqkm of Ukraine.OttoNorse wrote:
Date: 4 July 2022DML, what are some recent stats? Civilians who’ve left, civilian and combatant casualties, cities gained/lost, net current activity?
From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 3 July 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 11,152 civilian casualties in the country: 4,889 killed and 6,263 injured.Source: UN Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights
Some 8 million people have fled the war zone.Very busy irl atm, will try to get back to it when I can
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US blasts Russia for forced deportations
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia.
Mr Blinken said Moscow was partaking in a deliberate criminal operation to depopulate parts of Ukraine.In a statement a day before the Ukraine Accountability Conference in the Hague on alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Mr Blinken said the Kremlin is conducting a "filtration" operation to relocate Ukrainians from the occupied east and south to areas deep inside Russia.
"The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime," Mr Blinken said.
He added that estimates from sources - including the Russian government itself - indicate that from 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens have been taken from their homes into Russia, including to isolated areas in the Russian Far East.
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The number includes some 260,000 children, some of whom are being deliberately separated from parents to be put up for adoption in Russia, Mr Blinken said.
He said the filtration program appears to have been planned early and matches similar operations that Russia undertook in other wars, including in Chechnya.
Mr Blinken said it is "imperative" to hold the Russians accountable."This is why we are supporting Ukrainian and international authorities' efforts to collect, document, and preserve evidence of atrocities," he said.
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Thx for updates
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Zelensky suspends 28 more security officials amid concerns of collaboration with Russians
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expanded the shakeup of his security services on Monday by suspending 28 more officials, a day after he dismissed two senior officials over allegations that their agencies harboured “collaborators and traitors”.
In his nightly video address, Mr Zelensky said a “personnel audit” of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was underway, and the dismissal of the 28 officials was being decided.“Different levels, different areas of focus. But the reasons are similar — unsatisfactory results of work,” Mr Zelensky said.
On Sunday, he had fired SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova. Mr Zelenskyy, citing hundreds of criminal proceedings into treason and collaboration by people within their departments and other law enforcement agencies.
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Putin is 'entirely too healthy'
By Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor
Vladimir Putin is "entirely too healthy", the head of the CIA has said, playing down rumours the Russian president is suffering a serious illness such as cancer.
William Burns, in a rare public appearance, also said Russia's leader would be proved wrong in a belief he can win a bloody war of attrition against Ukraine - as he had previously been proved wrong to assume his forces could capture Kyiv within the first few days of the invasion.
Mr Burns was asked if he thought Mr Putin was unstable and unhealthy.
"As far as we can tell he's entirely too healthy," Mr Burns said, before quipping that this was an "informal intelligence judgement".
The CIA chief, also a former US ambassador to Moscow, has watched and dealt with Mr Putin for more than two decades. -
He said the president believed his destiny was to restore Russia as a great power. Key to this was control of Ukraine.
Offering the US intelligence community's latest estimate of the casualty toll from Russia's invasion, which is nearing the end of its fifth month, Mr Burns said it stood at around 15,000 Russian dead and some three-times that number wounded.
He said the Ukrainian toll was also steep - "probably a little less" than the Russian figures.
The CIA director predicted that the Kremlin would grind on with a war of attrition in the belief that the West's will to support Ukraine would falter.
But he said Mr Putin had miscalculated with his initial invasion plans, failing to seize Kyiv in a lightning strike, and would be proved wrong again.
"He insists that Ukraine is not a real country, but real countries fight back." -
Russia says it is expanding its goals in Ukraine
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow is now focusing its efforts beyond Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
The Donbas - made up of Donetsk and Luhansk - has been the main target for Russia's military efforts for weeks and has seen intense and bloody battles.Speaking to Russian state news agency RIA, Mr Lavrov said Russia's objectives will expand further if the West keeps supplying Ukraine with long-range weapons.
"That means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line," he said.
Russia has been focusing on the Donbas and south of the country after abandoning its failed attempts to take Kyiv and other western targets in the opening weeks of the war.
Mr Lavrov also put a dampener on hopes of peace talks, saying they made no sense.
However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said Moscow is not closing the door on talks with Ukraine. -
Former Russian president warns Ukraine will 'disappear from the world stage'
One of Moscow's most bullish commentators has issued a lengthy statement on Telegram targeting the West.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president, wrote about the "sins" of the West and also had some ominous warnings for Ukraine.He accused US President Joe Biden of being a "strange grandfather with dementia" and described EU leaders as "city lunatics".
Mr Medvedev said the EU had "completely lost touch with reality" and was "forcing the unfortunate Ukrainians to sacrifice their lives to join the European Union", in reference to Ukraine's EU bid.Most chillingly, he said Ukraine could "lose the remnants of state sovereignty and disappear from the world map".
Russia has previously made clear that it does not view Ukraine as a country in its own right. -
UK promises more weapons for Ukraine
Scores of artillery guns and more than 1,600 anti-tank weapons will be sent to Ukraine from the UK, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.
It is the latest tranche of Western weapons destined for Ukraine, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised another £1bn of military support.Ukraine has been desperately calling for more Western weapons, saying it will be unable to push back Russian forces without more advanced weaponry.
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strange grandfather with dementia
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