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Moscow launches Ukraine-wide overnight attacks
Russia launched attacks across Ukraine overnight, including on the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland.
Kyiv’s military administration said Moscow had launched a drone attack in the early hours of Tuesday, warning residents to find shelter, in a post on the Telegram messaging app. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The administration later said the city’s air defences had detected and destroyed about two-dozen Iranian-made Shahed drones in the “massive air attack”. It was the second drone attack on the city since the beginning of the month, it said.
In Lviv, a piece of “critical infrastructure” was hit and set on fire, the city’s military administration said, but there were no injuries. Earlier, the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy reported explosions in Lviv and the surrounding area. It was not clear if the explosions came from air defences or from missile strikes.
Air raid alerts also sounded in Zaporizhzhia, the Kyiv Independent reported, noting that the southern city has been heavily targeted by Russian artillery over the past few days.
The situation in the city was “stable” despite a “a restless and noisy night” the head of the city council, Anatoly Kurtev, later said on Telegram. No injuries were reported and there was no damage to residential buildings while all utility systems were working as normal, he said.
Key events
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he had called on China to use its influence over Russia more in regards to the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Speaking alongside China’s premier, Li Qiang, after bilateral talks in the German capital, Scholz also said China should not supply weapons to Russia and that the war in Ukraine should not become a frozen conflict.
Scholz also said he told Li in talks in Berlin that Germany did not want to decouple from China but to diversify trade in a bid for more balanced relationships all round.
Speaking at a joint news conference, Scholz said he had told Li that German companies still faced challenges in accessing the Chinese market and unfair business conditions.
EU asks member states for €50bn to support Ukraine
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has unveiled an aid package for Ukraine worth €50bn (£43bn), Reuters reports.
The sum comes after a review of the EU’s 2021-27 budget and before an international conference in London this week aimed at raising more funds to rebuild Ukraine from its war with Russia.
The €50bn budget reserve would provide perspective and reliability to the bloc’s Ukrainian partners, Von der Leyen said in remarks to journalists after an EU commission meeting in Brussels.
“This financial reserve will allow us really to calibrate our financial support according to the evolution of the situation on the ground,” Von der Leyen said according to Agence France-Presse news agency.
We have exhausted all flexibility in our EU budget to deal with crisis after crisis.
Now we come with a targeted proposal to better act on the most pressing issues:
→ Ukraine
→ Migration and external challenges
→ Strengthening our competitiveness https://t.co/4f1C5sQiNa— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 20, 2023
Trade, climate change and the war in Ukraine are on the agenda Tuesday as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, meets the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, who is on his first foreign trip since taking office.
The Associated Press news agency reports Germany is keen to maintain good ties with China, its biggest trading partner, despite wariness over Beijing’s growing assertiveness and refusal to criticise the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany’s recently published national security strategy describes China as “a partner, competitor and systemic rival”.
The meeting in Berlin is the seventh time Germany and China have held high-level government consultations. It comes a day after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, indicating an effort by Beijing to reach out to the west and improve frosty relations.
Li, a former Communist party secretary for Shanghai who took office in March as China’s No 2 official, met the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Monday and had dinner with Scholz at the Chancellery before the start of formal talks.
Russia sees scant chance of peace talks with Ukraine due to Kyiv’s stance on the issue despite constructive efforts by an African peace mission, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had held “very productive” talks with African leaders on Saturday and remained open to dialogue and contacts on Ukraine, said Peskov.
But he told reporters that what he called the history of Kyiv’s position meant “one can hardly talk about stable grounds” for peace negotiations.
The companies behind the Telegram and Viber messaging apps were fined by a Moscow court on Tuesday for failing to delete what Russia deems illegal content, Interfax news agency said, including about the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Dubai-based Telegram was ordered to pay 4 million roubles ($47,525), Interfax said, and the Japanese company behind Viber was fined 1 million roubles.
Telegram, founded by Russian-born brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov in 2013, is hugely popular in Russia where it is used on a daily basis by the Kremlin and defence ministry as well as by journalists, opposition figures, rights groups and millions of ordinary people.
TASS news agency said the fine against Telegram was for refusing to remove 32 channels publishing false information about what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russia has tightened controls over the coverage of the conflict by media and bloggers, introducing tougher punishments after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year for “discrediting” the actions of its armed forces or publishing false information about them.
Summary of the day so far …
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Ukraine claims to have shot down 32 of 35 “Shahad” drones launched in an overnight attack mostly directed at Kyiv. Suspilne reports that in Kyiv non-residential structures and several private houses were damaged by debris, and agricultural property and equipment were damaged in Zaporizhzhia after Russia launched seven S-300 missiles at the Ukraine-controlled portion of the region.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said drones attacked the Kyiv region in several waves, with the air alert lasting for over four hours. Several commercial and administrative buildings and some private houses were damaged, it said. The energy ministry said debris from falling drones damaged electricity lines in the Kyiv region and also in the Mykolaiv region in the south, cutting off electricity for hundreds of residents.
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Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in a radio interview that it was simply not possible for air defence systems to cover all of a country as large as Ukraine.
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An unspecified critical infrastructure facility was hit in Lviv, which is about 70 km (43 miles) from the border with Nato member Poland. As a consequence some tram routes were altered during the morning rush hour, officials said. “They hit a critically important facility. There were three hits,” said regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy.
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Russia’s defence minister has threatened “immediate strikes on decision-making centres” in Ukraine if western-supplied long-range weapons are used to strike at Crimea. The ministry of defence statement from Sergei Shoigu said an attack on Crimea with Himars and Storm Shadow missiles would constitute an attack “outside the zone of the special military operation” and would mean “the full involvement of the United States and Great Britain in the conflict”. Russia illegally seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
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Ukraine is in negotiations with western arms manufacturers to boost production of weapons, including drones, and could sign contracts in coming months, a Ukrainian minister told Reuters. Sergiy Boyev, the deputy minister for Strategic Industries in Ukraine, said Kyiv was in talks with manufacturers from Germany, Italy, France and eastern Europe about them producing weapons in Ukraine.
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Ukraine’s ministry of the interior has stated that four settlements and 818 houses remain flooded on the right bank of the Dnipro in Kherson. Authorities in Mykolaiv reported some flooding remains in their region too. One person has been killed in Kherson this morning as a result of Russian attacks.
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Russia has issued an appeal for staff at Ukrainian embassies around the world to defect to Moscow. In a statement, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said “We appeal to the employees of Ukrainian diplomatic missions and representative offices of state bodies abroad. If you feel responsible for the fate of your Motherland, ensuring peace and stability in Europe and are under pressure from the criminal Kyiv regime leading Ukraine to a national catastrophe, come to Moscow, where you and your loved ones will be guaranteed safety.”
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Russian state-owned media reports that Ukraine struck the occupied settlement of Nova Kakhovka with “kamikaze” drones, injuring three people.
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Russia’s security forces, the FSB, have claimed to have detained a Ukrainian national in the Kabardino-Balkaria region on suspicion of espionage.
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Heavy casualties are being endured by both Ukrainian and Russian forces, British military intelligence has said, two weeks into the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The level of losses among Russian troops was said by British officials to be at its highest level since the peak of March’s battle for Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, with Ukraine claiming to have killed or injured 4,600 soldiers.
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Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Monday Ukraine must prepare itself for a “tough duel” but that “the biggest blow is yet to come”. Separately she said that Russia had concentrated a significant number of units in the east, including air assault troops, but that Ukrainian forces were preventing their advance. She described the situation in the east of the country as “difficult”.
Russia warns it would consider long-range attack on Crimea to be ‘the full involvement’ of US and UK in war
Russia’s defence minister has threatened “immediate strikes on decision-making centres” in Ukraine if western-supplied long-range weapons are used to strike at Crimea. Russia illegally seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
The ministry of defence statement from Sergei Shoigu says an attack on Crimea with Himars and Storm Shadow missiles would constitute an attack “outside the zone of the special military operation” and would mean “the full involvement of the United States and Great Britain in the conflict”.
In the statement, Shoigu said:
According to our information, the leadership of the armed forces of Ukraine plans to strike at the territory of the Russian Federation, including Crimea, with Himars and Storm Shadow missiles.
The use of these missiles outside the zone of the special military operation will mean the full involvement of the United States and Great Britain in the conflict and will entail immediate strikes on decision-making centres on the territory of Ukraine.
Shoigu also claimed that Russia has repulsed over 200 attacks from Ukraine in recent weeks. He said:
Since 4 June, the armed forces of Ukraine have launched 263 attacks on the positions of Russian troops. Thanks to the competent and selfless actions of our units, all of them were repulsed, the enemy did not achieve his goals.
Ukraine claims to have retaken at least eight settlements during that period of time, and advanced the front in Zaporizhzhia region by several kilometres.
One killed in attack on Kherson – regional authority
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting that one person has been killed in Kherson this morning as a result of Russian attacks. It cited the head of the regional authority, Oleksandr Prokudin.
It posted to its Telegram news channel for the region:
Russian troops attacked Kherson in the morning. A 27-year-old man died. Houses, a kindergarten, a school and a service station were hit by Russian shells, as was a team of doctors who went to help the Kherson people. The doctors were not injured.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Reuters is carrying some more comment from Ukrainian sources about the overnight Russian drone attacks on the country.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said drones attacked the Kyiv region in several waves, with the air alert lasting for over four hours. Several commercial and administrative buildings and some private houses were damaged, it said.
The energy ministry said debris from falling drones damaged electricity lines in the Kyiv region and also in the Mykolaiv region in the south, cutting off electricity for hundreds of residents.
Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in a radio interview that it was simply not possible for air defence systems to cover all of a country as large as Ukraine.
Ukraine is in negotiations with western arms manufacturers to boost production of weapons, including drones, and could sign contracts in coming months, a Ukrainian minister told Reuters.
Sergiy Boyev, the deputy minister for Strategic Industries in Ukraine, said Kyiv was in talks with manufacturers from Germany, Italy, France and eastern Europe about them producing weapons in Ukraine.
“We are in very detailed discussions with them. And we are certain that we will have the contracts agreements signed within the next few months,” Boyev told Reuters on the sidelines of the Paris airshow.
Russia has issued an appeal for staff at Ukrainian embassies around the world to defect to Moscow.
In a statement, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said:
We appeal to the employees of Ukrainian diplomatic missions and representative offices of state bodies abroad. If you feel responsible for the fate of your Motherland, ensuring peace and stability in Europe and are under pressure from the criminal Kyiv regime leading Ukraine to a national catastrophe, come to Moscow, where you and your loved ones will be guaranteed safety.
State-owned news agency Tass quotes director of the service, Sergey Naryshkin, saying “the consequences of the steady degradation of the internal political and socio-economic situation in Ukraine, as well as the repressive methods of managing the state apparatus implemented by the Kyiv regime, are increasingly affecting the personnel of Ukrainian missions abroad.”
The service claims that “Large-scale purges are being carried out in the foreign establishments of Ukraine, aimed at identifying employees disloyal to Kyiv and ensuring their early return to their homeland.”
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
Finland’s newly elected parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of National Coalition Party leader Petteri Orpo to become prime minister, as widely expected, ushering in a right-wing government and ending Social Democrat Sanna Marin’s rule, Reuters reports.
Finland formally joined Nato in April, having applied to become a member of the alliance after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland shares as 1,340km (832 mile) border with Russia, the longest of any EU member.
This image sent to us over the news wires shows smoke rising over the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
An unspecified critical infrastructure facility was hit in the city, which is about 70 km (43 miles) from the border with Nato member Poland. As a consequence some tram routes were altered during the morning rush hour, officials said. “They hit a critically important facility. There were three hits,” Reuters reports regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy said.
There has been some comment on social media, including from Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun, about the appearance of Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi wearing a baby Yoda insignia from the Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
Ukrainian forces on Tuesday struck the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka in the southern Kherson region with drones and three civilians were wounded, the Tass news agency reported, citing the local Russian-imposed authorities.
Reuters reports that the authorities claim “kamikaze” drones were used.
Ukraine’s ministry of the interior has stated that four settlements and 818 houses remain flooded on the right bank of the Dnipro in Kherson.
Херсон.
Вода продовжує відступати. Наразі рівень складає 0,31м.
Підтопленими лишаються 4 населених пункти (818 будинків) на правому березі р. Дніпро. На тимчасово окупованій – 17 населених пунктів.
Працюємо далі. pic.twitter.com/BP143CnxM5
— МВС України (@MVS_UA) June 20, 2023
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that security forces have detained a Ukrainian national in the Kabardino-Balkaria region on suspicion of espionage.
It quotes the FSB saying:
In the city of Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkar Republic, [the FSB] stopped the illegal activities of a 44-year-old citizen of Ukraine suspected of espionage. It was established that the detainee, acting on the instructions of the security service of Ukraine, collected and handed over military information to a foreign intelligence officer.
The investigation continues. If found guilty, espionage charges carry a term of between ten and 20 years in jail in Russia.
Here is an overnight summary of developments in Ukraine as reported by Suspilne on its official Telegram channel:
At night, the Russian Federation released 35 “Shahed” attack drones over Ukraine – 32 of them were shot down. Anti-aircraft defence operated in most regions, but the main direction of the attack was Kyiv region.
In the Kyiv region non-residential structures and several private houses were damaged by debris. There were no casualties or injuries.
In Lviv, there were three hits on a critically important object. There was a fire. People were not injured. Due to shelling, the routes of three trams in the city were changed.
Zaporizhzhia and its suburbs were fired at with seven S-300 missiles at night: they damaged agricultural property and equipment and one of the recreation areas. There were no injuries or damage to residential buildings.
The claims have not been independently verified.
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