E.U. works on emergency plan to help cut Russian energy imports
Russia’s land use of anti-ship missiles causing civilian deaths, U.K. says
Ukraine asks Turkey to detain Russian ship carrying stolen grain
Ukraine’s largest energy firm accuses Russia of hacking
Ukraine war’s collateral damage: Britain’s beloved fish and chip shops
U.S.-supplied HIMARS changing the calculus on Ukraine’s front lines
U.S. to send air defense systems, counter-artillery radar to Ukraine
Ukraine scatters arsenal to protect weapons from Russian strikes
Two more Britons charged with fighting as mercenaries for Ukraine
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant resumes communications with IAEA
Updates from key battlefields: Ukraine disperses weapons to avoid heavy losses
Who is Viktor Bout, Russian arms dealer eyed in rumored prisoner swap?
Kyiv says at least 21 dead in strike near city of Odessa
Western pressure boosts Russia-Belarus links, Putin says
E.U. works on emergency plan to help cut Russian energy imports
Russia’s land use of anti-ship missiles causing civilian deaths, U.K. says
Ukraine asks Turkey to detain Russian ship carrying stolen grain
Ukraine’s largest energy firm accuses Russia of hacking
Ukraine war’s collateral damage: Britain’s beloved fish and chip shops
U.S.-supplied HIMARS changing the calculus on Ukraine’s front lines
U.S. to send air defense systems, counter-artillery radar to Ukraine
Ukraine scatters arsenal to protect weapons from Russian strikes
Two more Britons charged with fighting as mercenaries for Ukraine
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant resumes communications with IAEA
Updates from key battlefields: Ukraine disperses weapons to avoid heavy losses
Who is Viktor Bout, Russian arms dealer eyed in rumored prisoner swap?
Kyiv says at least 21 dead in strike near city of Odessa
Western pressure boosts Russia-Belarus links, Putin says
KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decried “purposeful Russian terror” late Friday after missile strikes killed at least 21 people near the Black Sea port of Odessa and hit the southern front-line city of Mykolaiv. The mayor of Mykolaiv reported more explosions early Saturday.
A Ukrainian security chief cast the attack in the Odessa region as retaliation for Russia’s retreat from the small but strategic Snake Island. “The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield, so they resort to vile killing of civilians,” he told reporters. While the Kremlin denied targeting civilians, Kyiv said a 12-year-old boy was killed in the strike that hit an apartment block and a recreation center.
Ukraine has called on Turkey to seize a Russian-flagged cargo ship, which it said had sailed from the Berdyansk port controlled by Moscow for Turkey’s Black Sea coast, loaded with Ukrainian grain. Millions of metric tons of grain await export from Ukraine, as Russia blockades Black Sea shipping lanes and poorer countries bear the brunt of shortages and rising prices.
Here’s what else to know
The European Union is preparing an emergency plan to help member states cut back on Russian energy. “We need a good, common plan that the energy flows, or the gas flows, where it is needed most,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday.
The new measures — due by mid-July — will build on May’s REPowerEU plan to abandon Russian energy sources following the invasion of Ukraine. That plan allotted nearly 300 billion euros ($312 billion) to promote energy efficiency and increased use of renewables.
At the end of May, the European Union agreed to halt seaborne imports of Russian oil within months, with some exceptions. The bloc imported 35 percent of its oil from Russia in 2020, and the import ban “will effectively cut around 90 percent of oil imports” by the end of 2022, according to von der Leyen. There are also plans for an embargo on imports of Russian coal. Earnings from energy exports are “a huge source of financing” for the Russian “war machine,” European Council President Charles Michel said last month.
The Russian military continues to use anti-warship missiles to strike targets on land due to dwindling supplies of more accurate, modern weapons, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday. This approach “greatly increases the likelihood of collateral damage” in an urban environment, the ministry said.
The Defense Ministry said the Russian missile that hit a central Ukrainian mall earlier this week was probably a Kh-32 missile, an upgraded version of the Kh-22 missiles used in a deadly strike near the city of Odessa on Friday. Neither type is optimized for precision use on land, and the use of Kh-22s has “almost certainly repeatedly caused civilian casualties in recent weeks,” it said.
The two attacks killed at least 41 people and immediately drew international condemnation, despite the Kremlin’s debunked claim that its troops target only military infrastructure.
KYIV — Ukraine has called on Turkey to detain a Russian-flagged cargo ship which it said had sailed from Berdyansk, a Russian-occupied port on the Sea of Azov, for Karasu, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, loaded with Ukrainian grain.
The Zhibek Zholy is carrying 4,500 metric tons of grain that belongs to Ukraine, said Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv. According to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, the total cargo is 7,000 metric tons. Ukraine’s demand that Turkey detain the ship was first reported by Reuters.
Yevgeny Balatski, the pro-Moscow governor of Russian-occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, announced on Thursday the departure of the first merchant ship from Berdyansk since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, without naming the vessel.
Shipping tracking data showed the vessel anchored off Karasu on Friday evening. So far, there has been no comment from Turkish authorities. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office called on Turkey to “conduct an inspection of this sea vessel, seize samples of grain for forensic examination, demand information on the location of such grain.”
An estimated 20 million metric tons of grain await export from Ukraine, blockaded by Russia’s control of Black Sea shipping lanes. World food prices have risen as a result, with poorer countries especially hard-hit. The world’s food supply “has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations in May.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said Friday it was the target of a Russian cyberattack aimed at disrupting the national energy supply and spreading false information about the firm, which is owned by Rinat Akhmetov, the country’s richest man.
DTEK produces coal and natural gas, and operates thermal and renewable energy plants. In a statement, the firm said the hack occurred at the same time as a Russian missile strike on its coal-fired power plant in central Ukraine. It also said it registered an increase in Russia’s cyberactivity in March, when the company supported a campaign to discourage energy investment in Russia.
DTEK did not specify the damage incurred in the most recent attack or how it identified Russia as the perpetrator. Russian authorities have not responded to the allegation.
The company also cited Akhmetov’s recent lawsuit against Russia as a reason for the attack. Akhmetov, who spent six years in Ukraine’s legislature as a member of a pro-Russian party, sued Russia in a European high court on June 27, alleging that it violated his property rights during the invasion. The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, a former stronghold for Ukrainian fighters in the port city of Mariupol that was flattened by Russian shelling, is a key asset owned by Akhmetov’s company.
CHORLEY, England — It is a perilous time for fish and chips, the golden fried food for the masses, celebrated as Britain’s “favorite meal” and “the national dish.”
As it turns out, a lot of that fish comes from Russian trawlers and the sunflower oil from Ukrainian fields.
With Russia’s war raging in Ukraine, that means skyrocketing prices for hungry Brits. The ingredients for an order of fish and chips — by design cheap and caloric — now cost more than twice as much as at the start of the year.
And so we find ourselves with Andrew Crook, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers, standing outside a shuttered “chippy” in this small town about 20 miles northwest of Manchester. His organization estimates that a third of the United Kingdom’s 10,500 fish and chip shops will go out of business in the coming year.
EASTERN UKRAINE — The premier weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal drove down a dirt road not marked on any maps, along a sunflower field, before its military minders parked it between trees — the branches shielding it from the Russian drones that are no doubt hunting for it.
The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, commonly known as HIMARS, is one of four that Ukrainians received last month from the United States as part of a $700 million military aid package. The soldiers assigned to this one already adorned the inside with a picture of a scantily clad woman, an air freshener and rosary beads. The outside has three small black skulls stenciled on it — one for every target successfully hit.
“We actually have six,” said this system’s chief, whose call sign is Kuzya. “We just haven’t had a chance to add the other three yet.”
After public frustration over Western delays in transferring promised heavy weaponry, specifically multiple-launch rocket systems such as the HIMARS, the Ukrainians have quickly put their new hardware to work more than four months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
The United States will provide $820 million in security assistance to Ukraine, the Pentagon said Friday, focusing on weapons and equipment urgently needed for a grinding artillery battle in the east.
The United States is sending “up to” 150,000 155-millimeter artillery rounds, which will only work in Western-produced howitzers, and another tranche of ammunition for mobile rocket launchers that help Ukrainian forces fire from longer ranges.
Also included in the package are two advanced surface-to-air missile systems, a capability the Ukrainians have long sought to intercept Russian aircraft and missiles, along with four radar systems that can trace the trajectory of enemy artillery rounds back to their point of origin.
The majority of the weaponry was procured from defense contractors, rather than already existing U.S. military stocks, ushering in “the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional capabilities to Ukraine’s Armed Forces,” the Pentagon said in a statement. But that means it could take longer to arrive: According to a senior defense official, while supplies drawn from U.S. stocks can be sent to Ukraine in a matter of days, it could take “weeks” or “months” for the materiel being procured from industry to arrive on the battlefield.
The defense official declined to say how much artillery and ammunition the United States says the Ukrainians are burning through on a daily basis.
The United States has provided $6.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February.
President Biden previously announced the aid package in Madrid during a NATO summit.
The Russian military is increasing attacks on Ukrainian arms depots to deprive the country of Western weapons critical to prevailing as the war drags into its fifth month.
But in response, the Ukrainian military is dispersing its arsenal across an array of warehouses to lessen the potential losses caused by any one Russian strike, U.S. officials familiar with the strategy said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
The wider distribution of weapons has attracted more Russian cruise missile strikes in recent weeks, officials said, but has resulted in fewer strikes that eliminate large supplies of arms and ammunition.
“This is consistent with how one would go about increasing the survivability of the weapons and ammo you need to bring to the front,” said George Barros, a geospatial analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that analyzes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine using open-source data. “Wars are won by logistics. Those weapons systems are going to be decisive, especially as the Ukrainians attempt to create a counteroffensive, likely later this summer.”
Two more Britons detained by Russian-backed forces in Ukraine were charged with being mercenaries, indicating they could be sentenced to death, according to Russian state media.
Dylan Healy was captured in Mariupol while Andrew Hill was detained in the Mykolaiv region, Russia’s Tass news agency reported Friday. They are in the custody of the Donetsk People’s Republic — a self-declared breakaway region in eastern Ukraine that only Russia and Syria recognize as an independent state. The men are not cooperating with their captors, the report said.
Healy was working as a humanitarian aid worker, according to the BBC.
The British Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, two other Britons — Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner — along with Moroccan national Brahim Saadoune were sentenced to death in the Donetsk People’s Republic after being charged with fighting as mercenaries for Ukraine. At least two of the men have appealed the ruling, according to Russian media.
British officials have protested the sentence, saying the three deserve protection under international law as prisoners of war and are being exploited for “political purposes.”
Ukraine’s state-owned atomic energy firm, Energoatom, said Friday that it has restored communications between the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog.
Energoatom added that all required monitoring data is now being transmitted to the IAEA, after Russia disrupted connections in the past week when it severed mobile services in the region. According to the IAEA, this crucial link with the plant was interrupted twice in June.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, in Ukraine’s south, came under Russian bombardment in the second week of the invasion. Shelling set parts of the nuclear complex ablaze in early March, but elevated levels of radioactivity have not been detected.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi has repeatedly stressed his concerns about the Ukrainian staff who continue to operate the facility. They face difficult working conditions in a Russian-occupied region, Grossi said, adding that the IAEA has not been able to visit the plant since war broke out.
Ukraine is dispersing across the nation the weapons it has received from Western partners to limit potential losses if a depot is struck by Russia, according to U.S. officials familiar with the strategy. While Russia has sharply ramped up missile and rocket attacks in recent weeks, the tactic has resulted in fewer strikes eliminating Ukrainian materiel.
Here are some updates from across Ukraine:
Odessa region: At least 21 people were killed and about 40 wounded following a Russian strike on a resort town southwest of the Black Sea port city of Odessa. A residential building and a recreation center were hit in the overnight attack, according to Ukrainian authorities. The Kremlin again denied that its military targets civilian infrastructure despite overwhelming evidence of such destruction and civilian casualties. Independent rights groups have documented numerous examples of Russian strikes on sites populated with noncombatants.
Lysychansk: Russian troops trying to lay siege to this eastern city have managed to take over parts of a local oil refinery, Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk’s regional governor, said on Telegram. Russia claims it has control of the entire facility, one of the largest in Ukraine.
Mykolaiv: Russia fired 12 missiles at this southern city in the span of a day, a regional official said Friday. No casualties have been reported thus far.
Snake Island: Russia earlier this week withdrew forces that had been occupying this highly contested, strategically important Black Sea island, in a significant win for the outgunned Ukrainian military. Ukrainian border authorities said fewer Russian strikes might be launched as a result of the retreat, which the Kremlin has tried to portray as a “goodwill gesture.”
John Hudson, Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
The fate of two Americans detained in Russia could depend on what the U.S. government decides to do with an imprisoned Russian arms dealer nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” whose wild exploits once inspired a Hollywood film starring Nicolas Cage.
Viktor Bout, 55, is a former Soviet military translator who became an international air transport figure after the fall of communism. Bout is currently serving a 25-year sentence at a medium-security prison in Illinois for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and selling weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The Kremlin has long pushed for Bout’s release, calling his conviction “unlawful.” And in recent weeks, media reports in Russia have hinted that he could be swapped for WBNA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
On Friday, Griner appeared in a Russian court to face drug charges stemming from her arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport in February. Whelan was arrested and charged with spying in 2018 — and has called the trial politically motivated.
At least 21 were killed and 38 injured in a Russian missile attack on an apartment block and recreation center in a resort town southwest of Odessa, local authorities said on Friday, the largest such toll in a single attack on the region since the war began.
Ukrainian officials said that Russian forces launched the missiles from three aircraft in a predawn raid on Serhiivka, about 30 miles from the port city of Odessa. One child was among those killed, while another six were injured, said Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the regional administration.
Photos and videos taken following the attack show rescue workers sifting through the remains of the shattered nine-story apartment building, which was stripped down to its concrete structure with debris, glass and personal belongings piled across its balconies.
Ties between Russia and its close ally Belarus are being strengthened in response to actions by the countries in the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
“The unprecedented political and social pressure from the so-called collective West is pushing us to speed up the unification process,” he said, without specifying how this would proceed.
Speaking to participants of an annual regional forum for the two countries, Putin said, “Together it is easier to minimize the damage from illegal sanctions, it is easier to set up the production of products in demand, develop new competencies and expand cooperation with friendly countries.”
Belarus’s hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko, who has long relied on Russian support to maintain power, has provided a logistical base for Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, hosting Russian troops and equipment and allowing Moscow to use Belarus as a staging ground. Last week, Ukraine accused its northern neighbor of allowing Russian warplanes to launch airstrikes from Belarusian skies.
Putin and Lukashenko met last weekend in St. Petersburg, with the Russian president announcing a plan to supply Belarus with the Iskander-M missile system. Putin noted that they can fire either ballistic or cruise missiles and carry nuclear as well as conventional warheads. Russia has launched several Iskander missiles into Ukraine during the war.
The latest: Ukrainian officials believe the deadly strikes on an apartment block and a recreation center in the Odessa region were retaliation by Russia after it was forced to withdraw from strategically important Snake Island earlier this week. The Kremlin claimed that it only targets military infrastructure, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
The fight: A slowly regenerating Russian army is making incremental gains in eastern Ukraine against valiant but underequipped Ukrainian forces. The United States and its allies are racing to deliver the enormous quantities of weaponry the Ukrainians urgently need if they are to hold the Russians at bay.
The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Russia has used an array of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts.
Photos: Post photographers have been on the ground from the very beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
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