Live blog: Zelenskyy urges 'security certainty' from Europe against Russia

Monday, July 3, 2023

1720 GMT — Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said there could be no "shortage of security certainty in Europe that would provoke Russian tyranny and aggression," in his nightly video massage and writing on Telegram.

"Russia will only attempt to seize one or another piece of Europe when it sees some sort of security uncertainty. When everything is certain and clear, Russian tyranny dares not disrupt security," he added.

Zelenskyy also said he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a phone call focused on defence cooperation and on the forthcoming NATO summit in Lithuania, where Ukraine wants to secure an indication of future membership in the Alliance.

Scholz's spokesperson said the two leaders called for the extension of the Türkiye-brokered Black Sea grain deal, which allowed the safe export of grain and fertilisers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

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1555 GMT — Ukrainian officials discuss possible scenarios concerning Zaporizhzhia plant

Ukrainian officials have discussed the possible future scenarios concerning the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where Kiev claimed Russia is considering a “terrorist attack” that could involve radiation leakage.

A meeting by high-ranking officials decided to exchange information between the military and the energy industry for analysing, planning and forecasting possible events at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, a statement by the Ukrainian General Staff said on Facebook.

“They agreed on close cooperation in order to take measures to respond to certain situations in a timely manner,” the statement added.

The Kremlin slammed Kiev's claim of a planned attack on Europe's biggest nuclear plant, which has been under Russia's control since March last year, as a “lie”. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the allegations “heinous provocations.”

1342 GMT — Ukraine increases attacks on Russian forces in direction of Donetsk's Vuhledar

Fighting in Ukraine has been heating up, with the Ukrainian army using heavy artillery to target Russian army positions in the direction of Vuhledar, a front-line town in the Donetsk region, amid a long-awaited counteroffensive.

"Our goal is to drive the enemy out of our lands. We are up against a dangerous foe," Evgeniy, a sergeant in charge of the motorised howitzer in the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, told Anadolu Agency in an interview.

1248 GMT — Elections in Russian-held Ukrainian regions could be cancelled

Russia's top election official has said that if the situation worsened in four Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine, local elections scheduled there for September would be cancelled.

"Since the situation is really difficult, anything can happen," Ella Panfilova, who chairs Russia's Central Election Commission, told President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin.

"If unforeseen circumstances arise – in some areas, the situation may deteriorate dramatically - and we see that there is a serious danger to the life and health of residents, then we have the right to postpone these elections," she said.

"We will certainly use this right if there are serious reasons for it," she added, to which Putin replied: "Understood."

Putin says the regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - are now part of Russia, after Moscow unilaterally and illegally annexed them last year after the conflict began in February 2022.

1229 GMT — Deadly Russian drone strike hits northern Ukrainian city

At least one person has been killed and 16 others wounded in a Russian drone attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, local authorities said.

An official building and two residential buildings were damaged in an attack carried out with four drones, the Sumy regional administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Images from the scene posted by Ukraine's state emergency service showed mangled buildings and courtyards scattered with debris as rescue workers tackled a fire.

Another air-raid alert was declared in the Sumy region several hours after the morning strike, with the Ukrainian air force warning that more drones could be on the way.

1020 GMT — Russian defence minister says Ukraine operation unaffected by mutiny

The brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group last month did not affect Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said in his first comments about the short-lived rebellion.

"The provocation did not affect the actions of army groups (involved in the operation)," he told a ministry meeting, stressing that the mutiny aimed to destabilise Russia, but failed because of troops' loyalty.

Wagner fighters took over the southern Russian city of Rostov and advanced towards Moscow on June 24 as their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded the dismissal of Shoigu and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov.

The crisis was defused when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal between the Kremlin and Prigozhin.

0750 GMT — Ukraine recaptures more territory from Russia: Kiev

Ukraine has said its forces had recaptured 37 square kilometres (14 square miles) from Russian forces last week.

"Over the past week ... the area liberated (in the east) was increased by nine square kilometres," Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said, adding that Ukrainian forces had wrested another 28 sqaure kilometres in the south.

Malyar said Ukrainian troops were fighting "fierce" battles with Russian forces around the eastern flashpoint city of Bakhmut.

In the south, Ukrainian forces had "successes" along the front towards the Melitopol and Berdyansk sectors.

0651 GMT — Assassination attempt on Moscow-backed Crimean official foiled — Russia

Russia's FSB security service said it had thwarted an assassination attempt on Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea, the Interfax news agency has reported. The FSB said it had detained a Russian man who had been hired and trained by Ukraine's security services to kill Aksyonov by blowing up his car. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

0611 GMT — Ukraine reports incremental gains in heavy fighting

Ukraine has said its forces had gained some ground along eastern and southern fronts in the past week in heavy fighting with Russian troops, reclaiming 37.4 square kilometres (14.4 square miles) of territory.

Ukrainian forces were advancing in the Bakhmut direction, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said, adding that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region.

"Heavy fighting is going on there now," Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine had reclaimed nine square kilometres over the past week along the eastern front "as a result of improving the operational (tactical) position and aligning the front line", Maliar said.

0526 GMT — 'International office' probing Ukraine war crimes begins

An international office to investigate Russia over its assault on Ukraine opens in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow's leadership.

The international office, formally called International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression (ICPA), is a joint investigation body that comprises prosecutors from Kiev, members and officials of the European Union, the United States and the International Criminal Court.

It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine conflict.

They include Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite and EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, the statement added.

Calls for a special tribunal on Ukraine have mounted because the ICC, a war crimes court which is also based in The Hague, has no mandate to investigate the broader crime of aggression.

0404 GMT — EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain deal

The European Union is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve-out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network, as a sop to Moscow, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

This will be aimed at safeguarding the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, FT said.

The plan, which was proposed by Moscow through negotiations brokered by the UN, would allow the bank to create a subsidiary to handle payments related to grain exports, FT said, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The new entity would be permitted to use the global Swift financial messaging system, which was closed to the largest Russian banks following the Ukraine invasion last year

0402 GMT — Ukraine urges US to follow EU's 4-year funding pledge

Ukraine has urged its supporters to make multi-year commitments of financial aid, saying the European Union's four-year pledge worth 50 billion euros ($54.6 billion) was "a good signal" for the US and other powers to follow, Ukraine's Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told the Financial Times in an interview.

0213 GMT — Moscow: 700,000 Ukrainian children are now in Russia

Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, has said.

"In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine," Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.

Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counter offensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.

0033 GMT — Ukrainian writer wounded in missile attack on restaurant dies: PEN

A Ukrainian writer and war crimes investigator wounded in a Russian missile strike on a restaurant last week has died, the freedom of expression group PEN said.

Victoria Amelina, 37, was wounded when a Russian missile destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including children, and wounding dozens.

"With our greatest pain, we inform you that Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1st in Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro," PEN Ukraine said in a statement on its Facebook page.

Amelina had been in the city with a delegation of Colombian journalists and writers, PEN said.

She was hospitalised with "multiple skull fractures", according to a surgeon treating the wounded.

Her novel "Dom's Dream Kingdom" was published in 2017 and shortlisted for the UNESCO City of Literature Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature, according to PEN.

0010 GMT — No grounds to maintain grain deal status quo: Russia's envoy

Russia's envoy to the United Nations in Geneva said there were no grounds to maintain the "status quo" of the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire on July 18, the Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on Monday.

In a wide ranging interview, envoy Gennady Gatilov told the outlet that the implementation of Russia's conditions for the extensions of the agreement was "stalling." Those conditions included, among others, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT banking payment system.

"Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes," Gatilov told Izvestia. "However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo."

For our live updates from Sunday (July 2), click here.