Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has posted to Telegram to say that there have been no air raid warnings over his area of western Ukraine in a single day. He said that 225 displaced folks arrived in Lviv on evacuation trains yesterday.
Casualties to the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR), one among Russias proxies in japanese Ukraine, might have amounted to about 55% of the unique energy, British intelligence has claimed.
In keeping with the most recent UK ministry of defence report:
Heavy shelling continues as Russia pushes to envelop the Sievierodonetsk space through Izium within the north and Popasna within the south. Russia is extremely seemingly making ready to try to deploy numerous reserve models to the Donbas.
It goes on to debate the casualty state of affairs, stating:
The Russian authorities haven’t launched the general variety of navy casualties in Ukraine since 25 March. Nonetheless, the self-declared Donetsk Folks’s Republic (DPR) publishes casualty figures for DPR forces. As of 16 June, the DPR acknowledged 2128 navy personnel killed in motion, and eight,897 wounded, for the reason that begin of 2022.
The DPR casualty charge is equal to round 55% of its unique drive, which highlights the extraordinary attrition Russian and pro-Russian forces are struggling within the Donbas.
It’s extremely seemingly that DPR forces are geared up with outdated weapons and gear. On either side, the power to generate and deploy reserve models to the entrance is probably going turning into more and more vital to the end result of the warfare.
For additional context, the overall employees of the Ukrainian armed forces claims to have killed about 34,100 Russian troopers in complete between 24 February and 21 June. The claims haven’t been independently verified.
A Ukrainian photojournalist and a soldier who was accompanying him had been “coldly executed” after they had been killed within the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, based on a just lately revealed investigation from Reporters With out Borders.
The pair had been reportedly looking Russian-occupied woodlands for the photographer’s lacking image-taking drone, the company mentioned citing its findings from an investigation into their deaths.
The press freedom group mentioned it went again to the spot the place the our bodies of Maks Levin and serviceman Oleksiy Chernyshov had been discovered 1 April in woods north of the capital, Kyiv. The group mentioned it counted 14 bullet holes within the burned hulk of their automotive nonetheless on the scene.
The report, revealed on Wednesday, reads:
The proof gathered by RSF signifies that the Ukrainian photo-journalist Maks Levin and the good friend who was with him had been executed in chilly blood by Russian forces, in all probability after being interrogated and tortured, on the day they went lacking, 13 March 2022.
The images of the crime scene, the proof RSF discovered there and RSF’s observations attest to the truth that the journalist Maks Levin and his good friend Oleksiy Chernyshov had been executed.
Levin was very in all probability shot by one of many bullets that RSF discovered on the crime scene.
Materials proof was discovered of a Russian presence very near the crime scene together with meals package deal, plastic cutlery which might nonetheless comprise DNA traces.”
A few of Levin and Chernyshov’s belongings, together with the soldier’s ID papers and elements of his bulletproof vest and the photographer’s helmet, had been additionally recovered, it mentioned.
A Ukrainian group with metallic detectors additionally uncovered a bullet buried within the soil the place Levin’s physique had lain, it mentioned. The group mentioned that discovering suggests “he was in all probability killed with one, maybe two bullets fired at shut vary when he was already on the bottom.”
A jerrycan for gasoline was additionally discovered near the place Chernyshov’s burned physique had been recovered, it added.
Reporters With out Borders mentioned its findings “present that the 2 males had been probably coldly executed.”
Levin and Chernyshov had been final heard from on 13 March. A GPS tracker of their automobile gave their final place, in woods north of Kyiv, the group mentioned.
Putin to mark WWII anniversary
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is about to mark the day when Hitler’s Nazi Germany forces invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June, 1941.
The date is critical in Russia and remembered because the ‘Day of Remembrance and Sorrow’.
Putin will reportedly lay flowers to honour the lifeless on Wednesday.
To mark the anniversary, the Russian defence ministry launched paperwork courting again to the beginning of the second world warfare purporting to indicate Germany meant to assert the Soviet military was bombing church buildings and cemeteries to justify its invasion.
“Simply as these days, in 1941, the Nazis ready provocations prematurely to discredit our state,” Russia’s defence ministry mentioned.
June 22 is likely one of the most tragic dates in Russian historical past – Memorial and Mourning Day. On today 81 years in the past, the Nice Patriotic Struggle started.
A divine liturgy and a memorial service might be held within the Most important Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.”
Satellite tv for pc pictures supplied by Maxar Applied sciences, dated 21 June, seem to indicate injury inflicted on Snake Island after Ukraine claimed it launched an assault on the small southern territory on Tuesday.
A destroyed tower within the southern finish of the island and burnt areas on the northern finish could be noticed.
Russia mentioned it repelled a Ukrainian try and retake the island within the Black Sea captured by Russian forces on the primary day of the invasion.
Ukraine launches strikes on Snake Island
Ukraine’s military has mentioned it had launched airstrikes on Zmiinyi Island, also referred to as Snake Island, inflicting “vital losses” to Russian forces.
In a video deal with posted to Fb, the navy’s southern operational command mentioned it had used “aimed strikes with the usage of varied forces” on the island.
The command added:
The island of Zmiinyi was dealt a concentrated blow with the usage of varied forces and strategies of destruction.”
Russian troops stationed on the island took “vital losses”
The navy operation continues and requires data silence till it’s over.
Moscow claimed it repelled the “mad” assault which noticed Ukraine “plan to hold out huge air and artillery hearth… earlier than touchdown and capturing” the island.
In an replace posted to its Telegram channel, Russia’s ministry of defence mentioned:
On June 20 at 5am, the Kyiv regime undertook one other mad try and take possession of Snake Island.
That is one other pretend ‘victory’ of the Ukrainian navy.
The ministry mentioned 15 Ukrainian assault and reconnaissance drones took half within the airstrike whereas missile launchers and howitzers fired on the island, with 13 drones reportedly shot down.
Abstract and welcome
Whats up it’s Samantha Lock again with you as we proceed to report all the most recent information from Ukraine.
Listed below are all the opposite main developments as of 8am in Kyiv.
- The navy state of affairs for Ukraine’s defenders within the japanese Donbas is “extraordinarily troublesome”, officers have mentioned. There are 568 civilians considered holed up in Sievierodonetsk’s Azot chemical plant, as Russian assaults intensify in an effort to seize Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk area, mentioned Lysychansk was getting shelled “en masse”.
- Russian forces have captured a number of settlements close to Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. The pinnacle of the Sievierodonetsk district navy administration, Roman Vlasenko, mentioned the frontline village of Toshkivka had not been beneath Ukrainian management since Monday. Russian forces additionally reportedly captured Pidlisne and Mala Dolyna, situated south-west of Sievierodonetsk, and noticed success close to the Hirske settlement in Luhansk.
- A minimum of 15 civilians had been killed in Ukraine’s Kharkiv area by Russian shelling on Tuesday, based on the regional governor, Oleh Synegubov.
- Mass mobilisation is “about to occur” in Russia with the Kremlin recruiting folks in poorer areas to combat in Ukraine, based on western officers. Officers additionally mentioned there was “extra chatter” about Vladimir Putin’s well being and “extra hypothesis” about who would substitute him in Russia. Nonetheless, there didn’t seem like an “instant menace” to the Russian president’s place from the elite or the overall inhabitants, they mentioned.
- The US lawyer basic, Merrick Garland, visited Ukraine on Tuesday to debate Russia’s warfare crimes, a justice division official mentioned. Garland met with Ukraine’s prosecutor basic, Iryna Venediktova, and introduced a warfare crimes accountability group to determine and prosecute perpetrators. “There is no such thing as a hiding place for warfare criminals,” Garland mentioned.
- German self-propelled howitzers have arrived in Ukraine within the first supply of heavy weapons promised by Berlin. “We have now replenishment!” Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, introduced. “The German Panzerhaubitze 2000 with skilled Ukrainian crews joined the Ukrainian artillery household.”
- Turkey needs to be cautious about delivering extra weapons to Ukraine, the pinnacle of Turkey’s weapons manufacturing company mentioned. The remarks by Ismail Demir to the Wall Road Journal present how Ankara is more and more enjoying either side of the warfare. Turkish-made drones have performed a vital function in Kyiv’s defence.
- Turkey’s navy delegation will journey to Russia this week to debate a potential protected sea hall within the Black Sea to export Ukrainian grain, based on Turkish presidency sources. A gathering between Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations can be held in Istanbul within the coming weeks, probably with the participation of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the UN’s secretary basic, António Guterres, the sources mentioned.
- European nations are united of their help for granting Ukraine the standing of EU member candidate, Luxembourg’s overseas affairs minister has mentioned. Jean Asselborn instructed reporters: “We’re working in the direction of the purpose the place we inform Putin that Ukraine belongs to Europe, that we’ll additionally defend the values that Ukraine defends.”
- The UK authorities is “decided” to impose additional sanctions on Russia and can proceed to take action till Moscow absolutely withdraws from Ukraine, Britain’s overseas secretary, Liz Truss, has mentioned. She instructed parliament that she can be travelling to Turkey on Wednesday to debate choices to assist get grain out of Odesa. Boris Johnson additionally warned of the necessity to withstand “rising fatigue” across the warfare and mentioned any concessions to Vladimir Putin can be a “catastrophe”.
- Estonia summoned the Russian ambassador on Tuesday to protest about an “extraordinarily critical” violation of its airspace by a Russian helicopter. The Estonian overseas ministry mentioned the helicopter flew over some extent within the south-east with out permission on 18 June.