Ukraine predicts it will recapture the southern region of Kherson by September; Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, embarks on a charm offensive in Africa
Ukraine predicts that it will recapture the southern region of Kherson by September. Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television: “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail.” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said Ukrainian forces were moving “step by step” into Kherson. However, other reports suggest Ukrainian soldiers are doing well just to hold the frontline in nearby villages.
Ukraine has warned that a deal to export grain via the Black Sea will stall if there are further Russian airstrikes on key ports. Zelenskiy’s economic adviser, Oleh Ustenko, told Ukrainian television: “Yesterday’s strike indicates that it will definitely not work like that.” The caution comes after Saturday’s missile attack in Odesa where Moscow insisted it only hit a Ukrainian warship and US-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has embarked on a tour of several countries in Africa. On his first stop in Egypt he sought to reassure his counterpart Sameh Shoukry that Russian grain supplies would continue, and met with the secretary general of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, where he spoke of deepening cooperation between Russia and the Arab League. Late on Sunday night he flew to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ukraine will continue doing all it can to inflict as much damage on Russian forces as possible and will not be cowed, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed. “Even the occupiers admit we will win,” he said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “We do everything to inflict the highest possible damage on the enemy … we will celebrate against all odds. Because Ukrainians won’t be cowed.”
The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has said Russia’s war against Ukraine is also a “war against the unity of Europe”. “We must not let ourselves be divided, we must not let the great work of a united Europe that we have begun so promisingly be destroyed,” he said in a speech in the western German city of Paderborn. “This war is not just about the territory of Ukraine, it is about the double shared foundation of our values and our order of peace.”
Nearly half a million Ukrainian children are going to school in the European Union, according to the European Commission’s department of migration and home affairs. A total of 492,647 Ukrainian children had been integrated into the national school systems of the European Union, the department said.
Ukraine’s health ministry has said that least 18 medical personnel have been killed and nearly 900 medical facilities damaged or destroyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The ministry said more than 50 medical workers had been wounded by Russian attacks and 123 medical facilities in Ukraine were totally destroyed by the invasion, while another 746 needed repairs.
A Canadian citizen has died in Ukraine, Canada’s foreign ministry confirmed. Media reports suggested the Canadian was with two US citizens who recently died in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The US and Canadian governments have not given details on how recent the deaths were, or their circumstances.
