Ukrainian president says forces are ‘physically clearing’ country two weeks into counteroffensive; UK conference to boost reconstruction efforts
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
Ukrainian forces in the south and east are “actively destroying the enemy”, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest evening address, more than two weeks into Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Ahead of the conference, a senior Ukraine official said the country would struggle to absorb the expected billions of western private and public sector aid for its recovery not due to corruption, but a simple lack of capacity to process and invest such huge sums. “Historically the largest amount of money we have been capable of working with was $6bn a year in 2014,” said Mustafa Nayyem, the head of the Ukraine State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development.
Russia has threatened strikes on Kyiv’s “decision-making centres” if Ukraine uses western-supplied missiles against the occupied peninsula of Crimea. Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said the potential use of US-supplied Himars and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Crimea would mark the west’s “full involvement in the conflict and would entail immediate strikes upon decision-making centres in Ukrainian territory”.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has accused Russia of “mining” the cooling pond used to keep the reactors cool at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine’s south. “Most terrifying is that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was additionally mined during that time … namely the cooling pond was mined,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of the GUR agency, said on television, without providing evidence.
The Pentagon says that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2bn over the past two years – about double early estimates – resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting found an error of $3.6bn in the current fiscal year and $2.6bn in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended on 30 September.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has called for an acceleration of Black Sea grain shipments from Ukrainian ports under a deal allowing safe wartime exports, a UN spokesperson said as Russia threatens to quit the pact which is due for renewal on 17 July. Guterres was disappointed by a slowing pace of ship inspections, spokesperson Farhan Haq said, and the exclusion of Pivdennyi (Yuzhny) port – one of three Ukrainian ports covered by the Black Sea export deal.
Kyiv has repatriated three Ukrainian prisoners of war from Hungary where they were transferred from Russia without coordination with Kyiv, said Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko, who had previously accused Hunary of ignoring Kyiv’s requests for access to the PoWs. Ukrainian diplomats and other relevant Ukrainian authorities were working to try to bring back the remaining prisoners of war, Nikolenko said.
Prosecutors said they had served a notice of suspicion to Kyiv’s head of municipal security after three people died in a Russian air attack when they were unable to get into a bomb shelter. The deaths on 1 June caused public outrage and prompted the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to vow a harsh response.
The destruction of the vast Kakhovka hydroelectric dam has caused €1.2bn euros of damage, the Ukrainian environment minister Ruslan Strilets has told his EU counterparts. He also warned that mines unearthed by flooding could wash on to other European countries’ shores and that “there are things that we can never restore. These are the ecosystems that were washed away into the Black Sea.”
The Ukrainian kickboxing champion Maksym Bordus has been killed fighting Russian forces, according to a website that lists athletes killed in the war. Bordus was killed on 11 June in “fierce fighting against Russian invaders”, according to Sport Angels, a Ukrainian website set up with the assistance of the Sports Committee, which brings together NGOs and federations from non-Olympic sports.
