Russia-Ukraine war latest: Ukrainians push back in Sievierodonetsk; Africans are victims of the war, Putin told – live | Ukraine

Ukraine’s intelligence companies are in communication with the captured Azovstal steelworks fighters and Kyiv is doing all it could possibly to make sure their launch, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy stated late on Friday, in response to a Reuters report.

Uncertainty has surrounded the destiny of tons of of fighters who have been taken into Russian custody in mid-May after being ordered to face down. They had spent weeks holed up in a warren of tunnels and bunkers beneath the steelworks, as Russian forces took management of the relaxation of the metropolis. Many had severe accidents, with restricted medical care and dwindling provides.

Ukraine desires the fighters to be returned in a prisoner swap. However some Russian officers have stated forces could possibly be tried or executed.

In feedback made to Ukrainian tv on Friday, Monastyrskiy stated:

It is thru them [intelligence services] that we are studying about the circumstances of the detention, diet and the chance of their launch. We all know that they are going to all be right here, in Kyiv, and we are doing all the things attainable to take action.”

The Kremlin has stated the fighters who surrendered will probably be handled in response to worldwide requirements.

In its newest evaluation, the US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War experiences that Russian occupation authorities have begun issuing Russian passports in Kherson and Melitopol, however provides “they continue to face challenges establishing societal control over occupied territories and ending Ukrainian partisan actions”.

ISW additionally supplies the following commentary on the battle:

• Russian forces performed unsuccessful assaults southeast and southwest of Izyum and west of Lyman however stay unlikely to safe main advances in the direction of Slovyansk.
• Russian forces made minor positive aspects in the jap half of Sievierodonetsk, however Ukrainian forces continues to launch localized counterattacks.
• Russian forces didn’t try and launch assaults on Avdiivka.
• Russian forces did not regain misplaced positions in northeastern Kherson Oblast and continued to defend beforehand occupied positions.

More than 1,400 instances of treason and collaboration with the Russian military have been introduced towards Ukrainian residents. Guardian correspondents Lorenzo Tondo and Shaun Walker in Kharkiv report on the troublesome choices going through prosecutors.

For the Ukrainian authorities, you will need to present that punishment for individuals who helped the Russian invasion will probably be swift and stern. But at the identical time, the course of comes with tons of difficult questions.

These embrace whether or not Ukraine’s prosecutors and judges, who for years have battled accusations of corruption and nepotism, could be trusted to not abuse the course of. Numerous high-ranking officers may additionally be requested questions on negligence at the starting of the invasion, and even treason.

Luke Harding

From Odesa, Guardian correspondent Luke Harding experiences on requires a marketing campaign of “de-Russification” as soon as Vladimir Putin’s war towards Ukraine involves an finish.

Ukraine has already twice dismantled Soviet-era state symbols. In the Nineties many Lenin statues have been eliminated, together with these in Odesa. Kyiv’s parliament launched into an extra spherical of “decommunisation” in 2014 after the Maidan rebellion towards the nation’s pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych, and Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his war in the jap Donbas area.

In Russian-occupied areas this course of goes into reverse. In April Russian troops erected a new statue of Lenin exterior the major administration constructing in the southern metropolis of Henichesk, in Kherson province. They have torn down blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags from municipal buildings and hung Russian and Soviet ones in their place. This “re-Russification” is an element of Putin’s try and erase Ukraine, Kyiv says.

Hello, I’m Rebecca Ratcliffe and welcome to our rolling protection of the war in Ukraine.

Here are some of the key developments of the previous few hours.

• Ukrainian forces have recaptured round 20% of the territory they misplaced in Sievierodonetsk since Russia’s invasion, according to Ukrainian officers. “Whereas before the situation was difficult, the percentage [held by Russia] was somewhere around 70%, now we have already pushed them back by approximately 20%,” Serhiy Gaidai, the head of the jap area of Luhansk, introduced on nationwide tv on Friday.
• “Victory shall be ours,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video that includes the identical key ministers and advisers who appeared with him in a defiant broadcast on 24 February, the day his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, launched his unprovoked assault. “The armed forces of Ukraine are here. Most importantly, our people, the people of our country, are here. We have been defending Ukraine for 100 days already … Glory to Ukraine,” Zelenskiy added.
• Vladimir Putin says exporting grain from Ukraine is “no problem”, after Moscow’s invasion raised fears of a worldwide meals disaster. The Russian president stated in a televised interview on Friday that exporting could possibly be achieved by way of Ukrainian ports, by way of others underneath Russian management, and even by way of central Europe. Putin accused the west of “bluster” by claiming Moscow was stopping the grain exports from Ukraine.
• The African Union head and Senegalese president, Macky Sall, said he was “reassured” after assembly with Putin in Sochi concerning meals shortages attributable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, he told Putin that Africans have been the victims of the war in Ukraine.
• Leading US normal Mark Milley has met Finnish president Sauli Niinisto to pledge US assist for Finland’s and Sweden’s Nato membership bids, which Turkey is obstructing. Milley told reporters it was clear that, if the two international locations’ functions have been accepted, “they will bring a significant increase in the military capability of Nato”, Agence France-Presse reported. After Helsinki, Milley was anticipated to go to neighbouring Sweden on Saturday.
• European president Ursula von der Leyen said that Ukraine should meet all the vital requirements and circumstances for accession. She went on to name on the EU to assist Ukraine obtain its objectives.
• A driver transporting two Reuters journalists in jap Ukraine was killed and the two reporters evenly wounded on Friday, an organization spokesperson stated. They had come underneath hearth whereas en path to Severodonetsk. “They were travelling in a vehicle provided by the Russian-backed separatists and driven by an individual assigned by the separatists,” the worldwide information company stated.
• French president Emmanuel Macron says Putin has dedicated a “historic and fundamental error” by invading Ukraine and is now “isolated”. “I think, and I told him, that he made a historic and fundamental error for his people, for himself and for history,” Macron stated in an interview with French regional media on Friday. “Isolating oneself is one thing, but being able to get out of it is a difficult path”.
• 14 million Ukrainians have been pressured to flee their houses, the majority ladies and youngsters, the UN Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine, Amin Awad, said on Friday. In a statement launched on the one centesimal day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Awad spoke of displaced Ukrainians, describing the “scale and speed of [their] displacement not witnessed in history”.
• Moscow will assist restore and rebuild Luhansk and Donetsk, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced on Friday after a go to to Luhansk. About 1,500 specialists from numerous departments of the Moscow municipal financial system advanced and 500 items of tools had arrived in Luhansk, the mayor stated.
• Ukraine’s ambassador to Ankara, Vasyl Bodna, accused Russia of “stealing” and sending Ukrainian grain overseas. “Russia shamelessly steals Ukrainian grain and sends it overseas from Crimea, including to Turkey,” Bodna stated in a tweet on Friday.