Ukraine PM: confiscated assets from Russian oligarchs should fund recovery
There is a little more here from Reuters about what Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmygal told the Ukraine Recovery Conference hosted by Switzerland today.
It reports he said Ukraine’s recovery plan had three phases: a first focused on fixing things that matter for people’s daily lives, such as water supply, which is ongoing; a second “fast recovery” component that will be launched as soon as fighting ends, including temporary housing, hospital and school projects; and a third that aims to transform the country over the longer term.
Shmygal also added that the Ukrainian government believed a key source of funding for the recovery plan should be assets confiscated from Russian oligarchs.
Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning.
In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below.
Russia has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province. On Monday, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Putin that “the operation” in Luhansk was complete. The Russian president said the military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk “should rest, increase their combat capabilities”.
Ukraine has laid out a $750bn (£620bn) ‘recovery plan’ for its postwar future. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the eventual restoration of his country is the common task of the entire democratic world at the first international conference to map out a physical future for Ukraine in the event it survives as a western-facing nation after the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian forces are set to raise the country’s flag on Snake Island, a strategic and symbolic outpost in the Black Sea that Russian troops retreated from last week after months of heavy bombardment. Ukraine’s military earlier stated that the national flag had been returned to the island shortly before 11pm on Monday. However, Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, later confirmed in an interview with CNN: “The flag was delivered to the island by helicopter. It will wait for the arrival of the troops, then it will wave.”
A British citizen who has been sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine has launched an appeal against the verdict. Aiden Aslin, 28, a British-Ukrainian former care worker from Nottinghamshire who was a Ukrainian marine, was captured by Russian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol in April.
UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said alternative routes to retrieve grain stuck in Ukraine would need to be looked at, including through Europe’s Danube River, if it cannot be moved via the Bosphorus strait in Turkey. “The Turks are absolutely indispensable to solving this. They’re doing their very best… We will increasingly have to look at alternative means of moving that grain from Ukraine if we cannot use the sea route, if you can’t use the Bosphorus,” he told parliament on Monday.
Turkey has halted a Russian-flagged cargo ship off its Black Sea coast and is investigating a Ukrainian claim that it was carrying stolen grain, a senior Turkish official said on Monday.
Ukraine is holding talks with Turkey and the United Nations to secure guarantees for grain exports from Ukrainian ports, Zelenskiy said. “Talks are in fact going on now with Turkey and the UN [and] our representatives who are responsible for the security of the grain that leaves our ports,” Ukraine’s president told a news conference alongside the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson.
Ukraine has renewed its invitation for Pope Francis to visit the country and urged the pontiff to continue praying for the Ukrainian people, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Western envoys in China have criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with the US ambassador saying China should not spread Russian “propaganda”, during an unusual public forum in a country that has declined to condemn Moscow’s attack.
Russian forces hit a secondary school in the Kharkiv district at 4am on Monday, according to a report from Oleh Synyehubov, governor of the region.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has claimed that in the last 24 hours Ukrainian forces have shelled 15 of the 240 settlements they say they control. They claim that “five people were killed and another 20 civilians were injured”.
Britain is proposing a new law that will require social media companies to proactively tackle disinformation posted by foreign states such as Russia. The law would tackle fake accounts on platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Twitter that were set up on behalf of foreign states to influence elections or court proceedings, the government said in an announcement on Monday.
Satellite images reportedly show Russia regularly exporting Ukrainian grain to Turkey via Crimea.
An investigation by journalists from Radio Free Europe found Russian and Syrian vessels transporting Ukrainian grain from the newly-occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts via Sevastopol to Turkish ports.
The outlet says the images bolster accusations that Russia is transporting huge quantities of stolen Ukrainian grain to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service said it documented a series of shipments through the largest grain terminal in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Britain is proposing a new law that will require social media companies to proactively tackle disinformation posted by foreign states such as Russia.
The law would tackle fake accounts on platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Twitter that were set up on behalf of foreign states to influence elections or court proceedings, the government said in an announcement on Monday.
The law is likely to be passed during this parliamentary session through an amendment to link the National Security Bill and Online Safety Bill, both of which are in the government’s current programme, Reuters reports.
Communications regulator Ofcom will draw up codes of practice to help social media companies comply with the law, and will have the power to issue fines for infringement.
The digital secretary, Nadine Dorries, said on Monday the invasion of Ukraine has shown how Russia uses social media to spread lies about its actions.
We cannot allow foreign states or their puppets to use the internet to conduct hostile online warfare unimpeded.
That’s why we are strengthening our new internet safety protections to make sure social media firms identify and root out state-backed disinformation.”
The Ukrainian flag has been delivered by helicopter to Snake Island in the Black Sea after Russian forces withdrew from the strategic outpost last week, and it will be raised as soon as Ukrainian troops arrive, Ukraine’s military said on Monday.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, had initially said the flag had been raised on the craggy outcropping in the Black Sea, Reuters reported.
“The flag has been delivered to the island by helicopter,” Ukrainian media quoted Humeniuk as telling CNN television. “It will await the arrival of troops and will then be hoisted.”
Humeniuk said her original remarks to reporters should be viewed “metaphorically”. No troops had landed on the island and “no one is taking any risks for the sake of a media photo”. Some analysts have said Russia’s withdrawal from Snake Island off Ukraine’s south-western coast could loosen its blockade on Ukrainian ports.
But a Kyiv-based foreign diplomat told Reuters it was still not enough to allow for safe transit of Ukrainian grain.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Samantha Lock will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest news from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine is holding talks with Turkey and the United Nations to secure guarantees for grain exports from Ukrainian ports, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
“Talks are in fact going on now with Turkey and the UN [and] our representatives who are responsible for the security of the grain that leaves our ports,” Ukraine’s president told a news conference alongside the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson.
“This is a very important thing that someone guarantees the security of ships for this or that country – apart from Russia, which we do not trust. We therefore need security for those ships which will come here to load foodstuffs.”
Zelenskiy said Ukraine was working “directly” with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, on the issue and that the organisation was “playing a leading role, not as a moderator”.
News reports have suggested in recent weeks that such talks would soon be taking place in Turkey, Reuters reported.
Wimbledon and the LTA are to appeal against hefty fines imposed on them by the Women’s Tennis Association for their decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players this year in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club, confirmed on Monday that Wimbledon has begun appeal proceedings against its fine, of $750,000, while the LTA, which also banned Russian and Belarusian players from Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne in the build up to the Championships, is understood to be appealing against its $250,000 fine.
“We have appealed. It is the subject of a legal process,” Bolton told a briefing at Wimbledon on Monday. “We [Wimbledon and the LTA] are separate organisations, so we have been fined separately and we are addressing it separately.”
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the girl in the famous 1972 Vietnam napalm attack photo, on Monday escorted 240 refugees from the war in Ukraine on a flight from Warsaw to Canada.
The Associated Press photo of Phuc, in which she runs with her napalm-scalded body exposed, was etched on the private NGO plane that flew the refugees on Monday to the city of Regina, the capital of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
Phuc, 59, a Canadian citizen, said she wanted her story and work for refugees to be a message of peace. With her husband, Bui Huy Toan, she travelled from Toronto on the humanitarian flight.
The 236 refugees, mostly women and children from across Ukraine, are among thousands of Ukrainians for whom Canada has provided humanitarian visas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of their country.
Kim Phuc poses for a picture in a humanitarian flight transporting refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to Canada, from Frederic Chopin Airport in Warsaw, Poland, Monday 4 July, 2022. Photograph: Michal Dyjuk/AP
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s news stories:
The eventual restoration of Ukraine through a $750bn (£620bn) recovery plan is the common task of the entire democratic world, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Monday at the first detailed event to map out a physical future for the country in the event it survives as a western-facing nation after the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian forces have raised the country’s flag on Snake Island, a strategic and symbolic outpost in the Black Sea that Russian troops retreated from last week after months of heavy bombardment.
A British citizen who has been sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine has launched an appeal against the verdict.
Vladimir Putin has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and told Russian troops to rest and “increase their combat capabilities”, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province.
Boris Johnson said on Monday that alternative routes to retrieve grain stuck in Ukraine would need to be looked at, including through Europe’s Danube River, if it cannot be moved via the Bosphorus strait in Turkey.
Turkey has halted a Russian-flagged cargo ship off its Black Sea coast and is investigating a Ukrainian claim that it was carrying stolen grain, a senior Turkish official said on Monday.
Ukraine has renewed its invitation for Pope Francis to visit the country and urged the pontiff to continue praying for the Ukrainian people, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Western envoys in China have criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with the US ambassador saying China should not spread Russian “propaganda”, during an unusual public forum in a country that has declined to condemn Moscow’s attack.
Russian forces hit a secondary school in the Kharkiv district at 4am on Monday morning, according to a report from Oleh Synyehubov, governor of the region.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has claimed that in the last 24 hours Ukrainian forces have shelled 15 of the 240 settlements they say they control. They claim that “five people were killed and another 20 civilians were injured”.
At least three people were killed and dozens of residential buildings damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Sunday, the region’s governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov said at least 11 apartment buildings and 39 private residential houses were damaged, including five houses destroyed.
A British citizen who has been sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine has launched an appeal against the verdict.
Aiden Aslin, 28, a British-Ukrainian former care worker from Nottinghamshire who was a Ukrainian marine, was captured by Russian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol in April.
Aslin was captured alongside fellow Brit Shaun Pinner, 48, who was also sentenced to death for “mercenary activities” and “terrorism” by a court that is not internationally recognised.
The eventual restoration of Ukraine through a $750bn (£620bn) recovery plan is the common task of the entire democratic world, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Monday at the first detailed event to map out a physical future for the country in the event it survives as a western-facing nation after the Russian invasion.
Speaking by video link to a high-level conference in Lugano, Switzerland, attended by many senior Ukrainian politicians, Zelenskiy admitted the task ahead was colossal, claiming the war was a battle of outlooks in which Russia was determined to destroy his country’s physical and moral fabric.
He added the process of recovery being led by a Ukrainian national recovery council would allow his country to deepen its links with Europe.
In case you missed it earlier, Vladimir Putin has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and told Russian troops to rest and “increase their combat capabilities”, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province.
Ukraine’s military command confirmed on Sunday evening that its troops had been forced to pull back from the city of Lysychansk in Luhansk, and the regional governor has warned that Russian forces are trying to seize the entire Donetsk region, which, together with Luhansk, makes up the industrial heartland of Donbas.
On Monday, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Putin that “the operation” in Luhansk was complete. The Russian president said the military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk “should rest, increase their combat capabilities”.
Boris Johnson said on Monday that alternative routes to retrieve grain stuck in Ukraine would need to be looked at, including through Europe’s Danube River, if it cannot be moved via the Bosphorus strait in Turkey.
“The Turks are absolutely indispensable to solving this. They’re doing their very best ... It does depend on the Russians agreeing to allow that grain to get out,” the British prime minister told parliament.
“We will increasingly have to look at alternative means of moving that grain from Ukraine if we cannot use the sea route, if you can’t use the Bosphorus.”
Turkey said it had halted a Russian-flagged cargo ship off its Black Sea coast and was investigating a Ukrainian claim that it was carrying stolen grain.
