- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Kyiv and its Western allies that Moscow has not yet started its military campaign in Ukraine “in earnest”.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video message, responded with defiance, saying the two-month operation to retake Snake Island was a warning to all Russian forces that Ukraine would not be broken.
- Three people were killed and another five wounded after Russian forces fired rockets at a district in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, according to Governor Oleh Synehubov. He said other attacks occurred throughout the Kharkiv region, including populated areas in the towns of Chuhuiv, Izyum and Bohodukhiv
- Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said the economic sanctions imposed by Western sanctions against Russia had not worked
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “world is in big trouble” due to multiplying issues, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic, adding that multilateralism is the only way to tackle these problems.
- Russia is ready to negotiate with Ukraine and Turkey about grain but it is unclear when such talks might take place, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said.
- Blinken addressed Russia directly, saying: “To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out.”
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “the blockade of the Black Sea must stop”
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov walked out the G-20 ministers’ meetings twice Friday – the first time when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baercock was speaking during the session on strengthening multilateralism, and the second just before Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, addressed the session on food and energy security
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- The Greek and Bulgarian prime ministers on Friday inaugurated a new energy pipeline that will supply natural gas originating in Azerbaijan to Bulgaria, whose vital supply of Russian gas was cut off in April amid the fallout over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- A court in Moscow sentenced a municipal council member to seven years in prison Friday for his remarks opposing the war in Ukraine
- A Ukrainian regional official warned Friday of deteriorating living conditions in a city captured by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Sievierodonetsk is without water, power or a working sewage system while the bodies of the dead decompose in hot apartment buildings
- She had gone out to feed the cats when the shelling began. It was afternoon, a residential neighborhood, a time to get errands done. But there is nothing routine about life near the front line in Ukraine
- The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said there’s a “realistic possibility” that Russia’s current target is Siversk as it moves toward the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area
- Canada said it would send 39 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine later this summer to help Kyiv in its defense against the Russian invasion, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said, according to Reuters