- The human rights organization Amnesty International says Russia committed a war crime by bombing a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering during the March siege of Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port city that Russian troops destroyed and now occupy
- The trial for Brittney Griner, a WNBA star who has been detained in Russia for more than four months on drug charges, began Friday. The ordeal began one week before Russia invaded Ukraine. Her detention repeatedly has been extended, and her request for home detention was denied. On Monday, a judge ordered Griner to be detained for the length of her trial
- A Ukrainian brigadier general estimated that Russia had hit 68 civilian sites in the second half of June
- Russian missile attacks on residential areas in a coastal town near the Ukrainian port city of Odesa early Friday killed at least 18 people, including two children, authorities reported, a day after Russian forces withdrew from a strategic Black Sea island
- President Biden said the U.S. would provide $800 million more in security assistance for Ukraine. Speaking at the close of a NATO summit, Biden said the war “will not end with Russia defeating Ukraine” and that allies would support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said his country had no “problem” with Finland and Sweden joining NATO but would have to respond if the alliance built up a military presence along its northern borders
- Amnesty International said the Mariupol theater bombing was a clear war crime. A new report by the human rights organization concluded that the attack “was almost certainly carried out by Russian fighter aircraft.” Hundreds of civilians sheltered in the building during the March siege of the southern port city that Russian troops now occupy
- Russia’s war in Ukraine is changing the world: See its ripple effects in all corners of the globe
- Ukraine won back control over Snake Island, which Russia occupied in February. Ukrainian officials said Russian troops evacuated after Ukraine’s overnight bombardment. Russia said it left the island as a “goodwill gesture” for Ukraine’s grain exports. The strategic outpost in the Black Sea is where Ukrainian soldiers famously refused to surrender to the Russian warship Moskva
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- Explosions have been heard in the Shevchenkivskiy district of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, as Russian forces hit a residential complex in the first attacks on the Ukrainian capital in weeks
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo says he will urge his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to open dialogue during a peace-building mission and ask Russiaβs President Vladimir Putin to order an immediate ceasefire
- Russiaβs missile attack on Kyiv was intended to βintimidate Ukrainiansβ in the days leading up to a NATO summit, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said
- The city of Lysychansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region continues to come under sustained bombardment, Sergiy Gaiday — governor of the Lugansk region, says
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tells Ukraine’s parliament that EU membership is “within reach” but urges them to press forward with anti-corruption reforms
- Russian forces have destroyed many Ukrainian defensive structures in the industrial area of the city, leaving Ukrainian troops to consider retreating to new positions,Luhanskβs governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Thursday, according to the Guardian
- Ukrainian forces are facing encirclement from Russian soldiers in the city of Lysychansk, according to Haidai, Reuters reported. βAll of Lysychansk is within reach of their fire. It is very dangerous in the city,β he said on national TV, according to Reuters. Russian forces are also upping their grouping in Lysychansk to boost its chances of completely taking it over, according to the Institute for the Study of War
- Ukrainian borscht, traditional beetroot and cabbage soup, was inscribed on UNESCOβs List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding
- Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine and the EU were starting a new chapter of their history together, after Brussels formally accepted Ukraine’s bid to join the bloc
- Russian missiles have hit an array of targets in Ukraine in recent days, killing one civilian at an apartment block in Kyiv on Saturday and at least 18 more at a shopping centre in the central city of Kremenchuk on Monday. Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, denies targeting civilians and says it only hits military infrastructure
- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey can re-export grain products like wheat, oat, and barley from the Black Sea to countries in need after talks with Russia and Ukraine
- Global exports of semiconductors to Russia have plummeted by 90% since the United States and allies placed export controls on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Wednesday, according to Reuters
- Deputy Chief of Main Operations Department of the Ukrainian General Staff Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov noted that Russian forces around Bakhmut have a distinct advantage in terms of force and means. Gromov stated that Russian forces are conducting operations towards Soledar, which lies just northeast of Bakhmut along the T0513 Bakhmut-Siversk highway