Russia has made ‘genuine headway’ after capturing Lysychansk, say western officials The capture of the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine by Russian forces has meant Moscow has made “genuine headway”, while its forces in the south have shown signs of “better cooperation”, western officials said. Western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, but described the impact on their munitions and morale as “remarkable”. But one official said it “remains highly uncertain whether Russia will secure the limits of Donetsk oblast this year”. Russia has made “some significant command changes” in recent weeks, one official said, notably the recently appointed Gen Sergei Surovikin, who has taken over command of the southern group of forces overseeing the occupation of southern Ukraine and the advances on the Donbas from the south. The official said: He’s a controversial figure even by the standards of Russian general officers. It is unclear whether it’s his influence which has led to the recent successes around Lysychansk, but certainly there’s been better cooperation amongst groups of forces on the Russian side than we saw in the earlier phases of the war. There are “very serious issues” over the stocks of Russian munitions and of morale, an official said, while long-range weapons systems are starting to make a “significant operational difference for Ukraine”. Summary It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said heavy weapons from western allies have finally begun working at “full capacity” on frontlines. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian military has been able to target Russian warehouses and locations that are “important for logistics”. The non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders has called for Ukraine’s internet liberation on Wednesday. “The Russian forces are colonising the Ukrainian digital infrastructure and are installing their telecommunications companies in southern Ukraine,” said Vincent Berthier, the head of RSF’s tech desk. Over 21,000 war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces are being investigated by Ukrainian authorities, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Irina Venediktova. Her office receives reports of 200 to 300 such crimes daily, it said. Russian forces have occupied about 22% of Ukraine’s arable land, according to Nasa’s Harvest mission. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nasa has been focusing on the impact of the war on the global food system. Its findings have revealed that Ukrainian fields where 28% of winter and 18% of spring crops are sown are under Russian occupation. The evacuation of civilians from Sloviansk continued on Wednesday as Russian troops pressed towards the eastern Ukrainian city in their campaign to control the Donbas region, as Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, visited Kyiv to voice solidarity. Mayor Vadym Lyakh said that about 23,000 people out of 110,000 were still in Sloviansk but claimed Russia had been unable to surround the city. That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand the blog over to my colleagues in Australia who will bring you the latest updates. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said heavy weapons from western allies have finally begun working at “full capacity” on frontlines. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said that the Ukrainian military has been able to target Russian warehouses and locations that are “important for logistics”. According to Zelenskiy, the counterattacks have significantly reduced Russia’s offensive potential and that Ukrainian forces have begun advancing in multiple directions including Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. The non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders has called for Ukraine’s internet liberation on Wednesday. “The Russian forces are colonising the Ukrainian digital infrastructure and are installing their telecommunications companies in southern Ukraine,” said Vincent Berthier, the head of RSF’s tech desk. “This strategy imposes an alternative reality into which the Kremlin has already plunged its own citizens. Ukraine’s occupied networks must be freed at once. The right of Ukrainian citizens to online access to reliable news and information is a matter of life and death in time of war,” he added. In the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, the internet is being diverted towards Russia and is being subject to Kremlin censorship. According to RSF, Kherson’s online news that its residents have access to now passes through two Russian internet service providers. Over 21,000 war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces are being investigated by Ukrainian authorities, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general Irina Venediktova. Venediktova’s office receives reports of 200 to 300 such crimes daily, it said. Russian forces have occupied around 22% of Ukraine’s arable land, according to NASA’s Harvest mission. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NASA has been focusing on the impact of the war on the global food system. Its findings have revealed that Ukrainian fields where 28% of winter and 18% of spring crops are sown are under Russian occupation. The evacuation of civilians from Sloviansk continued on Wednesday as Russian troops pressed towards the eastern Ukrainian city in their campaign to control the Donbas region, as Ireland’s prime minister visited Kyiv to voice solidarity. Agence France-Presse reports: Sloviansk has been subjected to heavy bombardment in recent days as Russian forces push westwards on day 133 of the invasion. “Twenty years of work; everything is lost. No more income, no more wealth,” Yevgen Oleksandrovych, 66, told AFP as he surveyed the site of his car parts shop, destroyed in Tuesday’s strikes. AFP journalists saw rockets slam into Sloviansk’s marketplace and surrounding streets, with firefighters scrambling to put out the resulting blazes. Around a third of the market in Sloviansk appeared to have been destroyed, with locals coming to see what was left among the charred wreckage. The remaining part of the market was functioning, with a trickle of shoppers coming out to buy fruit and vegetables. “I will sell it out and that’s it, and we will stay home. We have basements, we will hide there. What we can do? We have nowhere to go, nobody needs us,” said 72-year-old greengrocer Galyna Vasyliivna. Mayor Vadym Lyakh said that around 23,000 people out of 110,000 were still in Sloviansk but claimed Russia had been unable to surround the city. “Since the beginning of hostilities, 17 residents of the community have died, 67 have been injured,” he said, adding, “Evacuation is ongoing. We take people out every day.” Many of the evacuees were taken by bus to the city of Dnipro, further west. “The city is well fortified. Russia does not manage to advance to the city,” the mayor said. Vitaliy, a plumber, said his wife and their daughter, who is six months’ pregnant, were evacuated from Sloviansk on Wednesday. “I am afraid for my wife,” he told AFP. “Here, after what happened yesterday, they hit the city centre; need to leave … I sent my wife, and I have no more choice: tomorrow I will join the army.” Summary of the day so far It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand: The governor of Donetsk, the last remaining eastern province of Ukraine partially under Kyiv’s control, has urged the region’s 350,000 people to flee amid reports of fresh deaths and injuries. At least seven civilians have been killed in Russian shelling over the past 24 hours and 25 are said to have been wounded as the Kremlin continues to step up its offensive in eastern Ukraine. The capture of the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine by Russian forces has meant Moscow has made “genuine headway”, while its forces in the south have shown signs of “better cooperation”, western officials said. Western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, but described the impact on their munitions and morale as “remarkable”. Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, said resistance was ongoing in villages around the city of Lysychansk, where 15,000 civilians remain. On Telegram, Haidai said: “Today’s videos from Lysychansk are painful to watch.” He accused Putin’s troops of engaging in a scorched earth policy, “burning down and destroying everything on their way”. The battle for Sloviansk is likely to be the next key contest in the struggle for Donbas as Russian forces approach within 16km of the Donetsk town, British intelligence said. Russian forces from the eastern and western groups of forces are likely now around 16km north of Sloviansk as central and southern groups of forces also pose a threat to the town, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. Ukraine has rejected a claim by Russia’s defence ministry that Moscow’s armed forces had destroyed two advanced US-made Himars rocket systems and their ammunition depots in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s general staff tweeted that the claims by Russia’s defence ministry were fake and that it was using the US-supplied Himars to inflict “devastating blows” on Russian forces. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU needs to make emergency plans to prepare for a complete cut-off of Russian gas. The commission is working on a “European emergency plan” with the first proposals to be presented by the middle of the month, she said. “If worst comes to worst, then we have to be prepared,” she said. Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin visited the war-scarred suburbs of Borodianka, Bucha and Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday to reiterate his country’s solidarity with Ukraine. Martin said he and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, discussed a joint response to the threat to food security, the energy crisis and the preparation of the seventh sanction package against Russia. Russia has denied reports that a Russian-flagged ship is being held and investigated by Turkish authorities in the Black Sea port of Karasu over claims its cargo was stolen from Ukraine. Turkish customs officials acted after Kyiv claimed the Zhibek Zholy was illegally transporting 7,000 tonnes of grain out of Russian-occupied Berdiansk, a Ukrainian port in the south-east of the country. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Alexei Zaitsev, said the ship was “undergoing standard procedures”. The head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky, has said the region plans to sell Ukraine’s grain to the Middle East. The main countries involved in the deal were Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of stealing grain, a charge that Moscow has denied. Sri Lanka’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said he asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin to help import fuel to his country as it faces its worst economic crisis in seven decades. Rajapaksa tweeted that he had a “productive” telephone call with Putin, while thanking him for “all the support extended by his [government] to overcome the challenges of the past. Ukraine’s military has announced plans to introduce a system of permits that would prohibit men eligible for conscription from leaving the region where they are registered. The move, based on legislation from 1992, was intended to enable the country’s armed forces to locate potential conscripts more easily, but it prompted an immediate backlash. Latvia is to reinstate compulsory military service amid growing tension with Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Latvia, which borders Belarus and Russia, had scrapped mandatory service a few years after joining the Nato military alliance. Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has admitted that he met the former KGB agent, Alexander Lebedev, without officials present while foreign secretary. Johnson told MPs he accepted he met the former KGB agent on a trip to Italy. Asked whether he reported the meeting to officials, Johnson said: ‘I think I did.’ Ukraine’s military plans to limit free movement to make conscription easier Isobel Koshiw Ukraine’s military has announced plans to introduce a system of permits that would prohibit men eligible for conscription from leaving the region where they are registered. The move, based on legislation from 1992, was intended to enable the country’s armed forces to locate potential conscripts more easily, but it prompted an immediate backlash. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticised the announcement in his nightly TV address to the nation on Tuesday, saying that the general staff should not make decisions without him. Two parliamentarians immediately filed draft legislation that would scrap the army’s initiative, which they described as “outdated”. It remains unclear if movement permits for men will be introduced, but the army’s announcement highlights the precarious position facing Ukrainian men who could be conscripted to fight at any moment. Since Zelenskiy declared martial law at the start of Russia’s invasion, all Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military service and are forbidden from leaving the country. (There are a few exceptions such as men with poor health, or fathers of three or more children.) “I don’t want to fight. I want to continue working,” said Roman, a 31-year-old software developer in Kyiv. “But I also don’t want to think negatively about it because many of my friends have been mobilised and it’s not fair on them. I try not to think that if I’m mobilised it 100% means I will die or be injured or see fighting.” A crowdfunded Turkish-made military drone is expected to be delivered “immediately” from Lithuania, the country’s defence minister, Arvydas Anušauskas said. The “Vanagas” (which means “Hawk” in Lithuanian), along with ammunition, arrived in the Baltic country on Monday, Anušauskas said. “Very soon it will be delivered to Ukraine,” he tweeted. The crowdfunding campaign raised nearly €6m (£5m) for the Bayraktar TB2 drone over three days last month, before its Turkish manufacturer announced it would donate the drone free of charge. A portion of the crowdfunded funds were used to equip the drone with munitions while the rest went towards humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Russia has made ‘genuine headway’ after capturing Lysychansk, say western officials The capture of the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine by Russian forces has meant Moscow has made “genuine headway”, while its forces in the south have shown signs of “better cooperation”, western officials said. Western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, but described the impact on their munitions and morale as “remarkable”. But one official said it “remains highly uncertain whether Russia will secure the limits of Donetsk oblast this year”. Russia has made “some significant command changes” in recent weeks, one official said, notably the recently appointed Gen Sergei Surovikin, who has taken over command of the southern group of forces overseeing the occupation of southern Ukraine and the advances on the Donbas from the south. The official said: He’s a controversial figure even by the standards of Russian general officers. It is unclear whether it’s his influence which has led to the recent successes around Lysychansk, but certainly there’s been better cooperation amongst groups of forces on the Russian side than we saw in the earlier phases of the war. There are “very serious issues” over the stocks of Russian munitions and of morale, an official said, while long-range weapons systems are starting to make a “significant operational difference for Ukraine”. The Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has been speaking at a joint news conference with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv. He said the pair discussed a joint response to the threat to food security, the energy crisis and the preparation of the seventh sanction package against Russia. Ukraine “belongs to the European Union”, Martin said, adding that his country would support Kyiv “every step of the way”. Martin said: Russia’s brutal war against this beautiful, democratic country is a gross violation of international law. It is an affront to everything that Ireland stands for. It cannot and it will not be allowed to stand. He pointed out that Ireland had welcomed 40,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war and that they were “welcome to stay in Ireland for as long as they need to”. The US president, Joe Biden, and vice-president, Kamala Harris, have spoken to the wife of the US basketball player, the White House said. Biden reassured Cherelle Griner he was “working to secure Brittney’s release as soon as possible, as well as the release of Paul Whelan and other US nationals who are wrongfully detained or held hostage in Russia and around the world”, the White House said in a statement after the call. Earlier we reported that Boris Johnson has admitted to MPs that he met the former KGB agent, Alexander Lebedev, without officials present while foreign secretary. Asked by Labour’s Dame Diana Johnson at the Commons liaison committee if he met with Lebedev without officials on 28 April 2018, Johnson said: I certainly have met the gentleman in question who used to be the proprietor of the London Evening Standard when I was mayor of London. I certainly am not going to deny having met Alexander Lebedev, I certainly have. He added: I have certainly met him without officials. I met him on a very few occasions. On the occasion you are mentioning, if that was when I was foreign secretary, then yes.