DIRECT. War in Ukraine: after Lyssytchansk, Siversk new target for Russian forces?

It is “impossible to say that Lyssytchansk is under Russian control”, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “There is fighting in the suburbs” of this besieged city for several weeks, he added, during a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Alexander Lukashenko clearly threatened Ukraine and the West on Saturday during a speech. “We will only fight in one case, if you (…) enter our land, if you kill our people”, he however repeated. But his position raises questions. Our decryption.

A Russian cargo ship carrying grain believed to have been stolen from Ukraine has been stopped by Ankara customs, Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Reuters reported. ” The Zhibek Zholy from occupied Berdansk entered the port of Karasu. At the request of the Prosecutor of Ukraine, we asked the Turkish side to take the necessary measures”, he tweeted.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to increase military support for Ukraine by $100 million during the first visit to kyiv by an Australian head of government. He did not confirm whether it was 100 million Australian dollars (65 million euros), or 100 million American dollars, some 95 million euros.

Anthony Albanese announced that Canberra would provide “an additional 14 armored personnel carriers and 20 armored Bushmaster more,” as well as drones and help for Ukrainian border guards.

He added that he intended to introduce new economic sanctions targeting Russia, as well as “travel bans targeting 16 additional ministers and oligarchs, to reach 843 individuals and 62 entities targeted by Australia”.

Among the six people killed Sunday in Sloviansk by rocket launchers was a child, said the mayor of the city, Vadym Liakh on his Facebook page.

In an interview with German television ARD, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that an “unconditional surrender [de l’Ukraine, comme l’exige M. Poutine] or an imposed peace [à l’Ukraine n’était] not acceptable “.

“When I talk to Putin, I always tell him: keep in mind that the sanctions we [l’Union européenne, NDLR] impose on Russia now will remain,” he added. “The idea of ​​an imposed peace is absurd, you should instead focus your efforts on reaching a just settlement with Ukraine,” the German Chancellor continued.

On the southern front, the Ukrainian regional operational command indicated that in 24 hours, the Russian army had carried out “nine airstrikes with K-52 combat helicopters and two bombardments on Serpents’ Island”, taken up on Wednesday by kyiv forces in the northwest of the Black Sea.

Siversk, about twenty kilometers west of Lyssytchansk, could be the next battle, and the Ukrainian forces seem to want to rely on a line of defense between this city and Bakhmout, in order to protect Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two cities high symbolic value.

Siversk was shelled overnight, residents and a local official told AFP on Sunday. “It was intense and it pulled from all sides,” said a woman who had taken refuge in a building cellar.

“For the past week, the bombardments on the city have gradually increased, especially in recent days with heavy artillery,” the first deputy mayor, Rouslan Bondarevskiï, told AFP, as boxes of humanitarian aid from the Red Cross were distributed to residents on Sunday.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based research and analysis group, believes that Ukrainian forces “probably carried out a deliberate withdrawal from Lysychansk, resulting in the capture of the city by Russia 2nd of July “. On Sunday morning, the governor of the Luhansk region, Sergiï Gaïdaï, had hinted that the Ukrainian forces were rapidly losing ground to the attackers in Lysytchansk.

The city of Kramatorsk, administrative center of Donbass under Ukrainian control, was hit for the second consecutive day by Smerch rockets, according to the mayor of the city Oleksandr Goncharenko.

These strikes, which hit a residential area and an unoccupied hotel, caused no casualties, he said.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz defends on the ARD channel gas supply contracts with Qatar, accused of not respecting human rights. “If we want to diversify, we need many suppliers – including this country,” adds the Social Democrat in anticipation of the end of Russian gas supplies.

According to the mayor of Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine, strikes left “many deaths” on Sunday. “Rocket launcher fire hit the city, the biggest in a long time. There are fifteen fires, many dead and injured, ”says Vadim Liakh on Facebook.

Tetiana Ignatchenko, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk region to which Sloviansk belongs, told Ukrainian media Suspilne that the strikes left “six dead and fifteen injured” and reiterated the authorities’ appeal to residents to leave the town. region, while the front line is now only a few kilometers from Sloviansk. According to Ukrainian media, one of the city’s markets was notably on fire following these strikes.

CNN reporter Neil Hauer photographed Russian troops in the city of Lyssychansk.

According to a video message to Ukrainians on Saturday evening, Zelensky counted 2,610 towns and villages under Russian occupation.” But since the start of the war, the Ukrainian army has “managed to free 1,027”, he assured.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says Kremlin forces control the entire Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine after capturing the key city of Lysychansk, amid intense fighting.

“Sergei Shoigu informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, of the liberation of the Lugansk People’s Republic,” said a Defense Ministry statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

The Russian army claimed to have shot down three Ukrainian missiles launched at dawn at the town of Belgorod, near Ukraine, where a local official had previously announced the death of at least four people after explosions.

Russian forces are strengthening their positions in a fierce fight to seize the last stronghold of the resistance in the province of Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, the governor of the region said on Sunday quoted by Reuters. Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city from Lyssychansk and to prevent it from falling into Russian hands, as its neighbor Sievierodonetsk did a week ago. A presidential adviser predicted that his fate could be determined within days.

According to the state agency RIA Novosti, Ukrainian forces shelled the temporarily occupied Melitopol airfield. This claim has not been confirmed by the Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian MP Natalya Pipa, secretary of the parliamentary committee in charge of education, science and innovation, talks about the consequences of the conflict on the country’s education system. His interview to find HERE.

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, Russian-backed officials have said they will hold a referendum on Kherson Oblast joining the Russian Federation by autumn 2022. priority to a pseudo-constitutional vote in an attempt to legitimize its control over the region,” the ministry writes.

Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 339 Ukrainian miners have died. The conflict has also devastated or disrupted the lives of millions of others, who have lost a relative, their home, friends, their former life or their dreams. A disaster to come of which adults, overwhelmed by the present, have trouble taking the measure. Our article.

This city is the last great stronghold of Ukraine, in the strategic eastern province of Luhansk. She could fall, Zelensky’s adviser Oleksiy Arestovych acknowledged, as the fighting intensified, Reuters reports.

According to the Reuters news agency, at least three people were killed and dozens of houses were damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border this morning, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app. .

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed his army shot down missiles fired from Ukraine at Belarus, amid speculation of Minsk’s growing involvement in the conflict between kyiv and Moscow.

“We are provoked. I have to tell you that about three days ago, maybe more, there was an attempt from Ukraine to hit military targets in Belarus. Praise be to God, our Pantsir anti-aircraft systems intercepted all missiles fired by Ukrainian forces,” he said, quoted by state news agency Belta.

Moscow has asked Ukrainian teachers in the occupied territories to sign a document certifying their willingness to switch to teaching the Russian school curriculum. According The Guardian, the new local authorities give them until July 21 to do so. If they give up, they risk being evicted from their homes.

But if they sign, they risk being charged by the Ukrainian authorities, who consider teaching the Russian curriculum a form of collaboration with the enemy.