Fire rages at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, June 27, 2022


EA on Times Radio and ANews: The G7, NATO, and Ukraine

Monday’s Coverage: Russia Sends Message To G7 With Missile Strikes on Kyiv


Source: Institute for the Study of War


UPDATE 1741 GMT:

Russia has fired six missiles on the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine.

Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said three were downed but the others hit railway infrastructure and industrial enterprise, setting a service company on fire.


UPDATE 1737 GMT:

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry has expelled 70 Russian diplomats and administrative and technical staff.

The expulsions brings Russian representation in Sofia and Bulgaria’s in Moscow to the same level.

The Russian personnel were ordered to leave by midnight on July 3.


UPDATE 1729 GMT:

The US has confirmed its ban on imports of new Russian gold, the country’s biggest non-energy export, and imposed sanctions on 70 entities and 29 individuals.

Among those sanctioned Russia’s state aerospace conglomerate Rostec, and a manufacturer of fighter jets, United Aircraft Corporation.

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said:

Targeting Russia’s defense industry will degrade Putin’s capabilities and further impede his war against Ukraine, which has already been plagued by poor morale, broken supply chains, and logistical failures.

The US State Department has added to the sanctions list more than 500 Russian Federation military officers and Russian Federation officials “involved in suppressing dissent”.

Russia’s gold exports earned $15.4 billion in 2021 and, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were expected to reach $19 billion this year.


UPDATE 1724 GMT:

Diageo — the maker of alcoholic brands such as Guinness beer, Johnnie Walker whisky, and Smirnoff vodka — is winding down its operations in Russia.

The group is the latest western company to suspend business inside Russia, despite its last annual report hailing a sales increase in eastern Europe “mainly driven by strong growth” in the country.

The company shopped shipping to and selling goods in Russia in March. It will retain a business license which requires a number of employees to remain.


UPDATE 1721 GMT:

Ukrainian police have countered Russian disinformation claiming that Ukraine is responsible, rather than Russia’s missile, for the deadly explosion in the Kremenchuk shopping mall.


UPDATE 1308 GMT:

Russian forces have arrested the mayor of occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine, Ihor Kolykhaiev.

An advisor to the mayor, Galina Lyashevskaya, wrote on Facebook, “They took Igor Kolykhaev.”


UPDATE 1118 GMT:

G7 leaders have agreed to pursue a cap on global oil and prices, to limit Russia’s revenues.

“We invite all like-minded countries to consider joining us in our actions,” the leaders said in their communiqué.


UPDATE 0854 GMT:

Russian strikes killed three people, including a child, and injured six in the town of Ochakiv in the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine on Tuesday morning.

Mykolaiv Mayor Alexander Senkevich said the port city of Mykolaiv came under “massive rocket fire” on Tuesday morning. He said information on victims and damage is being established.

Other officials said 11 missiles were fired on the city, which held out this spring against Russian attempts to overrun it.

The Russians also struck the southern Odesa region with X-22 missiles, the same anti-ship weapons used in the deadly attack on the shopping mall in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine on Monday.


UPDATE 0624 GMT:

The UN High Commission for Human Rights has confirmed 4,731 civilian deaths and 5,900 injuries during Russia’s invasion.

The toll includes at least 330 children killed and 489 injured.

The Commission added its usual caveat that the actual casualties are likely to be far higher, given limited information from areas of occupation and frontline battle.


UPDATE 0609 GMT:

Russian police seized and detained Moscow municipal deputy Ilya Yashin, a supporter of imprisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny, late Monday.

Independent journalist Irina Babloyan said she was walking with Yashin in a park in central Moscow when police officers took him to an unknown location.

Yashin was found guilty in May of “discrediting” the Russian military.

Babloyan said Yashin has been charged with disobeying police orders. He faces up to 15 days in prison in a trial scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Navalny, was survived poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020, was sentenced in February to 2 1/2 years for “parole violations” in February 2021, and a further 9 years on March 24 for fraud and contempt of court. He was transferred to a maximum security prison earlier this month.


UPDATE 0601 GMT:

UK military intelligence says Russian forces are being increasingly hollowed out and have degraded combat effectiveness “which is probably unsustainable in the long term”.

In their latest reports, analysts say the Russians only captured Sieverodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, after bombardment and ground assaults over 3 1/2 months, by fielding the core elements of six different armies.

A “senior US defense official” said Monday that Russian forces are likely running low on commanders, relying more on retired officers and reserves because of officer casualties.


UPDATE 0532 GMT:

NATO is raising the number of troops on high alert to more than 300,000, compared to the current level of 40,000.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, in advance of a NATO meeting in Madrid, that the forces in the Baltic states and five other frontline countries will be raised “up to brigade levels”, a doubling or trebling to between 3,000 and 5,000 troops.

NATO will also move stocks of munitions and supplies farther east, completing the transfers in 2023.

He said the deployments would be “the biggest overhaul of our collective defence and deterrence since the Cold War”.


ORIGINAL ENTRY: A Russia missile strike on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine killed at least 18 people and wounded at least 59 on Monday.

Of the injured, 25 are in hospital. The toll is expected to rise as rescuers dig through rubble and search for 21 people still missing.

The latest of Russia’s missile attacks on civilian sites was at 4 p.m., when the mall was packed with more than 1,000 shoppers. Many were able to evacuate when a warning was sounded, but others were trapped in “horror scenes” as walls caved in and the roof collapsed.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command said the mall, located near a railway station, was struck with two X-22 cruise missiles — weapons normally used on warships, including aircraft carriers — from Tu-22M long-range bombers.

With the center engulfed in black smoke and flames, 300 emergency workers fought more than four hours to put out the blaze.

Mykola Lukash, of the Kremenchuk district prosecutor’s office, said cranes will try to lift the collapsed roof on Tuesday. He noted, “We haven’t found any children’s bodies. A lot of bodies are burnt. We need to carry out DNA tests.”

James Longman of the US outlet ABC News reported from the scene:

The recovery won’t be of bodies. It is of body parts. This is horrific. I’ve just seen a torso with one arm attached brought out on a piece of canvas. The dazed look of the recovery teams wondering which way to go with it.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram, “It is useless to hope for decency and humanity from Russia.” He added in his nightly video address to the nation:

A peaceful city, an ordinary shopping mall with women, children, ordinary civilians inside.

Only totally insane terrorists, who should have no place on earth, can strike missiles at such an object. And this is not an off-target missile strike, this is a calculated Russian strike — exactly at this shopping mall.

Russia also killed at least five civilians and wounded 19 in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, and a missile attack killed at least eight civilians and wounded 21 amid the Russian assault on the city of Lysychansk in the east.

“Today, when the civilian people were collecting water from a water tank, the Russians aimed at the crowd,” Luhansk reigonal governor Serhiy Haidai said on Telegram.

Another “Abominable Attack”

As with Russia’s missile attacks on central Kyiv on Sunday — which killed at least one person and injured six in a damaged nine-story residential building — the Kremenchuk strike appeared to be a message to G7 leaders meeting in southern Germany.

The leaders condemned the “abominable attack” in another Russian “war crime” targeting civilians.

We stand united with Ukraine in mourning the innocent victims of this brutal attack. Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime. Russian president Putin and those responsible will be held to account.

Today, we underlined our unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian aggression, an unjustified war of choice that has been raging for 124 days.

Pledging “financial, humanitarian as well as military support for Ukraine, for as long as it takes”, the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US — said, “We will not rest until Russia ends its cruel and senseless war on Ukraine.”

In the third and final day of the summit, the leaders are expected to discuss a proposal to cap the price of oil, limiting Russian revenues. US officials confirmed that Washington will send more medium- and long-range missile systems to Ukraine.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “It is deplorable, to say the least. Any sort of civilian infrastructure, which includes obviously shopping malls, and civilians should never ever be targeted.”

The UN Security Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss the Russian attacks on civilians.