Rescuers and volunteers at a pizza restaurant struck by Russian rockets, Kramatorsk, Ukraine, June 27, 2023 (Genya Savilov)

Tuesday’s Coverage: Kyiv’s “Progress in All Directions” as Putin Tries to Regain His Authority

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1550 GMT:

Speaking alongside visiting counterparts from Lithuania and Poland, Gitanas Nausėda and Andrzej Duda, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said:

We understand that we cannot be a member of NATO during the war, but we need to be sure that after the war we will be. That is the signal we want to get – that after the war Ukraine will be a member of NATO.

Referring to July’s NATO summit in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, Duda assured, “We will do everything to make this happen as soon as possible. We are trying to ensure that the decisions made at the summit clearly indicate the perspective of membership. we are conducting talks on this issue with our allies.”

UPDATE 1543 GMT:

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko says the death toll from Tuesday’s Russian missile strike on a pizzeria and shopping plaza has risen to 11.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces hit a “temporary command post” of the Ukrainian army.

UPDATE 1305 GMT:

Ukraine’s counter-intelligence service SSU has arrested “an agent of the Russian special services”, claiming the suspect helped direction a missile strike that killed at least 10 people in Kramatorsk in the east of the country on Tuesday.

The SSU said the man lived in Kramatorsk and was an employee at a gas transportation company.

UPDATE 1028 GMT:

Russian shelling of the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine has killed three civilians on Wednesday.

The victims were men aged 45, 48, and 57 in the Vovchan community of the Chuguyiv district.

UPDATE 0911 GMT:

UK military intelligence says Ukraine has seriously hindered Russian defenses with the June 22 attack on the Chonhar Bridge between Russian-occupied areas in the Kherson region and the Crimea peninsula.

Because of the damage to the road bridge, “vital Russian logistics convoys” are taking at least 50% longer to reach the frontline via alternative routes.

Russian forces tried to set up a replacement crossing with a pontoon bridge within 24 hours of the Ukrainian strike.

Russian proxy officials said soon after the attack that the damage will take “several weeks” to repair.

UPDATE 0849 GMT:

Ukraine’s counter-offensive has recaptured the Kurdium Dam near Kurdiumivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

The dam is south of Ukrainian-held Kramatorsk, hit by a Russian missile strike on Tuesday, and north of Russian-occupied Donetsk city.

UPDATE 0753 GMT:

The death toll has risen to nine in this morning’s Russian attack on a pizzeria and shopping plaza in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, with the recovery of the body of a boy.

Three teenagers — reportedly a 17 year-old girl and twin 14-year-old sisters — were slain in the blast.

Three citizens of Colombia were injured: MP Sergio Jaramillo, writer Hector Abad, and journalist Catalina Gomez. They were dining with Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who is in critical condition.

UPDATE 0748 GMT:

Lithuania President Gitanas Nausėda, visiting Kyiv on Wednesday, says Vilnius will send two NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine.

Lithuania is also transferring 10 M113 armored personnel carriers and ammunition.

UPDATE 0730 GMT:

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov says the most significant gains of Ukraine’s counter-offensive have not yet been made public.

Reznikov said, in an interview with London’s Financial Times, that the liberation of nine villages on the southern front were “not the main event”.

When it happens, you will all see it….Everyone will see everything.

He added that Ukraine’s main troop reserves, including most of the brigades recently trained in other countries and equipped with tanks and armored vehicles from NATO members, have not yet been used in operations.

UPDATE 0642 GMT:

Gen. Sergey Surovikin, the former commander of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had advance knowledge of the Wagner Group’s mini-rebellion, according to US intelligence.

US officials briefed on the intelligence say they are trying to establish if Surovikin helped plan Wagner’s rapid takeover of the city of Rostov-on-Don, seizure of the Southern Military Command headquarters, and advance on Moscow.

US officials said there is evidence that other Russian generals may have supported the mini-rebellion last weekend.

Amid the power struggle between Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry, Surovikin was replaced in January as the overall commander of the invasion. However, he is still influential in the military, widely respected both by troops and by analysts of Russian operations.

On Friday, Surovikin appeared in a video in which — holding a submachine gun — he asked Wagner to halt its advance.

UPDATE 0635 GMT:

The US has sanctioned companies funding Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group through illegal dealing in gold.

The US Treasury cited four entities and one individual in the UAE, Central African Republic, and Russia. It said the gold trade funded Wagner’s maintenance and expansion of fighters, including in Ukraine and some African countries.

Treasury Undersecreatry Brian Nelson, said:

The Wagner group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali.

The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else.

UPDATE 0619 GMT:

China’s permanent representative to the European Union, Fu Cong, has indicated that Beijing may support Ukraine regaining all of its territory from Russia.

Fu made the statement on June 16 at the 2023 Europe-China Business Summit in Brussels. Asked if China supported Ukraine’s aims over the Russian invasion, including the liberation of occupied region, he said: “I don’t see why not.”

We respect the territorial integrity of all countries. So when China established relations with the former Soviet Union, that’s what we agreed. But as I said, these are historical issues that need to be negotiated and resolved by Russia and Ukraine and that is what we stand for.

Fu said in an interview in April that China does not support Russia’s annexations of Ukraine regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south as well as the Crimea peninsula — and that Beijing believes the conflict should be resolved by negotiations rather than military aggression.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: At least 8 civilians, including three children, have been killed and 56 injured by a Russian strike fired on a crowded pizza restaurant in the center of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.|

The death toll rose from four to eight on Wednesday morning as rescuers pulled three survivors from the rubble. The efforts are undergoing.

The Donetsk region governor, Pavlo Kyrolenko said two missiles hit, one on RIA Pizza and the other on a “private enterprise”. The pizzeria was destroyed, and 18 high-rise buildings, 65 private houses, five schools, two kindergartens, a shopping center, a hotel, an administrative building, and a recreational facility damaged.

RIA Pizza is in a bustling shopping plaza. It is popular among both locals and foreign visitors, including journalists who often use it as an office.

Kramatorsk, which had a pre-war population of 150,000, is in the Donetsk region, about 30 km (18 miles) from the frontline.

On April 8, 2022, a Russian missile strike on the city’s railway station killed 63 people and wounded about 150.

See also Ukraine War, Day 45: Russia’s “Murderous Deliberate Slaughter” at Kramatorsk Railway Station