What is happening in Ukraine today and how do countries around the world react? Read live updates about Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said the attack on the town of Desna last week resulted in 87 deaths.
Apart from the bombings of Russia at a cinema in Mariupol, Desna could be one of the biggest victims of every single blow during the war.
The right is 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Kyiv. Zelenski said the removal of the debris in the Desna, Chernihiv region, has been completed and the deaths and damage were caused by just four rockets.
Zelensky made his comments in an evening address Monday, on the eve of the three-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said the Russian army had fired 1,474 missiles at Ukraine since February 24, using 2,275 different missiles.
The vast majority struck civilian targets, with more than 3,000 Russian air strikes during the period, according to Zelensky, who said Russia was waging a “total war” against his country, including as many casualties and as much infrastructure damage as possible. .
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UNITED NATIONS – The United States and Britain have accused Russia of spreading disinformation online and manipulating public opinion about the war in Ukraine, and flatly rejected Russia’s claims that the West seeks to control all information flows and determine what is true or not.
Britain’s Deputy Ambassador James Roscoe told a UN Security Council meeting on the use of digital technologies for peacekeeping that Russia had carried out cyber attacks and used an “online troll factory” to spread misinformation and manipulate public opinion about their war. “
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the Russian government “continues to shut down, restrict and worsen Internet connectivity, censor content, spread disinformation online and intimidate and arrest journalists to report the truth about the invasion.”
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has accused countries that call themselves a “community of democracies” of building “cyber-totalitarianism” and, along with technology giants such as Meta, shutting down Russian television channels, expelling Russian journalists and blocking access. to Russian websites.
Nebenzia again accused Western governments and the media of fabricating the story of the killing of Russian civilian civilians in Bucha near Kyiv. He claims that civilians died from injuries caused by artillery shells fired from obsolete hardware used by the Ukrainian army.
Britain’s Roscoe has opposed Russia’s allegations of “staged provocation” and the assumption that Ukrainians were responsible for the deaths of civilians after the recapture of the city, saying satellite images showed the bodies had been there for weeks when Russia controlled Bucha.
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai said police continued to evacuate daily due to the war with Russia and that the number of those wishing to leave was increasing.
Haidai posted a video on Facebook on Monday, taken from a vehicle he said was driving on a highway near Severodonetsk.
The vehicle races along the road, avoiding debris, embankments, barricades and destroyed vehicles, while shells explode in the fields just meters away.
A photo in the post shows about a dozen civilians, with luggage, tightly packed in what appears to be the back of a vehicle.
Haidai writes that people “agree with the risk because what happens in cities is much worse.”
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Kyiv, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky says Russia is waging a “total war” against his country, and that includes inflicting as many casualties as possible and destroying as much infrastructure as possible.
Zelensky made his comments in his nightly address Monday, on the eve of the three-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In it, he noted that since February 24, the Russian army has launched 1,474 missile strikes on Ukraine, using 2,275 different missiles. He said the vast majority had hit civilian targets. During this period, there were over 3,000 Russian air strikes.
“Indeed, there has been no such war on the European continent for 77 years,” he said.
Zelensky said the attack on the town of Desna, 55km (34 miles) north of Kyiv, had resulted in 87 deaths.
Now the Russians are concentrating their forces in Donbass cities such as Bakhmut, Popasnaya and Severodonetsk, Zelensky said.
He called on Ukrainians who are not on the battlefield to help as much as they can, and said his own task was to increase international pressure on Russia. “The absolute priority is weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.
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KRAMATORSK, Ukraine – Donetsk Regional Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said three civilians in the region were killed in Russian attacks on Monday. He did not give more details.
Earlier on Monday, Kirilenko told the Associated Press in Kramatorsk that heavy fighting was continuing in the Luhansk region and that the front line was under constant fire.
The Luhansk and Donetsk regions are in the Donbass region, much of which has been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Russia is trying to expand the territory it controls with artillery and missile attacks.
Kramatorsk and neighboring Slavyansk are the largest cities in parts of the Donetsk region that are not currently held by Russian forces.
Kirilenko said “the situation is difficult. The front line is under fire all the time.”
Most of the population has already been evacuated, he said. Of the more than 1.6 million people who lived in the region before the Russian invasion on February 24, “no more than 320,000” remain.
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UNITED NATIONS – Spokesman Stefan Dujarric said Monday that UN officials on the ground remain concerned about the impact on civilians of reported fierce fighting in the eastern Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.
He said there were people killed or injured. Housing, civil infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged or destroyed.
In the government-controlled part of Luhansk, local authorities informed the UN that a bridge leading to the region’s administrative center, Severodonetsk, had been destroyed on May 21st. He said this had left the partially besieged city accessible only once.
While some people managed to leave Severodonetsk over the weekend, Dujarric said local authorities believe thousands of civilians remain in the war-torn city and need urgent support. UN humanitarian personnel also said there had been reports of shelling and air strikes in other parts of Ukraine, including the northern, central and southern parts, taking civilian lives and damaging civilian infrastructure.
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KRAMATORSK, Ukraine – A Ukrainian official says Russian forces are stepping up bombing raids in the Donbas region.
Pavlo Kirilenko told the Associated Press in Kramatorsk on Monday that heavy fighting was continuing in the Luhansk region and that the front line was under constant fire.
Kramatorsk and neighboring Slavyansk are the largest cities in parts of the Donetsk region that are not currently held by Russian forces. Donbass consists of the districts of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Kirilenko told the Associated Press in Kramatorsk that “the situation is difficult. The front line is under fire all the time.”
Most of the population has already been evacuated, he said. Of the more than 1.6 million people who lived in the region before the Russian invasion on February 24, “no more than 320,000” remain.
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BERLIN – German banks say refugees from Ukraine will be allowed to exchange a limited amount of Ukrainian currency in euros from Tuesday.
In a statement Monday, the banks said they had signed an agreement with the German Finance Ministry and the national banks of Germany and Ukraine to allow the conversion of a total of 1.5 billion hryvnia ($ 50.8 million).
Each adult Ukrainian refugee with an account in a large German bank will be able to exchange up to 10,000 hryvnias or about 317 euros ($ 339).
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DAVOS, Switzerland – A veteran Russian diplomat in Geneva has said he resigned before sending a scathing letter to foreign counterparts addressing “aggressive war unleashed” by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter Monday after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to the Associated Press.
“In the twenty years of my diplomatic career, I have seen various twists in our foreign policy, but I have never been as ashamed of my country as I was on February 24 this year,” he wrote, alluding to the date of the Russian invasion.
Connected by telephone, Bondarev, a diplomatic adviser focusing on Russia’s role in the Geneva Disarmament Conference following posts in places such as Cambodia and Mongolia, confirmed that he had resigned in a letter to the ambassador. Gennady Gatilov.
“Today, the foreign ministry is not involved in diplomacy. It’s all about inciting war, lies and hatred,” he told the AP, saying he had no plans to leave Geneva.
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MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin has said the Russian economy is “withstanding the blow” of international sanctions, although “it is not easy”.
On Monday, Putin hosted his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“Russia’s economy withstands the blow of sanctions, it withstands it with great dignity,” Putin said, opening the talks. “All the major macroeconomic indicators speak for themselves.”
At the same time, the Russian leader noted that “everything is not easy, everything that happens requires special attention and special efforts from the economic bloc of the government.”
Putin has repeatedly assured the public …
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