Russian forces consolidate control of Severodonetsk and continue to extend advances into Lysychansk. Zelensky will address the G7 meeting.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is entering its fifth month, and there is no end in sight. The grueling conflict has shifted to the eastern provinces, where Russian progress in the Luhansk region has been described as “plodding.” Still, the Russians last week were on the verge of capturing the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. At the same time, the Ukrainians — increasingly well-equipped, courtesy of the West — talk boldly of taking back the southern city of Kherson, which the Russians overran early in the conflict.
American attention has drifted somewhat from the war to domestic concerns, which makes it easy to overlook that what’s unfolding in Ukraine is one of the deadlier conflicts of the past 200 years. That it is a “mere” proxy war, rather than a clash between two great powers, also tends to obscure its scale. But the rate at which soldiers are dying is already significantly higher than in the typical war of the modern era — and both sides are digging in, meaning it will steadily climb the list of conflicts that have caused the most overall fatalities.
The Ukrainian war may seem minor next to the two world wars of the 20th century, which killed tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. But those are extreme outliers that skew our understanding of international conflict. The Correlates of War Project, an academic enterprise with data extending back to 1816, offers a more comprehensive picture. The project defines war as sustained combat between organized armed forces of different states that results in at least 1,000 battlefield deaths in a 12-month period. The average war, according to the project, has killed about 50 soldiers per day and lasted about 100 days.
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The top 25 percent of wars, the Correlates of War Project shows, last 13 months or more. Military experts increasingly predict that this war is on course to last that long. And given that both sides have already been involved in low-intensity conflict since 2015 in eastern Ukraine, it is not hard to see it reaching the three-year mark, which only 10 percent of wars have achieved.
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Key Takeaways
- Russian forces conducted a missile strike against Kyiv for the first time since April 29, likely to coincide with the ongoing G7 leadership summit.
- Russian Colonel-General Gennday Zhidko has likely taken over the role of theatre commander of operations in Ukraine.
- Russian forces continued attacks against the southern outskirts of Lysychansk and consolidated control of Severodonetsk and surrounding settlements.
- Russian forces are conducting operations to the east of Bakhmut to maintain control of the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway.
- Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground assaults to the northwest of Slovyansk.
- Russian forces intensified artillery strikes against Ukrainian positions along the Southern Axis.
- Russian occupation authorities are escalating measures to stem Ukrainian partisan activity in occupied areas through increased filtration measures and the abduction of civilians.
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Russia stepped up air strikes on Ukraine over the weekend, including on the capital of Kyiv, while the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk fell to pro-Russian forces. There had been no major strikes on Kyiv since early June.
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The US president, Joe Biden, said that “it’s more of their barbarism”, referring to the missile strikes on Kyiv, as leaders from the G7 countries gathered for a summit in Germany.
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The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, will use Monday’s session at the G7 summit in Germany to call for urgent action to help get vital grain supplies out of Ukraine’s blockaded ports to support the country’s economy and alleviate shortages around the world, PA reports. Johnson will call for an international solution to the crisis, including finding overland routes for grain supplies to beat the Russian blockade, with £10m in materials and equipment to repair damaged rail infrastructure.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said G7 countries should respond to the latest missile strikes by imposing further sanctions on Russia and providing more heavy weapons to Ukraine.
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Zelenskiy urged Belarusians to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. “Russian leadership wants to drag you into the Ukraine-Russian war because it doesn’t care about your lives. But you aren’t slaves and can decide your destiny yourself,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to Belarusians.
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The UN Human Rights division in Ukraine said on Sunday that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, it has “received hundreds of allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including conflict-related sexual violence”. “People were kept tied and blindfolded for several days, beaten, subjected to mock executions, put in a closed metal box, forced to sing or shout glorifying slogans, provided with no or scarce food or water, and held in overcrowded rooms with no sanitation,” the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine said.
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France has become the latest country to reconsider its energy options because of the war in Ukraine, announcing on Sunday it was looking into reopening a recently closed coal-fired power station. The energy transition ministry said it was considering reopening the station at Saint-Avold in eastern France this winter, “given the situation in Ukraine” and the effect it was having on energy markets.
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Ukrainian forces have attacked a drilling platform in the Black Sea owned by a Crimean oil and gas company, Russia’s Tass news agency cited local officials as saying on Sunday – the second strike in a week. The platform is operated by Chernomorneftegaz, which Russian-backed officials seized from Ukraine’s national gas operator Naftogaz as part of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014.
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“The U.S. has rallied the world in imposing swift and significant economic costs to deny Putin the revenue he needs to finance his war,” said one of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules for the briefing.
The official hinted at additional steps that could be taken to further isolate Russia but suggested those would come in the weeks ahead, rather than more immediately as part of the summit.
“This is a key export, a key source of revenue, a key alternative for Russia, in terms of their ability to transact in the global financial system,” the official said. “Taking this step cuts off that capacity and again is an ongoing illustration of the types of steps the G-7 can take collectively to continue to isolate Russia and cut it off from the global economy.”
One aim of the United States and its international partners, the official said, would be to prevent Russia — which has found ways around previous sanctions — from evading the ban on imports. The fact that they have moved toward banning gold imports, administration officials say, was effectively a sign that other ways for Russia to access global financial markets had been cut off.
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With Russia choking off natural gas supplies that feed furnaces and electricity generating plants, European Union members and Kyiv have accelerated plans to fully link up Ukraine’s electricity grid. The project represents a remarkable turnaround from the early days of the war, when Ukraine braced for widespread blackouts as Russia attacked the country’s infrastructure.
Ukraine now has electricity to spare after millions of people fled, and officials say the country could earn billions of dollars from selling it, helping fund the fight on the battlefield.
Kyiv and EU members are striving to open a channel for Ukraine to export that electrical power into the bloc. European companies would secure electricity, starting in small quantities, at lower prices than they pay for power generated at home in the teeth of a worsening energy crisis.