Show only key events Please enable JavaScript to use this feature Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the evacuation of people from the eastern Donetsk region must take place before winter sets in, as the region’s natural gas reserves have been depleted. It was cited by domestic Ukrainian media, while separately President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his government had ordered a mandatory evacuation in Donetsk, the scene of heavy fighting with Russia. Reuters reported that he said in a televised address that hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the wider Donbas region – which includes Donetsk as well as neighboring Luhansk region – needed to leave. He said: The more they leave [the] Donetsk region now, the less people the Russian army will have to kill. Residents who left will receive compensation, Zelensky said. Many refuse to leave but it still has to be done.
Five injured when drone hits Russian fleet headquarters in Black Sea
A drone flew into Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters, injuring five people, the governor of Sevastopol said. Russian state news agency Ria-Novosti quoted Mikhail Razvozzhaev who also said that all Navy Day celebrations in the city were canceled for security reasons. Russian state media reports that the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was hit by a drone attack, injuring five. Today is Navy Day in Russia, large naval parades are planned in St. Petersburg and other cities. https://t.co/JgNW99edwv — Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) July 31, 2022
Summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. Here’s a rundown of the latest developments as it just gets past 9am. in Kyiv this Sunday, July 31, 2022.
Ukrainian officials have denounced the Russian embassy in Britain’s call for Azov regiment fighters to face a “humiliating” execution, Agence France-Presse reported. Twitter said the embassy violated its rules on “hateful conduct,” but put a warning on the tweet instead of banning the post about Azov, a Ukrainian order that maintains some far-right ties. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded to Telegram on Saturday: “In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can speak at a diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?’ New Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline left one person dead in the southern part of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets hit two residential districts overnight, AFP reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, missiles from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for the evacuation of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where heavy clashes have taken place between his country’s forces and the Russian army. The governor of Donetsk, where Moscow is focusing the brunt of its offensive, said six civilians were killed and 15 wounded in raids on Friday. Zelensky said in his daily speech: “There is already a government decision on the mandatory evacuation from the Donetsk region. Please follow the evacuation.” Zelensky said thousands of people, including children, were still in the battlegrounds of the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian military said it killed dozens of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kiev’s counteroffensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported that the army’s southern command said rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, possibly further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and to the east. Gazprom has suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the West over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company sharply reduced natural gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to around 20% of capacity. European Union states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has announced it is banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported. Among those subject to sanctions is Wellington Mayor Andrew Foster. Auckland Mayor Philip Gough. New Zealand Navy Commander Commodore Garin Golding. and journalists Kate Green and Josie Pagani, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The United States’ ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to break up Ukraine, Reuters reported. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council that the US is seeing growing signs that Russia is laying the groundwork to try to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia is “running out of steam” in its war against Ukraine, the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark in response to an earlier Defense Department tweet that said the Kremlin was “desperate.” Russia and Ukraine have launched criminal investigations into attacks that reportedly killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war held at a detention center in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack. The UN is ready to send a team of experts to Olenivka to investigate the incident, if it receives consent from both sides. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of an “egregious war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognize Russia as a terrorist state.” Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again, but is waiting for the green light from the UN.
