World

Spain’s PM visits Kyiv; Milley on cluster munitions

July 1, 2023

At least three Ukrainians were killed and 17 more were injured Friday and Saturday by Russian shelling in the east and south of the country, Ukraine officials announced Saturday morning.

In the Donetsk region amid heavy fighting, three were killed and 10 injured in the last day, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an update on social media. That included casualties from a Russian rocket that hit a school, where two people died and six were injured. Another person was injured when a house was hit in the city of Kramatorsk, Kyrylenko said.

Houses were damaged or destroyed in cities around the region over the last day, he said.

The casualties come as fierce clashes have continued in areas of Donetsk where Russian forces have attempted to advance, according to the Ukrainian General Staff. The outskirts of Bakhmut, Lyman and Marinka are front-line hot spots. The Ukrainian General Staff said Russia had staged unsuccessful assault attempts there over the last day.

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Satellite footage suggests Belarus building army camp for Wagner fighters

Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press on Saturday showed what appeared to be a newly built military-style camp in Belarus, with statements from a Belarusian guerrilla group and officials suggesting it may be used to house fighters from the Wagner mercenary group.

The images provided by Planet Labs PLC suggest that dozens of tents were erected within the past two weeks at a former military base outside Osipovichi, a town 142 miles north of the Ukrainian border.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and his fighters escaped prosecution and were offered refuge in Belarus last week after Minsk helped broker a deal to end what appeared to be an armed insurrection by the mercenary group. The abortive revolt saw Wagner troops who had fought alongside Russia forces in Ukraine capture a military headquarters in southern Russia and march hundreds of kilometers toward Moscow, seemingly unimpeded.

Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said his country, a close and dependent ally of Moscow, could use Wagner’s experience and expertise, and announced that he had offered the fighters an “abandoned military unit” to set up camp.

Aliaksandr Azarau, leader of the anti-Lukashenko BYPOL guerrilla group of former military members, told The Associated Press by phone on Thursday that construction of a site for Wagner mercenaries was underway near Osipovichi. Up to 8,000 fighters from Wagner’s private military force may be deployed in Belarus, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s border force told Ukrainian media Saturday.

-The Associated Press

WHAT TO KNOW:Why did Wagner turn on Russia? What we know about the mercenary group

Children wounded in strikes on Kherson

Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said two children in Kherson, a 9-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, were wounded in Russian shelling that hit a residential area Saturday afternoon. He said they are being treated by doctors.

Previously, he said five people including a child were wounded overnight in Kherson. Prokudin said that Russian forces launched 82 artillery, drone, mortar shell and rocket attacks on the province.

Spain’s prime minister visits Kyiv on Saturday

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez started Spain’s six-month presidency of the European Union with a lightning visit to Kyiv on Saturday to show continuing support from Madrid and the European Union for Ukraine’s fight to dislodge invading Russian forces from its territory.

In an address to Ukraine’s parliament that received several standing ovations, Sánchez said, “We’ll be with you as long as it takes.”

“I am here to express the firm determination of the European (Union) and Europe against the illegal and unjustified Russian aggression to Ukraine,” he said on the day that Spain took over the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU.

Sánchez met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the two are set to give a press conference in the afternoon.

Speaking Friday in Brussels, Sánchez said, “The war in Ukraine will be one of the great priorities of our presidency, with the focus being on guaranteeing the unity (on the issue) among all member states.”

This was Sánchez’s third time in Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

-Associated Press

Joint Chiefs of Staff chair says US has considered providing cluster munitions to Ukraine

Gen. Mark Milley, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he expects Ukraine’s counteroffensive to be slow-going and difficult. He acknowledged it has taken longer than he predicted, but said that is the nature of war.

“It is advancing steadily, deliberately,” Milley told an audience at the National Press Club on Friday. But, he said, “it’s going to be very difficult, it’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody,” he said.

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