Biden: ‘no real prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons’
Biden says there is “no real prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons” when asked about whether the Russian president could escalate actions in Ukraine after the disarray caused by the failed Wagner mutiny.
Zelenskiy says he has faith in Nato decisions but not confidence
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he would like his “faith in a strong Nato” to become confidence.
On Twitter, he said: “Today I embarked on a trip here [Vilnius] with faith in decisions, with faith in partners, with faith in a strong Nato. In a Nato that does not hesitate, does not waste time and does not look back at any aggressor … And I would like this faith to become confidence – confidence in the decisions that we deserve – all of us deserve, and every warrior, every citizen, every mother, every child expects. And is that too much to expect?
“Nato will give Ukraine security. Ukraine will make the Alliance stronger.”
Today I embarked on a trip here with faith in decisions, with faith in partners, with faith in a strong @NATO. In a NATO that does not hesitate, does not waste time and does not look back at any aggressor… And I would like this faith to become confidence – confidence in the…
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 11, 2023
Stoltenberg ‘absolutely certain’ Nato will have ‘unity and a strong message’ on Ukraine membership
The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.
The summit will be dominated by discussions on membership options for Ukraine, resolving the dispute between Turkey and Sweden over the latter’s accession to the alliance, and the question of cluster munitions being supplied to Ukraine.
Jens Stoltenberg and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda address a joint press conference in Vilnius. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA
Nausėda said a prospect of membership was extremely important to Ukraine, which had been “heroically fighting the Russian monster for almost one and a half years”, and that “we must avoid Ukraine membership … becoming a horizon. The more you walk towards it, the farther it is”.
Nato appears to have been clear that the door remains open and that Ukraine is expected to join eventually, but has been hesitant to put a timetable on it.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had sharp words about the prospect, saying: “You know the absolutely clear and consistent position of the Russian Federation that Ukraine’s membership in Nato will have very, very negative consequences for the security architecture, the already half-destroyed security architecture in Europe. And it will be an absolute danger, a threat to our country, which will require from us a sufficiently clear and firm reaction.”
Missile reportedly shot down over annexed Crimean peninsula, says Russia
More on the reported missile shot down on Sunday over the annexed Crimean peninsula.
The Russia-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that a cruise missile was shot down near the city of Kerch on the Crimean peninsula, without inflicting any damage or casualties.
Local officials said traffic movement on the Crimean Bridge that links the peninsula to the Russian mainland was restored after an apparent suspension, Reuters reported.
No reason for the traffic halt was given.
Russian officials said another missile was shot down, this time over Russia’s southern Rostov region that also borders Ukraine.
In this incident, air defence shot down a Ukrainian missile in Russia’s Rostov region, the city’s governor, Vasily Golubev, said on Telegram.
Golubev wrote:
There were no casualties. The debris partially damaged the roofs of several buildings.
Return of Ukrainian commanders ‘direct violation’ of agreement, says Moscow
The return of five Ukrainian commanders from Turkey is a “direct violation” of a prisoner exchange brokered by Ankara last year, Russia has said.
It comes after President Zelenskiy tweeted a video of the men, who led the defence of the city of Mariupol until surrendering in May last year, boarding a plane with him to return to Ukraine.
In a post, he said: “We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home. They will finally be with their relatives.”
Under the terms of a prisoner swap agreed after the surrender, some of the soldiers involved in the fighting were released, but their commanders were required to go to Turkey until the end of the war.
“The return of the leaders of the Azovites from Turkey to Ukraine is nothing more than a direct violation of the terms of the existing agreements”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti.
“Moreover, in this case, the conditions were violated by both the Ukrainian side and the Turkish side.”
Turkish president Recep Erdoğan said on Saturday that Vladimir Putin would be visiting Turkey next month, although Peskov later said that no date had been agreed.
When compiling the ranking of countries that prioritize environmental conditions, scientists from Yale and Columbia Universities considered multiple factors, including residential air quality, availability of drinking water sources, government actions for environmental protection, carbon dioxide levels, coastal cleanliness, biodiversity preservation, and other indicators.
Surprisingly, Spain, which significantly lagged behind economically developed European countries in the 1990s, now ranks second, only surpassed by Switzerland, Luxembourg, Australia, Singapore, the Czech Republic, and Germany.
Spain has outperformed more than 170 countries in terms of its comprehensive environmental efforts.
The country continually adopts an increasing number of laws and regulations to protect rare tree and animal species and improve the environmental situation in large industrial cities.
It is worth noting that before the adoption of the Spanish Constitution in 1978, there was no mention of environmental protection. The constitution’s Article 45 was the first reference to environmental concerns.
It not only granted Spaniards the right to utilize the country’s natural resources but also established administrative and criminal liabilities for severe violations of established environmental regulations.
Spain currently has approximately twenty national-level laws dedicated to environmental protection.
The most significant among them is Law 21/2013 of December 9, which mandates autonomous communities and provinces to take appropriate measures, adopt strategic plans, and implement programs at national and local levels.
The country’s biodiversity is safeguarded by Law 33/2015 of September 21, while a Royal Decree enacted twenty years earlier establishes measures to preserve the natural habitats of wild flora and fauna.
These measures include protecting nature reserves, where activities such as hunting, fishing, commercial deforestation, and other environmentally harmful actions are prohibited under Law 30/2014 of December 3.
Invasive species of flora and fauna pose a considerable threat to Spain’s natural resources, and their regulation is addressed by Royal Decree 630/2013 of August 2.
Additional decrees and laws focus on coastal cleanliness, protection of indigenous marine life, conservation of plant and animal diversity in mountain ranges (Law 21/2015 of July 20), and the fight against forest fires (Law 11/2005), which remains one of the most pressing issues in Spanish society.
In recent times, significant attention has been given to the problem of air pollution, particularly in Barcelona and Madrid.
Previously, the Asturian port city of Aviles was among the worst three cities, but local authorities invested resources and efforts to purify the air, successfully resolving the issue within a few years.
The autonomy granted to autonomous communities by Law 34/2007 of November 15 allows Spaniards to progress in an environmental direction.
The Balearic Islands have recently taken advantage of this autonomy by planning to outlaw diesel-powered cars that significantly contribute to air pollution by 2025.
Gasoline-powered vehicles will follow, with the ultimate goal of allowing only electric vehicles on Balearic roads by 2050.
Spain is considered one of the European countries most susceptible to global climate change and the greenhouse effect.
Hence, Law 1/205 of March 9 was adopted to limit gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol established in 1997.
Many Spanish cities encourage residents to use public transportation or switch to bicycles, with bicycle rental agencies available in major cities.
Recycling plastic waste, which is challenging to recycle, is a major concern for the Spanish public.
The Spanish authorities have been addressing this issue since 1997, but concrete actions such as banning plastic bags and bottles in shops and supermarkets have only been implemented in recent years.
The Balearic Islands, once again leading the way, have banned the sale of non-recyclable coffee capsules, significantly impacting well-known companies.
The fight against “acoustic pollution” is also a significant aspect addressed in the Noise Law (Ley de ruido), which sets decibel limits during different times of the day, primarily focusing on nighttime in tourist areas where residents suffer from excessive noise disturbances.
For example, in Castellón, late-night noisy revelers are dealt with by banning the sale and consumption of alcohol on open terraces in the city center after midnight.
Violators of the regulations risk legal consequences, including imprisonment, fines up to €300,000, or other penalties. When authorities are inactive, the will of the people takes precedence.
For instance, a dissatisfied resident of Denia, unhappy with loud music from a restaurant, resorted to installing coffins, gravestones, and funeral-related items on the terrace of their house opposite the establishment.
This visual influence was aimed at impacting the restaurant owners. Whether the owners are still in operation is unknown, but such “psychological impact” on violators of accepted behavioral norms is not illegal.
In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”
The Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.
Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
Before the Belarus deal was announced, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”
Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.
A Russian-held bridge that connects southern Ukraine to the annexed Crimean peninsula has been badly damaged and is “unusable” at present, a Moscow-installed official said on Friday, AFP reports.
The United States slapped sanctions on Friday on two Russian intelligence officers who attempted to interfere in a local American election as part of Moscow’s “global malign influence operations,” the Treasury Department told Reuters.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said there will be “personnel changes” after a bomb shelter investigation into the deaths of three people who were locked out during a missile strike.
Russia said on Friday it was barring entry to more European officials in response to the EU’s decision to impose new sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, AFP reports.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has confirmed for the first time that the main force of his offensive reserve is yet to be committed into battle with Russia, saying: “Everything is still ahead.”
Wagner group head Yevgeny Prigozhin on Friday questioned Russia’s justifications for invading Ukraine, criticising the country’s military top brass for “deceiving” Russian society.
At least two people were killed and several taken to hospital in a Russian attack on the Kherson region, the governor has said. Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that a municipal transport company had been hit in the attack, reports Reuters.
The EU has agreed an 11th round of sanctions against Russia including export bans on third countries helping the Kremlin circumvent existing crackdowns.
Ukraine’s armed forces have stopped a Russian offensive in the east of the country towards the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman, a senior defence official has claimed.
Russia has almost doubled its floating mammal pens in Sevastopol, according to British defence officials, and they are “highly likely” to contain trained bottlenose dolphins.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 13 Russian cruise missiles heading towards a military airfield in the western Khmelnitskyi region early on Friday, the Ukrainian air force said.
The chief of mercenary group Wagner has reportedly accused Moscow’s top brass of deceiving Russians about the course of Ukraine’s offensive and pointed to Kyiv’s progress on the battlefield.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, accused opponents of waging a campaign to discredit him and force him out of office on Wednesday after a rift with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Reuters reported.
EU governments agreed to an 11th package of sanctions against Russia, aimed at stopping other countries and companies from circumventing existing measures.
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said all Nato allies are backing a plan to give Ukraine a fast track to Nato membership of the kind offered to Sweden and Finland earlier this year.
Vladimir Putin announced that new Sarmat nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles would soon enter service. The missiles are designed to carry out nuclear strikes on targets thousands of missiles away but their deployment has proceeded slower than planned. He reportedly said Moscow had seen a “lull” in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and that Kyiv had suffered heavy losses in attacks in the south.
Russia’s top investigator reportedly claimed that over 30 Ukrainians had been given long jail terms in Russian-held Ukraine for committing what he described as serious crimes such as killing civilians.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy accepted in a BBC interview that progress in the country’s current counteroffensive against Russian forces had been “slower than desired”. Zelenskiy told the Ukraine Recovery conference that Ukraine had made the west, including the EU, more united than ever before and could become an engine for green world growth and security for decades.
Rishi Sunak outlined how Ukraine must be supported to fast-track recovery and support this “help Ukraine unleash its potential”. “It’s clear Russia must pay for the destruction that they’ve inflicted. So we’re working with allies to explore lawful routes to use Russian assets,” the prime minister said at the conference, held in London.
Russian air defences downed three drones in the Moscow region on Wednesday, the defence ministry said, in what it called an attempted Ukrainian attack, Reuters reported.
One person has been killed and seven injured while they were clearing mud in the flooded area of Kherson, Ukrainian officials have reported.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has unveiled an aid package for Ukraine worth €50bn (£43bn), Reuters reports. The sum comes after a review of the EU’s 2021-27 budget and before an international conference in London this week aimed at raising more funds to rebuild Ukraine from its war with Russia.
Ukraine claims to have shot down 32 of 35 “Shahad” drones launched in an overnight attack mostly directed at Kyiv. Suspilne reports that in Kyiv, non-residential structures and several private houses were damaged by debris, and agricultural property and equipment were damaged in Zaporizhzhia after Russia launched seven S-300 missiles at the Ukraine-controlled portion of the region.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said drones attacked the Kyiv region in several waves, with the air alert lasting for more than four hours. Several commercial and administrative buildings and some private houses were damaged, it said. The energy ministry said debris from falling drones damaged electricity lines in the Kyiv region and also in the Mykolaiv region in the south, cutting off electricity for hundreds of residents.
