Russian bombardment of Sievierodonetsk ‘pushes Ukrainian troops back to city’s outskirts’ – as it happened

Russian president Vladimir Putin said that domestically manufacturing goods to circumvent Western sanctions over Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine was not a cure-all solution, adding that Russia is now seeking out new trade partners.

“The substitution of imports is not a panacea,” Putin told a group of young entrepreneurs. The group expressed concerns over a lack of imported goods in their attempts to develop vaccines.

“We are not trying to completely replace imports,” Putin said, adding that Russia “must collaborate with those it is possible to collaborate with”.

“But for critically important technologies, we have to have our own know-how,” he said. “We are developing them.”

After Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine in February, Western countries have imposed harsh sanctions on Russia that include import and export restrictions which have debilitated supply chains.

Russia’s pharmaceutical industry is heavily dependent on imports. Authorities announced in April that they had built three factories in Moscow to produce medicines to ease the blow of the import ban.

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That’s all from me, Samantha Lock, for now. Please join me a little a later when we launch our new live blog covering all the latest developments from Ukraine.

Here is a comprehensive run-down of where things currently stand as of 3am.

• Ukrainian forces have been pushed back by a Russian bombardment in the frontline eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and now only control its outskirts. Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said most of the city was now in Russian hands and that it was no longer possible to rescue civilians stranded there.

• The battle for Sievierodonetsk - where the fate of Donbas is being decided - is probably the most difficult seen so far during the war, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. “Battle for Sievierodonetsk is probably one of the most difficult during this war, and in particular the fate of Donbas is being decided there,” he said in his latest national address on Wednesday night.

• A Russian-backed official in Ukraine’s partially occupied southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia said Russia has begun to send grain from occupied areas to Turkey and the Middle East through Crimea. A Russian official in Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, said the first train carrying grain had arrived from Melitopol, a city in Zaporizhzhia. The Kremlin also claimed shipments of grain will restart in the coming days from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port of Berdiansk after work to de-mine the area.

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow was willing to open corridors to allow grain exports from Ukraine, but that these efforts relied on the Ukrainian side to remove mines from their ports. Kyiv dismissed Lavrov’s remarks as “empty” words and said military equipment was required to protect the coastline and a navy mission to patrol the export routes in the Black Sea.

• A Ukrainian journalist confronted Lavrov about grain exports from Ukraine during a visit to Ankara, Turkey. “Apart from cereals, what other goods did you steal from Ukraine and who did you sell them to?” Muslim Umerov asked.

• The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake”. A new report by the UN said an estimated 94 countries, home to around 1.6bn people, are “severely exposed to at least one dimension of the crisis and unable to cope with it”.

• Russian-installed officials in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region reportedly plan to stage a referendum later this year on joining Russia. A Kremlin-backed official, Vladimir Rogov, was quoted by the Russian state-owned news agency Tass as saying: “The people will determine the future of the Zaporizhzhia region.” Ukraine says any referendums held under Russian occupation would be illegal and their results fraudulent.

• More than 1,000 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries, who had surrendered in Mariupol, have been transferred to Russia for an investigation there, Russian state-owned news agency Tass reports. More Ukrainian prisoners of war will be taken to Russia “later on”, a Russian law enforcement source told the outlet.

• Moscow’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, has left Russia after coming under pressure to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to a relative. Goldschmidt flew to Hungary to raise money for refugees in Eastern Europe after refusing to publicly support what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

• Two British men captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol face 20 years in prison, according to a video shared by Russian state media. Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, appeared in court in the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

• Britain’s economy will suffer more than any other major industrial country from the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The UK will grow by 3.6% in 2022 before posting zero growth in 2023, according to the Paris-based thinktank the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

• Ukraine has received the first billion dollars of the $40 billion aid package that the US Congress approved last month. In a tweet on Wednesday, US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A Brink said: “Supporting Ukraine means strengthening its economy. Direct support of $1 billion is already here to help Ukraine and its people move forward.”
  

• Zelenskiy said he met with American philanthropist Howard Buffet, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffet, in Kyiv to discuss rebuilding efforts. “We discussed assistance that would be valuable for our state. I offered him the chance to join projects restoring irrigation systems in the Odesa region, supporting our people, (and) mine clearance,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet.

• Russian authorities have further cracked down against citizens who speak out about the fighting in Ukraine. A Moscow court on Wednesday extended the detention of Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a journalist and former associate of assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, accusing him of spreading lies about the Russian military. Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, who has been accused of spreading misinformation about the Russian military, said a criminal case had been opened against him. Moscow’s chief rabbi was also confirmed to have fled the country.

Civilian evacuations continue across Ukraine as many flee in armoured cars and buses to safety.

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Western-supplied artillery systems are already making a difference on the ground for Ukraine and it is “just a question of time” before its forces win back significant ground in the south, the governor of the Mykolaiv region said on Wednesday.

Governor Vitaliy Kim, whose region is partially occupied by Russia but remains just one of two that retains significant access to the Black Sea, told Reuters that Ukrainian forces had “some success” in recent weeks in a counterattack in the neighbouring Kherson region.

Asked when western weapons would start to make a difference on the ground against Russian forces, he said: “It is already happening ... and we will have (more) success.”

“We are talking about artillery,” he said. “It is already working in our region.” He declined to say what specific western artillery systems were working there.

The battle for Sievierodonetsk - where the fate of Donbas is being decided - is probably the most difficult seen so far during the war, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.

Addressing the nation late on Wednesday evening, he said:

Sievierodonetsk remains the epicentre of the confrontation in Donbas. We defend our positions, inflict significant losses on the enemy.

[The] battle for Sievierodonetsk is probably one of the most difficult during this war, and in particular the fate of Donbas is being decided there.

This is a very fierce battle, very difficult. Probably one of the most difficult throughout this war.

I am grateful to everyone who defends this direction. In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there.”

Zelenskiy described Donetsk as a “ghost town that has lost most people, thousands of lives and absolutely all prospects”.

“Only the return of Ukraine, which will definitely happen, only our flag and only Ukrainian law will mean a normal life for these territories, for these cities - again. The life that was there. Peaceful, safe, open to the world,” he added.

• “Russia has been waging digital war against Ukrainian since 2014,” Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation George Dubinskiy said in an interview on Wednesday. Speaking to France 24, Dubinskiy said that in addition to defending its land borders, Ukraine is also defending its digital ones.
• The European Parliament has backed a resolution that calls for Ukraine to be a candidate for EU membership, Oleksandr Korniyenko, the first deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, tweeted on Thursday. “The majority of MEPs are together with the Ukrainian people!” he added.
• A British man fighting in Ukraine has been captured by pro-Russian separatists, an international legion backing the Kyiv government said on Wednesday. “It was announced in the Ukrainian press that the Russians had completed a criminal investigation against three foreigners whom they were preparing to put on trial and that they risked the death penalty,” Damien Magrou, spokesman for the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine (LIDU) told AFP.
• Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov tweeted on Wednesday that he has been placed on the country’s national and international wanted list. Soldatov is the editor-in-chief of Agentura.ru, a website that focuses on Russia’s secret services’ activities. He has been accused of spreading misinformation about the Russian military.
• Ukraine has received the first billion dollars of the $40 billion aid package that the US Congress approved last month. In a tweet on Wednesday, US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A Brink said, “Supporting Ukraine means strengthening its economy. Direct support of $1 billion is already here to help Ukraine and its people move forward...”
• Russian authorities kept up their crackdown against citizens who speak out about the fighting in Ukraine, extending a critic’s detention on Wednesday, confirming charges against two others and prompting Moscow’s chief rabbi to flee the country. In the latest development, a Moscow court on Wednesday extended the detention of Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a journalist and former associate of assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, accusing him of spreading lies about the Russian military.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that he has met with American philanthropist Howard Buffet, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffet, in Kyiv to discuss rebuilding efforts. “We discussed assistance that would be valuable for our state. I offered him the chance to join projects restoring irrigation systems in the Odesa region, supporting our people, (and) mine clearance,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet.

That’s it from me, Maya Yang, today as I hand the blog over to my colleague in Australia, Samantha Lock. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you.

“Russia has been waging digital war against Ukrainian since 2014,” Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation George Dubinskiy said in an interview on Wednesday.

Speaking to France 24, Dubinskiy said that in addition to defending its land borders, Ukraine is also defending its digital ones.

The European Parliament has backed a resolution that calls for Ukraine to be a candidate for EU membership, Oleksandr Korniyenko, the first deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, tweeted on Thursday.

A British man fighting in Ukraine has been captured by pro-Russian separatists, an international legion backing the Kyiv government said on Wednesday.

Agence-France Presse reports:

“It was announced in the Ukrainian press that the Russians had completed a criminal investigation against three foreigners whom they were preparing to put on trial and that they risked the death penalty,” Damien Magrou, spokesman for the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine (LIDU) told AFP.

“One of the three names mentioned in the article, Andrew Hill, is a legionnaire who has a contract with the Ukrainian army,” he added.

Magrou stressed that under the Geneva Convention Hill should be considered a prisoner of war, and treated as such.

According to the LIDU, Hill has been held “in captivity for some weeks” by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“Executing prisoners is a war crime,” it said.

The international legion had given the names of a Dutchman, an Australian, a German and a Frenchman, without specifying the date or circumstances of their death.

Russia claimed this week that it had killed “hundreds” of foreign fighters in Ukraine since the start of its invasion in February.

Ukraine has received the first billion dollars of the $40 billion aid package that the US Congress approved last month.

In a tweet on Wednesday, US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A Brink said, “Supporting Ukraine means strengthening its economy. Direct support of $1 billion is already here to help Ukraine and its people move forward...”

Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov tweeted on Wednesday that he has been placed on the country’s national and international wanted list.

Soldatov is the editor-in-chief of Agentura.ru, a website that focuses on Russia’s secret services’ activities. He has been accused of spreading misinformation about the Russian military.

According to Russia’s interior ministry, Soldatov “is wanted for violating an article of the Criminal Code.” The ministry’s website did not include additional dertails.