Léonie Chao-Fong (now); Martin Belam and Samantha Lock (earlier) Thu 9 Jun 2022 16.10

Russia-Ukraine war latest: fierce fighting in Sievierodonetsk

• 11m ago today so far...
• 1h ago Britons were sentenced to death after a ‘show trial’ in Russian-occupied Ukraine
• 2h ago fight for every house and every street' – Ukrainian commander in Sievierodonetsk
• 5h ago today so far …
• 7h ago Sievierodonetsk situation 'difficult but manageable' – city mayor
• 7h ago Zelenskiy warns 'millions of people may starve' if Ukraine cannot export grain
• 7h agoPolish president criticizes phone calls from western leaders to PutinShow key events only from 1h ago15.04

Britons sentenced to death after ‘show trial’ in Russian-occupied Ukraine

Pro-Russian officials have sentenced to death two British men and a Moroccan national captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol, Russian state media has said.

A court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine convicted Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner after a days-long process that observers have called a “show trial” on “trumped-up charges” meant to imitate war crimes trials against Russian soldiers in Kyiv.

Aslin, 28, from Newark, and Pinner, 48, from Watford, were convicted by the court in Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk alongside Saaudun Brahim on charges of “terrorism”.

Both Britons have said they were serving in the Ukrainian marines, making them active-duty soldiers who should be protected by the Geneva conventions on prisoners of war. However, the Russian state media has portrayed the men as mercenaries, and the court has convicted them on the charge of “being a mercenary”.

On Wednesday, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti shared footage of the men pleading “guilty” to the charges against them, which also included terrorism, committing a crime as part of a criminal group, and forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power.

Russia is also believed to be using the process to put pressure on the UK and may seek a prisoner exchange for Russian soldiers convicted of murder and other war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, but not in the territory it occupies in eastern Ukraine.

In a statement earlier this week, Aslin’s family said he had served in the Ukrainian marines for nearly four years and “is not, contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, a volunteer, a mercenary, or a spy”.

The family also accused Russia of violating the Geneva conventions by releasing a video of Aslin “speaking under duress and having clearly suffered physical injuries”.

His MP Robert Jenrick told BBC Radio 4 that the trial was “a completely outrageous breach of international law and it should be condemned”.

“The Russian authorities have chosen to make an example out of these two British nationals and it is, I think, completely shameful.” He said he hoped that a prisoner exchange occurs “in the near future”.

• 5m ago16.10

The government has said it is “deeply concerned” about the two British soldiers who were captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were sentenced to death on charges of “terrorism” in a court in Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk.

No 10 said it was working with Ukrainian authorities to secure the release of the men.

“We are obviously deeply concerned by this. We have said continually that prisoners of war shouldn’t be exploited for political purposes,” a spokesperson said.

“You will know that under the Geneva Convention prisoners of war are entitled to combatant immunity and they should not be prosecuted for participation in hostilities.

“So we will continue to work with the Ukrainian authorities to try to secure the release of any British nationals who were serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and who are being held as prisoners of war.”

A third man, Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim, was convicted alongside Aslin and Pinner.

Russian state media have reported the three are set to face a firing squad.

Today so far...

It’s just past 6 pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Pro-Russian officials have sentenced to death two British men and a Moroccan national captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol, Russian state media has said. A court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine convicted Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner, and Saaudun Brahim after a days-long process that observers have called a “show trial” on “trumped-up charges” meant to imitate war crimes trials against Russian soldiers in Kyiv. A spokesperson for the UK prime minister said Britain is “deeply concerned” by the death sentences passed down to Aslin and Pinner.
• A Ukrainian commander has said that the battle in the key eastern frontline city of Sievierodonetsk is being fought house to house. Petro Kuzyk, commander of the Svoboda national guard battalion, said street fighting in the city in eastern Ukraine was taking place under heavy Russian artillery barrages that endangered troops on both sides. Earlier today, the mayor of Sievierodonetsk, Oleksandr Stryuk, described the situation as “difficult but manageable”.
• Serhiy Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, said if the west could supply long-range weapons, Ukrainian forces would be able to “clean up Sievierodonetsk in two or three days”. Haidai’s remarks on Telegram came after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the battle for the eastern city will decide the fate of Donbas and is seeing probably the most difficult fighting since Russia’s invasion began.
• The Ukrainian defense ministry has claimed that its forces have won back some territory from Russian forces in a counter-offensive in the Kherson area of southern Ukraine. It said Russian forces had “suffered losses in manpower and equipment”, mined territory as they were pushed back, and erected barricades for the Ukrainian troops. The claims have not been independently verified.
  
• The Kremlin said no agreement has been reached with Turkey on exporting Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea. Turkey has been pushing for an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to ease the global food crisis by negotiating safe passage for grain stuck in Black Sea ports, but its efforts have been met with resistance. Ukraine says Russia is imposing unreasonable conditions and the Kremlin says shipment is dependent on ending sanctions.
  
• Nearly 5 million Ukrainians have been registered across Europe since the beginning of the war, according to figures by the UN’s refugee agency. Far more will have actually left the country, with UNHCR data showing that more than 7.3m border crossings out of Ukraine had been recorded by 7 June. Another 2.3m crossings had been registered back into the country. The war in Ukraine has “caused one of the largest human displacement crises in the world”, UNHCR said.
• Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said the rising cost of living in the UK should not be a reason to abandon support for Ukraine. Some people will argue that the price of supporting Ukraine is too high, he said during a speech in Blackpool, but abandoning Ukraine would be “morally repugnant” and would encourage Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.
• 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.
• 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 about 1.6 billion 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.

Good afternoon from London, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still with you as we unpack all the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.

• 50m ago15.25

Our Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, has more on the news that pro-Russian officials have sentenced to death two British men, Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and a Moroccan national, Saaudun Brahim, captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol.

The men were convicted of “mercenary activities and actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR”, according to the puppet government established by Russia in east Ukraine, Roth writes.

Both Britons have said they were serving in the Ukrainian marines but they were convicted on the charge of “being a mercenary”. Roth reports that Aslin was actually photographed taking his oath to join the Ukrainian army.

Russia is believed to be using the process to put pressure on the UK and may seek a prisoner exchange for Russian soldiers convicted of murder and other war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, but not in the territory it occupies in eastern Ukraine.

• 1h ago15.04

Britons sentenced to death after ‘show trial’ in Russian-occupied Ukraine

Pro-Russian officials have sentenced to death two British men and a Moroccan national captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol, Russian state media has said.

A court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine convicted Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner after a days-long process that observers have called a “show trial” on “trumped-up charges” meant to imitate war crimes trials against Russian soldiers in Kyiv.

Aslin, 28, from Newark, and Pinner, 48, from Watford, were convicted by the court in Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk alongside Saaudun Brahim on charges of “terrorism”.

Both Britons have said they were serving in the Ukrainian marines, making them active-duty soldiers who should be protected by the Geneva conventions on prisoners of war. However, the Russian state media has portrayed the men as mercenaries, and the court has convicted them on the charge of “being a mercenary”.

On Wednesday, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti shared footage of the men pleading “guilty” to the charges against them, which also included terrorism, committing a crime as part of a criminal group, and forcible seizure of power or forcible retention of power.

Russia is also believed to be using the process to put pressure on the UK and may seek a prisoner exchange for Russian soldiers convicted of murder and other war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, but not in the territory it occupies in eastern Ukraine.

In a statement earlier this week, Aslin’s family said he had served in the Ukrainian marines for nearly four years and “is not, contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, a volunteer, a mercenary, or a spy”.

The family also accused Russia of violating the Geneva conventions by releasing a video of Aslin “speaking under duress and having clearly suffered physical injuries”.

His MP Robert Jenrick told BBC Radio 4 that the trial was “a completely outrageous breach of international law and it should be condemned”.

“The Russian authorities have chosen to make an example out of these two British nationals and it is, I think, completely shameful.” He said he hoped that a prisoner exchange occurs “in the near future”.

• 1h ago14.56

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has again promised his people victory in the conflict. Zelensky has said that the battle for the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk will decide the fate of Donbas but has just posted to Telegram a series of images of Ukrainian forces in action with the message:

The war continues. But we withstood a powerful blow. We defend our territory. And we are moving towards one of the greatest military successes in Europe. We will win this war.

• 2h ago14.30

'We fight for every house and every street' – Ukrainian commander in Sievierodonetsk

A Ukrainian commander has said that the battle in Sievierodonetsk is being fought house to house.

Petro Kuzyk, commander of the Svoboda national guard battalion, said street fighting in the city in eastern Ukraine was taking place under heavy Russian artillery barrages that endangered troops on both sides.

Reuters reports he told Ukraine’s national television “We fight for every house and every street. Yesterday was successful for us. We went on a counterattack and in some areas, we managed to push them back by one or two blocks. In others, we pushed them back literally by one or two houses.”

He said Ukrainian fighters had gone from “blind defense to small counter-offensives in some areas, in the hope that Russian forces would reduce the intensity of their artillery fire.

“When we imposed street fighting on them, it worked for some time - they did not know where they were and where we were. But now they are simply covering both their own troops and our units with artillery fire,” he said.

Kuzyk appeared to rule out the retreat of Ukrainian forces, saying “There is an order to hold positions and we hold them.”

Earlier today, the mayor of Sievierodonetsk Oleksandr Stryuk described the situation as “difficult but manageable”.

There are claims and counterclaims about the situation on the ground in Sievierodonetsk, none of which have been independently verified due to the intensity of the fighting.

• 2h ago13.57

Volodymyr Zelensky has compared Russia’s invasion to Covid and described weapons and sanctions as a vaccine, as Ukraine’s military position in Donbas worsens.

The Ukrainian president, speaking via video link at a gala to celebrate Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year, lobbied again for more outside help because “the Ukrainian military are dying on the battlefield”.

He asked rhetorically whether the US president, Joe Biden, and members of Congress were using “all the capacity of our influence and our leadership” and called on them to be “100% influential”.

“Weapons and sanctions are … a vaccine … against Covid-22 brought by Russia,” Zelensky said, hours after he warned that the fight for Sievierodonetsk could decide “the fate” of the entire Donbas – the name given collectively to the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the country’s east.

Ukraine’s military is holding on to the industrial areas of the frontline city of Sievierodonetsk, as Russia concentrates airstrikes, artillery, and mortar fire on taking control of the city.

At times Russian artillery has outnumbered the defenders by 10 to one, according to Ukraine’s military, and about a third of its total forces are concentrated around the city, where about 10,000 civilians remain, many of them elderly.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the local region of Luhansk, said on Thursday morning that “silence in Sievierodonetsk lasts only when guns are reloaded” and that “street fights continue in the regional center” as Ukraine’s forces hang on.

Read Dan Sabbagh’s full story: Zelenskiy: Russian invasion of Ukraine is ‘Covid-22’ and weapons are vaccineZelenskiy: Russian invasion of Ukraine is ‘Covid-22’ and weapons are vaccine

• 3h ago13.31

Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said the rising cost of living in the UK should not be a reason to abandon support for Ukraine.

At a speech in Blackpool, Johnson said even though the war has driven up prices, abandoning Ukraine would be “morally repugnant”.

He said six months ago there were grounds for thinking that the laws of supply and demand would kick in, and address the problems caused by the post-pandemic surge in demand. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed that, he said.

Johnson said:

Markets have responded with a significant spike in prices, partly driven by sanctions, partly by the elevated risk premium, the inevitable increase in what businesses have to charge to compensate for raised global levels of uncertainty.

The price of oil and gas looks likely to remain high for a while to come, and the same goes for grain and feed and fertiliser.

Some people will argue that the price of supporting Ukraine is too high, he said, but abandoning Ukraine would be “morally repugnant” and it would encourage Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.

[Putin] would be able to continue to twist the knife in the wound, the crocodile would simply come back for more and he would be able to claim that his aggression and his violence had paid off.

That would be a disaster for Ukraine and all the other parts of the former Soviet Union that he might attack.

• 3h ago13.11

Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Time100 Gala event on Wednesday, warning that the world was on the brink of a “terrible food crisis”.

The Ukrainian president claimed Russia was blocking Black Sea ports and that “millions could starve” as a result. The blockade had caused global panic with Ukraine unable to export vital wheat, corn, and oil, Zelenskiy added.

• 3h ago12.49

Russian soldiers who occupied a Ukrainian village north of Kyiv shortly after the invasion reportedly ransacked a school and left propaganda messages for its pupils urging them to “live in peace” and not “repeat the mistakes your elders made”.

When Ukrainian forces regained control of Katyuzhanka, a village north of Kyiv that had been under Russian occupation for more than a month in March, they found the local school wrecked. All of the equipment had either been stolen or smashed, and there was a makeshift cemetery in the schoolyard.

Inside the destroyed classrooms, Ukrainian soldiers found messages written on blackboards addressed to the pupils and signed “the Russians”, CNN reports.

One message, written in Russian, read:

Children, we’re sorry for such a mess, we tried to save the school, but there was shelling. Live in peace, take care of yourselves and don’t repeat the mistakes your elders made. Ukraine and Russia are one people!!! Peace be with you, brothers and sisters!

Other notes left around the building included one that said: “We are for the peace in the whole world.” CNN was not able to independently verify who wrote the messages.

The school principal, Mikola Mikitchik, told the news channel that he felt disgusted when he found the notes.

He said:

They wrote ‘Russians and Ukrainians are brothers’ and at the same time they robbed the school ... they ruined computers, they took out hard drives, they took away laptops, printers, they left nothing at the school! It’s barbarism and hypocrisy.

In April, the Guardian’s Shaun Walker visited a school in the village of Staryi Bykiv, east of Kyiv, where occupying Russian soldiers had also looted classrooms and left messages on the blackboards.

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WHO and WHAT is behind it all? : >

The bottom line is for the people to regain their original, moral principles, which have intentionally been watered out over the past generations by our press, TV, and other media owned by the Illuminati/Bilderberger Group, corrupting our morals by making misbehavior acceptable to our society. Only in this way shall we conquer this oncoming wave of evil.

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