April 25, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

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Rescuers are seen at the site of a museum heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Kupyansk, Ukraine on Tuesday, April 25.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in the spotlight again Tuesday when he?avoided directly answering a question about a possible prisoner swap for detained Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich. Lavrov instead mentioned several Russian nationals who are currently being held in US prisons.

Meanwhile, Russia is focusing its forces on its assault of the eastern city of Bakhmut, the Ukraine military said. All of this while at least two people were killed and almost a dozen were injured during a Russian strike on Kupyansk, a town about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of the concentrated fighting in Bakhmut.

Here are the top headlines you need to know:

Ukrainian Defense Intelligence has released video appearing to show a drone strike against a Russian surveillance complex on the east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.

One of its units posted on Telegram that the target was destroyed at the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant at a distance of more than 6 kilometers (approximately 4 miles,) and eliminated a Russian surveillance station.

The video is dated April 24, but CNN cannot confirm when the operation took place.

The video shows an operator watching surveillance video, purportedly from another drone. Smoke emerges from the upper story of a building, which CNN has geolocated as on the Russian-held side of the Dnipro River at the power plant.

The same unit posted video of road conditions, showing vehicles struggling to gain traction in seas of mud, with the commentary: “As you can see, the weather conditions do not yet allow equipment and the military to work at full capacity. Therefore, there will be a counteroffensive, but it takes time and conditions. Be patient.”

Zelensky gives his nightly address on Tuesday, April 25.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “more than 60 museums and galleries in different regions of our country have also been destroyed or damaged by the occupiers” since the invasion began.

He said two women were killed in a Russian attack using S-300 missiles on the Kupyansk museum in the Kharkiv region. The town is about 10 kilometers from the front lines.

He also said that a church was destroyed by a Russian strike in the southern Kherson region. “This church became one of hundreds of churches and prayer houses destroyed by Russian strikes,” he said.

Zelensky alleged that Russian forces had broken into the house of a Tatar activist, Abduresheet Dzhepparov, in Crimea. “He is one of the representatives of the Crimean Tatar national movement, a human rights activist, a citizen of Ukraine. It is unknown where he is now, what is happening to him.”

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov answers questions from the press on Tuesday, April 25.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov avoided directly answering a question about a possible prisoner swap for Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, instead mentioning several Russian nationals who are currently being held in US prisons.

“We have approximately 60 people who are serving sentences here. And in most cases, the accusations are dubious,” Lavrov said.?

“They didn’t deign to comply with the requirements of the bilateral consular convention, under which if they have any suspicions about Russian citizens, then they need to be not abducted like it’s done in Hollywood films, but they need to turn to the Russian Federation and they need to lay out their concerns,” Lavrov said.

Some background on the two cases: Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich was arrested in March and faces up to 20 years in prison on espionage charges, which the newspaper vehemently denies. Whelan, a former Marine who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen, was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation. He was convicted and sentenced in June 2020 to 16 years in prison.

The US State Department has designated both Gershkovich and Whelan as wrongfully detained, which Lavrov again said that Russia rejected.

Lavrov added he believes those cases should be dealt with privately.?

“The channel for the discussion of these matters exists. This is work that is not public in nature, and publicity here will only complicate the process for reasons which are understandable and there’s no need to tell you professionals about why,” Lavrov said.?

Lavrov is in New York for the meeting of the UN Security Council, as Russia currently holds the rotating presidency of the council.

Russia may end its self-declared moratorium on the deployment of its ground-based intermediate and shorter-range missiles, according to Vladimir Ermakov, the Russian foreign ministry’s head of nuclear nonproliferation.

Ermakov told state-owned media agency TASS in an interview on Tuesday that Russia will only continue to adhere to its moratorium depending on the range of US missiles deployed, their characteristics and their ability to reach the Asia-Pacific region.

“But even now we can say with confidence that the destabilizing military programs of the United States and its allies are making our moratorium more and more fragile, both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe,” he said.?

Some background: The United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia in 2019.

The agreement, signed in 1987 by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, limited both nations from fielding both “short range”?and “intermediate range”?land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and missile launchers that could be used to carry either nuclear or conventional payloads.

Then-US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the 2019 withdrawal was “a direct result of Russia’s sustained and repeated violations of the treaty over many years and multiple presidential administrations.”

As a result of the US decision, Russia also announced its withdrawal from the accord.

But Russia claimed it would continue a moratorium on the deployment of such weapons. At the time, Russian deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed Russia’s offer of a moratorium as “not credible,” because he said Russia had been deploying such missiles for years.?

Remember: In February, Russian President?Vladimir Putin?said he was suspending his country’s participation in the New START?nuclear arms?reduction treaty, which put limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia could have.

Ukrainian officials are reporting that evacuation measures are being implemented in some Russian-controlled towns in occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the Ukrainian-controlled Nikopol district military administration, said that according to residents on the opposite side of the Dnipro River — which is held by Russia — evacuation buses have begun arriving.

He said in a Telegram post that one young family had tried to sign up for evacuation from the settlement of Kamianka-Dniprovska, “but the administration refused.”

He shared a purported exchange of messages between the family and the Russian-backed administration, in which the family was told: “Unfortunately, the seats for these buses are already reserved per the administration’s decision. There is no registration available at this time.”?

The town is close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“People are afraid that before leaving, the Russians will organize a provocation with mass casualties to blame Ukraine for everything,” Yevtushenko said.

Ukrainian officials said last week that the Russian-backed authorities in nearby Enerhodar were planning to arrange the evacuation of children from the town early in May.

There is continuing speculation that this part of Zaporizhzhia may be the target of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks.

For the next six games, and maybe beyond, Associa??o Atlética Batel is changing its name to FC Mariupol, adopting the orange shirts of the Ukrainian side as well as its crest and logo.

A little part of Ukraine is reborn in southern Brazil.

Just over a year ago, the football club FC Mariupol disappeared, as the city it represented was pummeled by Russian artillery and bombers.

On March 19, 2022, the team was due to welcome FC Kollos to the Volodymyr Boyko Stadium for a match in the Ukrainian Premier League. But by then its training center had been bombed; the club’s campus had become a Russian barracks.

When the Ukrainian professional league resumed, FC Mariupol was missing from the schedule, its squad disbanded and its 12,000-capacity stadium deserted.

But hope was not abandoned.

The club’s Vice President, Andriy Sanin, told CNN Tuesday: “When we don’t play, people forget about us. And this was very disturbing for us. We started looking for ideas how to make people to keep talking about us.”

One idea was half a world away.

The province, or region, was Prudentópolis in southern Brazil, where a large number of inhabitants are of Ukrainian descent. The town of Guarapuava boasts the largest Ukrainian community in South America. 75% of its 52,000 inhabitants claim Ukrainian descent.

And the football club? Associa??o Atlética Batel.

It’s not exactly a powerhouse of Brazilian football, as the team plays in the third division of the state league in Paraná. But Batel suddenly has an international following. For the next six games, and maybe beyond, it’s changing its name to FC Mariupol, adopting the orange shirts of the Ukrainian side as well as its crest and logo.

To Sanin, “This gives hope that if the club has not died, the city will not die either, and it will be revived.”

“Ukrainian Mariupol will be revived just like the Ukrainian football club Mariupol,” he told CNN.

In Brazil, Batel’s club president, Alex Lopes, said: “Our club and our region have a lot in common with the Ukrainian people. Our goal is to help keep FC Mariupol, which was the pride of the city, alive until they can really get back into business.”

On the newly created website FCMariupolLives, Batel commented: ”Ukraine has always opened the gates of Europe to Brazilians. Now, it’s time for Brazil to welcome the Ukrainians and keep FC Mariupol alive.”

Sanin says it’s impossible to express how much Batel’s gesture means to the Ukrainian club. He confessed that a video created in Prudentópolis to embrace FC Mariupol reduced him to tears.

The website created by the club says: “We will take care of FC Mariupol until all the Ukrainian can go to Volodymyr Boyko stadium again to watch their home team play.”

The feeling is mutual. Sanin told CNN: “I really hope that later, after the war, we will definitely meet with the guys from the Brazilian club. We will invite them to Mariupol, to the Sea of Azov.”

Sanin, like millions of Ukrainians, is awaiting the much-heralded launch of a Ukrainian counter-offensive. And he’s optimistic that the Volodymyr Boyko stadium will soon see the orange shirts in action again.

Ukrainian soldiers of the 80th brigade fire artillery in the direction of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on April 24.

The Ukrainian military said Moscow is concentrating its forces on the assault in the battered eastern city of Bakhmut — and consequently reducing offensive operations in some other areas.

Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the eastern grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television that the situation in Bakhmut “changes from time to time, and there is a positional war going on.”

In Bakhmut over the past day, he said, the Russians “attacked our positions 23 times, fired 280 times with various types of artillery, and carried out four air raids. There were 85 attacks and 20 firefights in the Bakhmut area alone. One-hundred-and-seventy-five occupiers were killed in action, 213 were wounded.”

Cherevatyi’s figures cannot be independently verified.

He said that Wagner fighters were no longer carrying out independent missions in Bakhmut.

“Both airborne units of the occupying army and special forces are increasingly being used. Therefore, we realize that the enemy’s losses are very significant,” he said.

Cherevatyi said that Ukrainian artillery was constantly engaged in protecting supply routes into Bakhmut, while engineers were doing all they could “to ensure that there are several routes of communication.”?

Unofficial pro-Russian Telegram channels claim that the Ukrainians are continuing to retreat from parts of Bakhmut and have destroyed the communications tower on the western side of Bakhmut.

CNN is unable to verify the claims.

A total of six Ukrainian High Mobility Artillery Rocket System rockets were fired at the southern town of Tokmak on Tuesday, according to a senior Russian-appointed official in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the military-civilian administration, said that four of the rockets were shot down by Russian air defenses, and two landed in the north of the city.

“According to preliminary reports, one civilian was killed and four others received injuries of varying degrees of severity,” he said on Telegram.

Why the town is important: Tokmak, which is about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northeast of Melitopol, has become a hub for Russian forces in Zaporizhzhia. It’s where a counteroffensive from Ukraine is largely expected — due to its strategic location between Crimea, the Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine and the Russian mainland.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said last week that a counteroffensive would not be announced.

Elsewhere in the region, Russia has also been trying to hit what it thinks are Ukrainian targets. The town of Orikhiv, about 40 miles southeast of Zaporizhzhia, has seen the repeated bombardment of anything that might resemble a military hub: a sports school, a farming warehouse, and empty buildings.

Children from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian district of Vasylivka have been sent to a so-called “recreation camp” in Belarus, according to the Russian-installed civil-military administration.

The Ukrainian government estimates nearly 20,000 children have been illegally deported to Russia, Belarus or forcibly relocated to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Officials also claim 470 children have died, while 949 children have been wounded and 406 are currently missing.

The Russian-installed Vasylivka civil-military administration said, “the recreation program for children, of course, is free and is supported personally by Lukashenko and Putin.”

?“The first batch of 43 children from 8 to 15 years old will stay at the children’s health camp from April 24 till May 10, and the next visit is planned from May 14,” they said.

A report released in February?detailed allegations?of an expansive network of dozens of camps where kids underwent “political reeducation,” including Russia-centric academic, cultural and, in some cases, military education.

Remember: Allegations of forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia form the basis of?war crimes charges?brought against Putin and a senior official, Maria Lvova-Belova, by the International Criminal Court last month.

CNN has reached out to the office of Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, on this incident, but has yet to hear back.

Ukrainian officials have previously referred to such camps as part of Moscow’s efforts to forcibly deport children from Ukraine.

Rescuers remove a body from the site of a Russian missile attack in Kupyansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on April 25.

Ukrainian authorities have discovered another body while clearing the rubble of a museum in the town of Kupyansk struck by a Russian missile on Tuesday, increasing the death toll to two.?

“Search operations and rubble removal have been completed,” it added.

Russian forces allegedly used an S-300 surface to surface missile to target Kupyansk, according to the Ukrainian President’s Chief of Staff, Andrii Yermak.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of doing “everything to destroy [Ukraine] completely,” as he commented on a Russian missile strike in Kupyansk.

“We have no right to forget about it for a single second,” Zelensky said. “We must bring [Russia] to justice both on the battlefield and with fair court sentences to the terrorists.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin attends a funeral ceremony at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia, on April 8.

The boss of Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has seemingly denied that his relationship with the Russian defense ministry has improved.

It comes after the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, suggested in a report that the relationship between the two parties had been “repaired,” with the view of getting Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt offensive operations in Ukraine.

“ISW has observed a sudden improvement in Prigozhin’s relations with the Russian MoD (Ministry of Defense) and the Kremlin since early April,” ISW said in its report on April 22.

“The Russian MoD, for example, began to directly acknowledge Wagner forces in its daily situational reports and provided Wagner with ammunition and mobilized personnel as reinforcements in early April 2023.”

But when asked about the report, Prigozhin called it “fake news.”

“There is a lot of fake news planted, and this is one of them,” he said in his official Telegram channel. I am not going to exchange ammunition for my guys even for friendship with the Lord God.”

Some background: Prigozhin has not shied away from publicly commenting on his differences with Russia’s leadership.?Prigozhin has been highly visible on the front lines in recent months and is quick to claim credit for Russian advances.

A Ukrainian military intelligence?report?obtained by CNN detailed the remorseless tactics used by Wagner. The report, dated December 2022, concluded that “the deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers do not matter to Russian society.”

In January, a former Wagner mercenary said the brutality he witnessed in Ukraine ultimately?pushed him to defect, in an exclusive CNN interview.

The prospects for extending the Black Sea grain deal, which is set to expire on May 18, are not favorable, the Kremlin says, claiming its concerns have yet to be addressed. Russia has signaled that it will not support a new deal unless obstacles to the export of its own food stuffs, as well as fertilizers, are removed.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military has claimed it is achieving “impressive results” against Russian forces on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson. Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Command, said Russian evacuations from the banks of the Dnipro are facilitating Ukrainian operations.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russian Foreign Minister and Security Council Acting President for the month of April Sergey Lavrov, center, speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on April 24, in New York City.

Moscow has said it intends to voice Russia’s position at the second day of the United Nations Security Council, where it is the current presiding member, despite “difficulties” it faces.?

In a briefing with journalists on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the challenges faced by the Russian delegation at the UN in New York, but said they will continue their effort.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who chaired a meeting on?international peace and security at the UN Security Council on Monday, met criticism from Western diplomats over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Some background: Russian diplomats have been largely cut off from various international conferences since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

However, the leadership of the Security Council, UN’s most powerful body, rotates alphabetically among its 15 member nations. Five countries – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – have permanent seats on the council. The remaining 10 members are elected for two-year terms by the UN General Assembly.

Russia assumed the presidency on April 1, an event that multiple diplomats described as an “April Fool’s joke.”

The last time Russia presided over the Security Council was February 2022, when it launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Rescuers and volunteers work at the site of a building of local museum heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, in the town of Kupyansk,?Kharkiv?region, Ukraine, on April 25.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of doing “everything to destroy [Ukraine] completely,” following a Russian missile strike in Kupyansk?in the Kharkiv region,?which left one person dead and 10 injured.

“So far, it is known about the dead employee of the museum and ten wounded. There are still people under the rubble,” Zelensky tweeted Tuesday.

“We have no right to forget about it for a single second,” Zelensky said. “We must bring [Russia] to justice both on the battlefield and with fair court sentences to the terrorists.”

Russian forces allegedly used an S-300 surface to surface missile to target Kupyansk, according to the Ukrainian President’s Chief of Staff, Andrii Yermak.

Earlier Oleh Syniehubov,?head of the Kharkiv regional military administration,?said on Telegram that it was the Local History Museum that was hit.

The prospects for extending the Black Sea grain deal are not favorable, the Kremlin says, claiming its concerns have yet to be addressed.

Russia has signaled that it will not support a new deal unless obstacles to the export of its own food stuffs, as well as fertilizers, are removed.

Peskov rejected the suggestion that Moscow is to blame for the current global food crisis.

“The loss of Ukrainian grain and Russian grain may be one of the factors, but not the decisive one,” he said.

The current grain deal, which permits the safe export of Ukrainian grain through the countries’ Black Sea ports, was renewed for 60 days in March and is set to expire on May 18.

Key background: A Black Sea grain deal has enabled the passage of Ukrainian ships carrying the agriculture products to depart the country, which was a challenge in the early days of the war with Russia preventing the ships from leaving.

Turkey, alongside the United Nations, helped broker the deal in July. The agreement established a procedure that guaranteed the safety of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, fertilizer and other foodstuffs through a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea.

Under the deal, all vessels coming to and from Ukraine’s ports were inspected and monitored by international teams made up of officials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN.

Ukraine’s military has claimed it is achieving “impressive results” against Russian forces on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.

“Over the past three days, we have quite impressive results of our combat work,” the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Command said in a national broadcast Tuesday.

Humeniuk hinted that further developments would be expected in the near future. She went on to say Russian evacuations from the banks of the Dnipro were also facilitating Ukrainian operations.

“Therefore, it is safer for us to carry out our work at combat positions where they are no longer hiding behind the locals.”

Some background: Speaking to CNN earlier this week, Yurii Sobolevskyi, first deputy head of Ukraine’s Kherson regional council, said about 30% of the pre-war population remains in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region.

“It is very difficult to calculate because we have no access to data on the number of active subscribers from mobile operators and other means,” he said.

In the interview, Sobolevskyi claimed that for the past two weeks the Russians had been trying to coerce civilians in towns on the river to leave their homes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sign a Ukrainian flag after their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 2.

The European Commission is providing an additional 1.5 billion euros ($1.65 billion) in funding to Ukraine, President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.

“Today we are providing another €1.5 billion to Ukraine under our annual macro-financial assistance package,” she tweeted.

“We will continue helping Ukraine resist Russia’s aggression, keep its institutions and infrastructure running, and conduct crucial reforms,” von der Leyen also said.

Key background: The Russia-Ukraine war marks the first time the European Union has supplied lethal weapons to a third country, underscoring the extent of the threat it believes Moscow poses to its security. Ukraine’s other key backers are the United States and the United Kingdom.

In early February, the bloc announced that it would inject another 545 million euros ($575 million) into its 3.6 billion euros ($3.8 billion) military assistance fund for Ukraine.

According to its website, military assistance measures taken by the EU stand at around 13 billion euros, of which 4.6 billion euros have been mobilized under the European Peace Facility.

Ukrainian forces have struck the front line town of Tokmak in southern Ukraine, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) north-east of Melitopol, officials for both Ukraine and Russia have confirmed.

Rogov claimed Ukraine had struck a “peaceful” territory.???

“A gas station at the entrance to the city was seriously damaged, two private houses, a gas pipeline and power grid facilities were damaged,” he added, claiming two civilians had been injured.

On the Ukrainian side, the exiled mayor of Melitopol confirmed residents were reporting “loud” explosions in Tokmak.

Key background: The full US Army name of the HIMARS is the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Essentially it is a 5-ton truck carrying a pod that can launch six rockets almost simultaneously, sending their explosive warheads well beyond the battlefield’s front lines, and then quickly change positions to avoid a counterstrike.?

HIMARS fires munitions called the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) that have a range of 70 to 80 kilometers (about 50 miles). And their GPS guidance systems make them extremely accurate, within about 10 meters (33 feet) of their intended target.

Police officers work at a site of a local museum heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in the town of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region,?Ukraine, on April 25.

At least five people were injured by what Ukraine says was a Russian missile strike on a museum in Kupyansk, in the eastern Kharkiv region, officials said on Tuesday.?

Syniehubov said five civilians were injured and at least two more people are under the rubble, and added that Ukrainian emergency services were working on the scene.?

Russian forces allegedly used an S-300 surface-to-surface missile to target Kupyansk, according to the Ukrainian President’s chief of staff, Andrii Yermak.?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chairs a Security Council meeting on defending the principles of the UN Charter at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday, April 24.

If the Group of Seven nations decide to ban exports to Russia, Moscow officials have threatened to?terminate the Black Sea grain deal, viewed as critical to addressing the?world hunger crisis.

Such a ban could be part of the?ever-evolving set of sanctions?the allies have leveled against Moscow for its war in Ukraine.

Normally, Ukraine supplies about 45 million metric tons of grain to the global market every year and is the world’s top exporter of sunflower oil. Together with Russia, it accounted for about one-quarter of global wheat exports in 2019.

Here are the top headlines to know:

UN ambassadors condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine:?All 27 ambassadors of the European Union?made a joint statement condemning Russia’s actions?in Ukraine just ahead of Russia chairing Monday’s United Nations Security Council meeting. Russia holds the rotating presidency of that body this month. Also at the meeting,?Elizabeth Whelan, the sister of detained American Paul Whelan, demanded Russia free her brother. “Paul has not committed a crime, but a crime has been committed against him,” Whelan said at a UN stakeout, accompanied by the US, Irish and Canadian ambassadors to the UN.

Ukrainian officials detect shift in Russian focus:?Ukrainian officials say the Russian focus in the eastern?Donetsk?region has shifted slightly, but the city of Bakhmut and the ruined towns of Mariinka and Avdiivka remain the focus of Russian assaults. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that in the?Bakhmut sector, the Russians were using what she called the “Syrian tactics” of total destruction of buildings and facilities.

China and former Soviet countries:?China?respects the sovereign state status?of ex-Soviet Union countries, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Monday. Mao’s remarks come after the Chinese ambassador to France?Lu Shaye?sparked controversy?for saying during a TV interview that?former Soviet countries, including the Baltic states, don’t have “effective status in international law.” China has so far refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or call for a withdrawal of its troops, instead urging restraint by “all parties” and accusing NATO of fueling the conflict. It has also continued to deepen diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow.

The flow of ammunition to Ukraine needs to increase “in the coming days,” the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said Monday.

Borrell said there needed to be a “just peace” in the conflict, but, until then, the EU would continue to support the defense of Ukraine. So far, the EU had provided about $14 billion in military support, and the EU was continuing to deliver on its promise of 1 million rounds of ammunition, he said.

A second tranche of $1 billion for purchases of ammunition from EU states was being finalized, he said. “There has been some disagreement, but the work continues. We are not waiting for the legal document to be finished to start working.”

?He also said the EU was reaching out to outside countries to reinforce the effect of international sanctions against Russia.?

Ukrainian officials say the Russian focus in the eastern?Donetsk region has shifted slightly, but the city of Bakhmut and the ruined towns of Mariinka and Avdiivka remain the focus of Russian assaults.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Monday there had been 47 air strikes by Russian planes over the past day, and more than 30 ground assaults had been repelled.

Ukrainian forces continue to cling on to parts of the city of Bakhmut and the access route from the west. The General Staff said that “during the day, the enemy conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in the direction of Novomarkove and Khromove,” settlements to the northwest and west of the city.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that in the?Bakhmut sector, the Russians were using what she called the “Syrian tactics” of total destruction of buildings and facilities.

“At the same time, our defenders are carrying out active assault operations and preventing the enemy from taking control of the city,” Maliar said.

Maliar noted a decrease in Russian attacks in one area of the front line that has been very active for several months — near the Ukrainian-held town of Lyman.

“In the Lyman sector, the aggressor failed to break through our defenses and its activity has slightly decreased,” she said. “At the same time, the enemy is shelling our positions in this area and regrouping.”

The General Staff reported that, “The enemy did not conduct any offensive in the Lyman sector.”

Elsewhere, the same pattern of Russian artillery and mortar fire continued across the front line, with the town of Vuhledar coming under heavy bombardment.

In the south, according to the General Staff, Russian forces are carrying out “defensive actions at the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions,” but that includes heavy shelling of settlements close to the front lines. Maliar said that the Russians were doing their best “to maintain control over the occupied borders and prevent the advance of our troops” in the south.

An employee of the Romanian grain handling operator Comvex oversees the unloading of a shipment from the Ukraine in the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, on June 21, 2022.

If the Group of Seven nations ban exports to Russia, Moscow is threatening to?terminate the Black Sea grain deal, viewed as critical to addressing the?world hunger crisis.

Such a ban could be part of the?ever-evolving set of sanctions?the allies have leveled against Moscow for its war in Ukraine.

Ukraine normally supplies about 45 million metric tons of grain to the global market every year and is the world’s top exporter of sunflower oil. Together with Russia, it accounted for about one-quarter of global wheat exports in 2019.

On Sunday, Dmitry?Medvedev, the former Russian president and deputy chair of Russia’s security council, implied in a Telegram post that Moscow would answer a new G7 export ban by halting the flow of “goods that are the most sensitive for G7.”

Alliance response: The G7 called for the “extension, full implementation and expansion” of the Black Sea grain deal in a statement published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan on Sunday.?

Moscow has pulled out of the deal before:?Russia had suspended its participation in the UN-brokered agreement in October 2022 after?drone attacks on the Crimean city of Sevastopol, Ukraine.

Shipments have been stop and start during the deal, with each side accusing the other of sabotaging the operation at times.

Origins of the deal and impact: Turkey, alongside the United Nations, helped broker the deal in July 2022.?The agreement?established a procedure that guaranteed the safety of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, fertilizer and other foodstuffs through a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea.

Under the deal, all vessels coming to and from Ukraine’s ports were inspected and monitored by international teams made up of officials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN.

CNN’s Uliana Pavlova,?Sugam Pokharel,?Dennis Lapin, Ivana Kottasová and?Katharina Krebs contributed to this report.