🔴 Live: Deadly Russian strike hits aid distribution point in Zaporizhzhia region, governor says

2:38pm: US decision to send cluster munitions splits Western allies

Is there such a thing as a “just war”? FRANCE 24’s Douglas Herbert unpacks the split within the West over the controversial decision by the US to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Herbert points out that 123 countries have signed on to a 15-year-old convention banning them.

“These aren’t just any weapons”, he says. “They are bombs that break into small ‘bomblets’, dispersed over a wide area of the battlefield, clearly in areas where civilians after the war will be walking around, and they tend to linger there and can explode years later.”

2:22pm: Ukraine says it captured key heights around Bakhmut

Kyiv said on Monday that Ukrainian troops had captured key heights around the eastern city of Bakhmut, as the Western-backed country pushes ahead with its counteroffensive.

“During the process of advancing, our troops took control of key commanding heights around Bakhmut,” Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on Telegram.

1:39pm: NATO to drop major hurdle for Ukrainian membership, but reforms still needed, source says

NATO is set to drop a major hurdle to Ukraine’s bid for membership in the alliance, a Western official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the allies “are set” to drop the Membership Action Plan requirement for Ukraine’s application.

“MAP is just one of the steps in the NATO accession process though so even with its removal, Ukraine will still need to complete further reforms before joining NATO,” the official said.

1:10pm: Putin met with Wagner chief days after failed mutiny

The Kremlin said Monday that President Vladimir Putin had met with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 29 in the Kremlin, days after the mercenary group attempted to topple Russia’s military leadership.

“The president gave his assessment of the events of June 24,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to the failed insurrection, adding that Putin also “listened to accounts given by (Wagner) commanders”.

During the three-and-a-half-hour meeting in the Kremlin with Wagner commanders, Putin offered Wagner fighter “alternative options for employment”, including in combat roles, Peskov said.

He added that Wagner commanders “stressed that they are staunch supporters … of the head of state” and that “they were ready to continue fighting for the motherland.”

On Thursday, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko – who acted as a mediator in the deal with Wagner – said neither Prigozhin nor his men were in his country.

1:08pm: Lithuania hit by cyberattacks on NATO summit eve

Lithuania’s government said the country was hit by a wave of cyberattacks on Monday, a day before NATO leaders are due to gather in the Baltic state’s capital Vilnius.

“As we speak, there are yet (more) distributed denial-of-service attacks on our country taking place,” Liudas Alisauskas, the head of National Cyber Security Centre, told reporters.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is designed to overwhelm the target with a flood of internet traffic, preventing the system from functioning normally. The attacks targeted the Vilnius municipality’s websites, including tourism information site and a public transport app.

The National Cyber Security Centre said it had also received a report on Sunday regarding two other cyber incidents, one of which involved the hacking of a regional radio station. The station’s broadcast was interrupted by disinformation targeting NATO and Ukraine.

Lithuania will host the NATO summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

11:35am: Ukraine says it has recaptured 14 square kilometres over the past week

Ukraine on Monday said its forces had recaptured 14 square kilometres from occupying Russian forces in the south and east of the country over the last week.

“Over 10 square kilometres of Ukrainian land had been recaptured in the south of Ukraine last week,” Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Kovalyov told state media. “In the Bakhmut sector last week, the Ukrainian military liberated four square kilometres of territory from the Russian invaders.”

Kyiv claims to have recaptured a total of 193 square kilometres since launching its counteroffensive a month ago.

11:32am: Poland says it has detained ‘another’ Russian spy

Poland has detained another member of a Russian spy network, bringing the total number of people rounded up in an ongoing investigation to 15, the interior minister said on Monday.

A hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, Poland says it has become a major target of Russian spies and it accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise it.

“The Internal Security Agency has detained another member of the spy network working for Russian intelligence,” Mariusz Kaminski said in a post on Twitter. “The suspect kept surveillance of military facilities and seaports. He was systematically paid by the Russians.”

Prosecutors said in a statement that the individual arrested was a Ukrainian citizen who had been in Poland since 2019. If found guilty, he could face up to 10 years in prison. The prosecutors also said further arrests linked to the investigation cannot be ruled out at this stage

8:12am: Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in Ukraine, data suggests

Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and Meduza worked with a data scientist from Germany’s Tubingen University using Russian government data to determine the human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

They relied on a statistical concept popularised during the Covid-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than in other years.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses.

8:01am: Several killed in Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia region

Four people died and 11 were injured in Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region when distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday.

Governor Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s. He added that Russia carried out 36 targeted strikes on 10 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Reuters could not independently verify the report. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the 500-day war that Russia has been waging against its neighbour.

7:58am: Russia’s top general Gerasimov appears in first video since mutiny

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has appeared in a video in which he is seen listening to a report about Ukrainian missile attacks. It is his first public appearance since the Wagner Group’s failed June 24 mutiny.

The video was made available by the Russian defence ministry which said the footage showed Gerasimov participating in a meeting on Sunday. In the video, the general is sitting in a military command room on a white leather seat, speaking to top generals and giving orders, including to the head of military intelligence (GRU).

5:30am: US, Ukraine’s top diplomats speak on phone ahead of NATO summit

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said late on Sunday they held a phone call to discuss this week’s NATO summit and Kyiv’s counteroffensive campaign to reclaim land taken by Russia.

The US State Department said in a statement that the two diplomats had discussed “progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive”.

Kuleba said on Twitter that the call was to work out details ahead of the NATO summit, which starts on Tuesday in Vilnius.

2:15am: Russia condemns US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

The White House has in effect confessed to committing war crimes by agreeing to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian embassy in the US said in comments published late on Sunday.

“We paid attention to (White House national security spokesperson John) Kirby’s statements about the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine. The official admitted de facto to committing war crimes by the United States in the Ukrainian conflict,” the embassy said on the Telegram messaging app.

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of already using cluster munitions in the 500-day war that Moscow has been waging against Kyiv. Ukraine promised last week the munitions that the US decided to ship to Kyiv will not be used in Russia.

1:45am: Ukrainian forces advance in south, hold ‘initiative,’ Zelensky says

Ukrainian troops pressed on with their campaign to recapture Russian-held areas in the southeast on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelensky said in broadcast comments that his country’s forces had “taken the initiative” after an earlier slowdown.

Russian accounts said heavy fighting gripped areas outside the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russian mercenary Wagner forces in May after months of battles.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said heavy fighting raged in two areas of the southeast.

“We are consolidating our gains in those areas,” she wrote.

1:29am: Ukrainian fencing team likely to miss Paris 2024 Olympics, says Kharlan

Ukraine athletes’ boycott over the presence of Russians and Belarusians at the fencing World Championships could cost the country valuable points and jeopardise its qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games, Ukrainian sabre fencer Olga Kharlan said.

Ukraine will not take part in the individual events at the World Championships starting on July 22 in Milan, just as they did at last month’s European Championships, after the International Fencing Federation (FIE) allowed Russia and Belarus fencers to compete as neutrals.

Four-time Olympic medallist Kharlan, a member of the Ukraine Fencing Federation Athletes’ Commission, said Russia and Belarus featuring in these tournaments will prevent Ukraine from qualifying for individual events at next year’s Games in Paris.

“Given all the bans, I can’t qualify for the Olympics in the individual competition. I need to earn points to get to the Games. I need to participate in all competitions,” Kharlan told Ukrainian news site Tribuna in an interview released on the weekend.

Key developments from Sunday, July 9:

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday said the country should not “block” the United States from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, while defending its opposition to the use of the controversial weapon. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced hope for the “best possible result” from an upcoming NATO summit where Kyiv is looking for a greenlight regarding its bid to join the alliance.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the leaders of the NATO defence alliance should discuss Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at the summit that starts on July 11.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)