🔴 Live: International office investigating Russian invasion of Ukraine opens in The Hague

12:01pm: Ukraine operation unaffected by mutiny, says Russian Defence Minister Shoigu 

The brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group last month did not affect Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.

In his first comments about the mutiny, Shoigu said that plans to destabilise Russia had failed because of troops’ loyalty.

11:12am: ‘Very fierce fighting’ ongoing as Ukraine counteroffensive meets Russian resistance

In Kyiv, FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze has the latest on Ukraine’s struggle to retake its Russian-occupied territories.

“We have to keep in mind just how difficult the situation is,” she says.

10:46am: Russia’s Medvedev says nuclear war ‘quite probable’

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev has warned that Moscow’s confrontation with the West will last decades and that its conflict with Ukraine could become “permanent”.

In an article for the government’s Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, he said tensions between Russia and the West were “much worse” than during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

A nuclear war was “quite probable” but was unlikely to have any winners, said Medvedev, who has repeatedly said Western support for Ukraine increases the chances of nuclear conflict.

9:19am: FSB thwarts ‘assassination attempt’ on Russian-installed Crimea head – state media

Russia’s FSB security service has thwarted an assassination attempt on the Moscow-installed head of the Crimean peninsula, Russian news agencies reported Monday. 

“An assassination attempt organised by Ukraine’s special services targeting the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov, was foiled,” Russian state-run agency TASS reported, citing an FSB statement.

The FSB said it had detained a Russian man who had been hired and trained by Ukraine’s security services to kill Aksyonov by blowing up his car. The details of the FSB’s statement could not be independently verified.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

8:11am: Ukraine reports modest gains after heavy fighting

Ukraine said on Monday its forces had gained some ground along eastern and southern fronts in the past week in heavy fighting with Russian troops, reclaiming 37.4 square kilometres of territory.

Ukrainian forces were advancing in the Bakhmut direction, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said, adding that Russian forces were attacking in the Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka directions in the Donetsk region.

7:26am International office investigating Russian invasion of Ukraine opens in The Hague

An international office to probe Russia over its invasion of Ukraine opens on Monday in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow’s leadership.

The International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression (ICPA) features prosecutors from Kyiv, the European Union, the United States and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine war.

6:15am: EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain deal

The European Union is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network as a sop to Moscow, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

This will be aimed at safeguarding the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, FT said.

The plan, which was proposed by Moscow through negotiations brokered by the UN, would allow the bank to create a subsidiary to handle payments related to grain exports, FT said, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The new entity would be permitted to use the global SWIFT financial messaging system, which was closed to the largest Russian banks following the Ukraine invasion last year.

5:23am: Wagner’s departure does not impact Moscow’s combat potential, says Russian lawmaker

The Wagner Group’s departure from Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine does not impact Russia’s combat potential, state-owned media agency TASS cited Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov, who chairs Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defence committee, as saying on Monday.

The influential lawmaker told TASS that the Russian regular army has been able to repulse Ukraine’s new offensive without Wagner fighters.

“No new wave of mobilisation will be required,” Kartapolov said.

5:10am: Ukraine says Russian troops advancing in ‘fierce fighting’

Ukraine said on Sunday that Russian troops were advancing in four areas in the east of the country amid “fierce fighting” but reported its forces moving forward in the south.

Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Maliar said that Russian troops were advancing near Avdiivka, Mariinka, Lyman and Svatove.

“Fierce fighting is going on everywhere,” Maliar wrote on social media, adding: “The situation is quite complicated”.

Ukrainian forces have made gradual progress in their counteroffensive launched last month but have so far failed to produce a major breakthrough and have urged Western allies to escalate pledges of military support

4:14am: Moscow says 700,000 children from Ukraine conflict zones now in Russia

Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday.

“In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine,” Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion on its western neighbour Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow says its programme of bring children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.

Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counter offensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.

In July 2022, the United States estimated that Russia “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Integration of Occupied Territories, says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.

2:14am: No grounds to maintain Black Sea grain deal status quo, says Russian UN envoy

Russia’s envoy to the United Nations in Geneva said there were no grounds to maintain the “status quo” of the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire on July 18, the Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on Monday.

In a wide ranging interview, envoy Gennady Gatilov told the outlet that the implementation of Russia’s conditions for the extensions of the agreement was “stalling.” Those conditions included, among others, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT banking payment system.

“Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes,” Gatilov told Izvestia. “However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo.”

Gatilov said he hopes “common sense” will prevail in the United States and there will not be the need to consider the option to denounce the New Start nuclear weapons treat, the last remaining US-Russia arms control treaty that caps the countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

Key developments from Sunday, July 2:

Russian forces advanced in four sectors on the eastern front as Ukrainian troops inched forward south of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Maliar said on Sunday.

The White House also announced that US President Joe Biden had scheduled a trip to Europe with stops in the United Kingdom, the NATO summit in Lithuania and meetings in Finland. 

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

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)