🔴 Live: Russia says several injured in shelling of its Kursk and Belgorod border regions

1:35pm: Swedish MPs say attack by Russia cannot be ruled out

Sweden’s defence must focus on the threat posed by Russia and a military attack cannot be ruled out, a special parliamentary defence committee has said in a report.

The Nordic nation has been scrambling to bolster its defences, having applied to join NATO last year as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though Turkey and Hungary have so far held up Swedish entry into the Western alliance.

“Russia’s aggressive actions have led to a structural and greatly deteriorated security situation. Russia has further lowered its threshold for military use of force and exhibits a high risk propensity,” the committee said.

The all-party committee, which is supported by security experts and deals with major issues such as security policy, said the Ukraine war could escalate into attacks on other countries or even the use of nuclear weapons or other mass-destruction arms.

“The preconditions for Swedish defence policy have changed fundamentally. That is a realisation about policy that Swedish citizens need to carry with them. It has consequences,” committee chairman and Moderate Party MP Hans Wallmark told reporters.

12:50pm: NATO summit in July will not invite Ukraine to join alliance

NATO leaders will not issue an invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at a summit in Vilnius in mid-July, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said.

“At the Vilnius summit and in the preparations for the summit, we are not discussing to issue a formal invitation,” he told reporters after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, adding leaders would talk about how to move Ukraine closer to NATO.

At the same time, Stoltenberg warned against accepting a frozen conflict in Ukraine in return for an end to the war.

“We all want this war to end, but a just peace cannot mean freezing the conflict and accepting a deal dictated by Russia,” he said.

11:33am: Kremlin says it will continue talks with African peace mission

The Kremlin said on Monday it would continue to talk to a group of African countries seeking to mediate in the conflict with Ukraine, notably at a Russia-Africa summit next month.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave the seven-country African delegation that had come to see him in St Petersburg a list of reasons why he believed many of their proposals were misguided, pouring cold water on a plan already largely dismissed by Kyiv.

10:40am: Russia flags risk of mosquito-borne diseases after flooding

The Russian defence ministry has warned that flooding in the Kherson region after the breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam could lead to mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile Fever breaking out in the area.

The warning comes a day after the United Nations rebuked Moscow for allegedly denying its aid workers access to Russian-occupied areas affected by the flooding.

“(Moscow) has so far declined our request to access the areas under its temporary military control,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said in a statement late on Sunday. “We urge the Russian authorities to act in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

9:25am: FRANCE 24 reports on aftermath of ‘nightmare’ floods in Kherson

Kherson residents Olena and Valentin headed a clandestine resistance network during Russia’s occupation of their region in southern Ukraine.

After the Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed earlier this month, triggering catastrophic floods, the couple were forced to flee their home on the banks of the Dnipro River.

Meanwhile, their neighbour Oleg crossed the river in a boat to find residents on the bank still held by the Russians.

FRANCE 24’s Gwendoline Debono, Amar Al Hameedawi and Oliver Farry sent this report.

8:55am: Russia says it thwarted ‘terrorist plots’ in occupied Ukraine

Russia’s FSB security service says it has thwarted a series of Ukrainian “sabotage and terrorist plots” targeting Russian-backed officials on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine, arresting one woman as part of its investigation.

The FSB said in a statement that the attacks had targeted Russian law enforcement officials and Russian-installed government officials in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, one of four areas in Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed.

The security service said it opened criminal cases against an unnamed woman it described as “an accomplice” on charges related to terrorism and the illegal possession of explosives.

8:27am: Russian diplomat says deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus not time-limited

Russia’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is not time-limited, state news agency TASS quoted a senior Russian diplomat on Monday as saying.

Russia announced in March that it was deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, a close ally that has provided support for Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said the weapons began arriving last month.

The deployment is Moscow’s first move of such warheads – shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“As for the possible time frame for the presence of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, the Russian-Belarusian agreements do not imply any restrictions in this regard,” TASS cited Alexei Polishchuk, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department of former Soviet states, as saying in an interview.

Polishchuk said the weapons could hypothetically be removed from Belarus if the United States and NATO “refrained from undermining the security and sovereignty of Russia and Belarus”.

7:55am: Ukraine says one more village recaptured on southern front

Ukraine’s forces have liberated eight settlements in the past two weeks of their offensive operations, including the village of Piatykhatky, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar has said.

“In the course of two weeks of offensive operations in the Berdiansk and Melitopol directions, eight settlements were liberated,” Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app.

A Russian-installed official confirmed that Ukraine had recaptured Piatykhatky, a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.

7:40am: Russia says seven injured in shelling of border town

Seven civilians including a child were injured overnight in Ukrainian shelling of the Valuyki town area in Russia’s Belgorod border region, its governor has said.

Five multi-storey buildings and four houses were damaged with one building on fire, the governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Separately, Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region, north of Belgorod and also bordering Ukraine, said Ukrainian forces shelled two villages there. There were no casualties, according to preliminary information.

5:15am: Ukraine targets initial $40 billion for ‘Green Marshall Plan’

Ukraine is seeking up to $40 billion to fund the first part of a “Green Marshall Plan” to rebuild its economy, a senior Ukrainian government official told Reuters ahead of a summit this week.

Politicians and financiers will discuss the country’s short-term funding issues as well as look at long-term reconstruction efforts at the two-day meeting, starting in London on Wednesday and co-hosted by Ukraine and Britain.

The World Bank estimates Ukraine’s reconstruction will cost $411 billion, three times the country’s gross domestic product.   

Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, external backers have poured $59 billion into Ukraine for financing needs.

Key developments from Sunday, June 18:

Russia acknowledged on Sunday that Ukraine had recaptured a village in the southern Zapororizhzhia region, its first gain on that front since it launched its counteroffensive earlier this month.

Ukraine also said its forces had destroyed a “significant” ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said Russia had “so far declined our request to access the areas under its temporary military control” after the Kakhovka Dam burst on June 6, unleashing floodwaters and cutting off supplies to civilians.

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

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)