Russia-Ukraine war news: Moscow says it has taken 700,000 children out of Ukraine
Ukraine live briefing: Moscow has taken 700,000 children out of Ukraine, Russian lawmaker says Ukrainian soldiers near the front-line city of Bakhmut on Saturday. (Alex Babenko/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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About 700,000 children have been brought into Russian territory from war zones in Ukraine, a lawmaker in Russia’s upper house of parliament said late Sunday. Grigory Karasin, chairman of the international committee in the Russian Federation Council, wrote on Telegram that hundreds of thousands of children had “found refuge” in Russia in recent years. The United States and Ukraine have previously said that many children have been forcibly and illegally deported from their homes during the conflict.
Ukrainian forces are facing “complicated and fierce” fighting on the eastern front lines but are making progress in the south and near the embattled city of Bakhmut, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Sunday.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
“In recent years, 700,000 children, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine, have found refuge with us,” Karasin wrote on his Telegram channel. The U.S. State Department estimated in July 2022 that Russia had Karasin wrote on his Telegram channel. The U.S. State Department estimated in July 2022 that Russia had “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said 19,492 Ukrainian children were illegally deported.
Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s Wagner Group will pause hiring mercenaries for a month, and his media empire, Patriot Media, will shut down , said Yevgeny Zubarev, director of the group’s most prominent outlet, the ultranationalist, pro-Kremlin RIA FAN news site. In a video clip posted late Saturday on the holding company’s social media accounts, Zubarev gave no reason for the decision. At least five outlets under Patriot Media had been blacklisted as of Saturday and their websites blocked in Russia, the Associated Press , said Yevgeny Zubarev, director of the group’s most prominent outlet, the ultranationalist, pro-Kremlin RIA FAN news site. In a video clip posted late Saturday on the holding company’s social media accounts, Zubarev gave no reason for the decision. At least five outlets under Patriot Media had been blacklisted as of Saturday and their websites blocked in Russia, the Associated Press reported
Russia has no need for a new wave of mobilization after the withdrawal of Wagner forces from Ukraine , Andrey Kartapolov, head of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house, told the , Andrey Kartapolov, head of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house, told the Russian state news agency Tass
About 100 nuclear specialists have left Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the mayor of the Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, , the mayor of the Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, told Ukrainian Radio . In recent weeks, senior Ukrainian officials have stepped up warnings that Russian forces plan to sabotage the plant, the largest such facility in Europe, The Washington Post has reported.
Battleground updates
Ukrainian forces are facing fierce advances from Russia on the eastern fronts, and “everywhere things are hot,” Maliar said Sunday on Telegram. She added that troops are making progress near the city of Bakhmut and in the south.
Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 13 out of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia launched overnight on Monday, the Ukrainian air force , the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram
Global impact
Former vice president Mike Pence reiterated his support for U.S. military aid for Ukraine after visiting Kyiv last week. “It’s in our national interest to give [Ukraine] what they need to win this fight and drive the Russian military out of Ukraine,” the Republican presidential candidate said Sunday during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Poland will deploy an additional 500 police officers to bolster security along its border with Russian ally Belarus, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski , Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said Sunday on Twitter . Meanwhile, Poland and Germany haven’t agreed on a deal to open a maintenance center on Polish soil to repair Leopard tanks supplied to Ukraine, Der Spiegel reported
From our correspondents
As war nears Crimea, Russian occupiers are trying to lure tourists: Tourism-dependent Crimea is looking ahead to a grim summer holiday season as the war grinds on, Francesca Ebel and Natalia Abbakumova report. Many visitors, concerned by recent attacks, are canceling their summer bookings to the Black Sea peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Crimea accounted for only 1 percent of Russian hotel bookings this year, according to the online portal Ostrovok.Ru, down from 3 percent last year and 19 percent from the year before.
“There are indeed fewer people in Crimea than usual,” said Nikita Krimskiy, a tour guide in Yalta. “Many people were intimidated by military news and various ‘fakes.’ They have changed their plans and decided to not go to Crimea this season.” Some all-inclusive hotels have lowered their prices by as much as 60 percent. Others have simply decided not to open this summer. Sixty percent of Crimean tourism businesses lost money last year, official data shows, with combined losses of $10 million as tourist revenue dropped by about a third.
Source: The Washington Post
