June 13, 2022 Russia-Ukraine war news

French President Emmanuel Macron has no firm plans to make a wartime visit to Ukraine, the Elysee Palace said Monday.

"The President said he would visit Ukraine at the appropriate moment. Several options are being studied, nothing is fixed at this stage,” the Elysee said.

Unlike several European leaders, Macron hasn't visited Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. The French president, who is currently chairing the European Union Council, has repeatedly said that he will travel to Ukraine when it is “useful.”

Macron visited Kyiv on February 8 as part of efforts to de-escalate tensions around Ukraine.

EU Commission President in Ukraine: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen returned to Kyiv on Saturday to meet with Zelensky and discuss Ukraine's EU membership progress.

"As you know the Commission is currently preparing the recommendations of so-called opinion for the EU member states," she said in Kyiv. "We have been working day and night on this assessment and I promise to you in April dear Volodymyr that we will be tirelessly working on it. So, the discussions today will enable us to finalize our assessment by the end of next week."

A ship carrying 18,000 tons of Ukrainian corn arrived early Monday at a port in northwestern Spain, using what a regional animal feed producers group described as a “new maritime route” that aims to avoid Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports on the Black Sea.

The cargo ship Alppila, carrying the corn, arrived at Spain’s port of A Coruña before dawn on Monday and is due to be unloaded by Tuesday, the port’s press office told CNN.

It’s the first shipment of Ukrainian grain to reach northwestern Spain by sea, using “a new maritime route opened in the Baltic Sea to avoid the Russian navy’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports on the Black Sea since the start of the war” last February, the animal feed producers group, called Agafac, said in a statement.

Some background: Russia's war in Ukraine could push up to 49 million people into famine or famine-like conditions because of its devastating impact on global food supply and prices, and countries are scrambling to find a way around the blockade. On Sunday, a Ukrainian government official told Reuters Ukraine has identified alternate routes to export grain stores. 

Deputy Foreign Minister and Chief Digital Transformation Officer Dmytro Senik said Ukraine was attempting to establish new routes with Romania, Poland and the Baltic States to allow 22 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine’s seaports to “reach their destination.” 

He said Agafac, the Galicia regional animal feed producers group, typically imports 40% of its corn from Ukraine between January and June each year, which is part of the total 1 million tons of corn it imports for livestock feed annually.

The Agafac statement said that “small quantities of corn have left western Ukraine in trucks for Poland and Romania” and that the corn which arrived in Spain was loaded onto a ship at Poland’s Baltic Sea port of Swinoujscie.

The Alppila is a Finnish-flagged cargo ship that was in Swinoujscie in late May before making stops at two German ports and then arriving at A Coruña port on Monday, according to vesselfinder.com.

Beade said he didn’t know if Ukrainian corn had arrived at any other Spanish ports since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February.

The Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine – which makes up Donbas along with the neighboring Donetsk region – is at the epicenter of the invasion, with much of the area already under Russian control. The focus of the fighting is on the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, where Russian forces have destroyed the second of three bridges between the cities and are heavily shelling the third, with the aim to "completely cut off"  Severodonetsk, according to Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the fight may dictate the outcome of the war in the east of the country.

"Severodonetsk remains the epicenter of the confrontation in Donbas," Zelensky said earlier last week.

Street fighting continued to rage over the weekend.

"The situation remains difficult. Fighting continues, but unfortunately, most of the city is under Russian control. Some positional battles are taking place in the streets," Hayday said.

Here are four other developments from the weekend:

EU Commission President in Ukraine: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen returned to Kyiv on Saturday to meet with Zelensky and discuss Ukraine's EU membership progress.

"As you know the Commission is currently preparing the recommendations of so-called opinion for the EU member states," she said in Kyiv. "We have been working day and night on this assessment and I promise to you in April dear Volodymyr that we will be tirelessly working on it. So, the discussions today will enable us to finalize our assessment by the end of next week."

Russia issues passports to occupied cities: Russia issued its first passports to 23 residents of the occupied city of Kherson in southern Ukraine a day ahead of Russia Day, Russian state news agency TASS reported Saturday, citing the Russian-appointed leader of the region.

"All our Kherson comrades want to get a [Russian Federation] passport and citizenship as soon as possible," Vladimir Saldo, head of Kherson regional military-civilian administration said at the ceremony as quoted by TASS.

An unspecified number of passports were also issued for the first time in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, TASS reported citing the Zaporizhzhia regional military-civilian administration.

New grain routes established: Russia's war in Ukraine could push up to 49 million people into famine or famine-like conditions because of its devastating impact on global food supply and prices, and countries are scrambling to find a way around the blockade. On Sunday, a Ukrainian government official told Reuters Ukraine has identified alternate routes to export grain stores. 

Deputy Foreign Minister and Chief Digital Transformation Officer Dmytro Senik said Ukraine was attempting to establish new routes with Romania, Poland and the Baltic States to allow 22 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine’s seaports to “reach their destination.” 

In Russia: Russians saw 15 McDonald's restaurants reopen on Sunday under new branding and ownership, according to its owner Alexander Nikolaevich Govor.

The American fast-food giant has been renamed "Vkusno & Tochka," which translates to "Tasty and that's it."

The chain decided to leave the country and sell its Russia business, in line with many other Western businesses following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began in February.

Ukrainian forces in Severodonetsk must surrender or face death, a leader of the separatist so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine said Monday.

“They have two options: either follow the example of their colleagues and give up, or die,” said Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People's Militia Department in the DPR, reports Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

“They don't have any other option," he added.

Russian forces are now in control of most of Severodonetsk, the epicenter of the bloody battle for Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, but Ukrainian lines to the city do not yet appear to be totally severed.

Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said Monday that Ukraine was still managing to evacuate some people from the city, but it was limited by the scale of bombardment.

Russia has pushed Ukrainian forces back from the center of Severodonetsk, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) said Monday morning.

“The enemy, with the support of artillery, carried out assault operations in the city of Severodonetsk, had partial success, pushed our units away from the city center, and hostilities continue,” said the AFU.

Russia was seeing success “due to a significant advantage in artillery,” said Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, via Telegram.

Hayday said around 500 civilians, including 40 children, are still sheltering at the city’s Azot chemical plant, which is coming under heavy bombardment “by large caliber enemy artillery,” he said.

Ukrainian forces were trying to evacuate people, said Hayday. “Azot shelters are not as strong as those in Mariupol's Azovstal," he added.

Ukraine is appealing for “heavy weapons parity’’ ahead of a summit of defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.

Podolyak said that Ukraine needed: “1,000 howitzers caliber 155 mm; 300 MLRS; 500 tanks; 2,000 armored vehicles; 1,000 drones.”

NATO will on Wednesday host the Ukrainian defense minister, along with allied ministers and officials from Sweden, Finland, Georgia, and the European Union.

Amnesty International has accused Russia of war crimes during its efforts to capture the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

In a new 40-page report, Amnesty has documented the alleged use of cluster munitions and other indiscriminate means of attack.

Amnesty’s researchers say they “documented seven strikes in different areas of Kharkiv, where they found fins and pellets of 9N210 or 9N235 cluster munitions.”

Some context: The United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions, which came into force in 2010, bans the use of cluster munitions. Russia is not party to the treaty (neither is the United States).

Amnesty also said that Russia has used the PTM-1S, “a small, scatterable anti-personnel mine.”

Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser, said that the investigation was “further indication of utter disregard for civilian lives.”

Russian officials have repeatedly insisted that they do not target civilians.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday that it is once again getting remote data transmission from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is currently in Russian-held territory.

The transmission of “vital safeguards data” from the plant was cut on May 30 and restored on Sunday, the IAEA said.

The power plant has been under Russian control since early March, but is still operated by its Ukrainian staff.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on Sunday that he was continuing to appeal for an in-person trip to the power station “as soon as possible to carry out essential nuclear material verification activities which cannot be done remotely.”

Some background: The Zaporizhzhia plant has been the source of some tension between the IAEA and Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials have accused the IAEA of legitimizing Russia’s occupation of the plant.

Asked about whether a visit would legitimize Russia’s control of the plant, Grossi told CNN’s Becky Anderson last week that “it is absolutely incorrect. When I go there, I will be going there under the same agreement that Ukraine passed with the IAEA, not the Russian Federation. Ukraine!”

At first glance Bakhmut doesn’t look like a city at war.

As we drive into the city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on a warm sunny morning, men in orange vests tend to the roses. The tall trees shading the streets are thick with leaves.

Traffic is light because of fuel shortages, so many residents get around on bicycles.

This peaceful façade, however, is deceptive. Explosions regularly echo over Bakhmut: the blasts of outgoing and incoming artillery and rockets outside, and occasionally inside, the city.

Tetyana volunteers with the bread distribution. When I ask if she intends to stay in Bakhmut if Russian forces push closer, her demeanor changes. She shakes her head.

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Russians are on the verge of capturing key Ukrainian city. In neighboring Bakhmut those with nowhere else to go brace for their arrival