June 21, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

US Attorney General Merrick Garland made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Tuesday, where he met Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

The two will discuss efforts by the United States and other countries to help Ukraine "identify, apprehend, and prosecute those individuals involved in war crimes" in Ukraine, according to a statement from a Justice Department official.  

Garland had previously announced a trip to Europe scheduled for this week to meet with European leaders and discuss their joint efforts to combat Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Garland is the most recent top-ranking US official to travel to Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv in April, and a congressional delegation led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell traveled to Kyiv just a few weeks later. 

Garland also said he wanted to discuss actions the United States “is taking to assist the Ukrainian authorities in holding accountable those responsible for the atrocities, for the war crimes that the entire world has seen.” 

“The United States is sending an unmistakable message – there is no place to hide. We and our partners will pursue every avenue available to make sure that those responsible for these atrocities are held accountable,” Garland said.

The land transit between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia has not been banned, the High Representative of the European Commission Josep Borrell said on Monday.

“The land transit between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia has not been stopped nor banned. There is no blockade,” Borrell said in published remarks. “Transit of passengers and goods that are not sanctioned continues.”

Why is the European Commission making this clarification? It comes after Lithuanian Railways, the state-owned railway company, had notified Russia that starting midnight on June 18, transit trains with goods subject to EU sanctions would no longer be allowed to pass through.

The list of the banned goods includes construction material, cement, metals and "a number of other goods important both for construction and for production," according to the governor of the Kaliningrad region Anton Alikhanov. Kaliningrad is Russia’s exclave in the European Union.

Russia called this decision "unprecedented" and "illegal," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday.

Borrell said Lithuania had not taken any unilateral national restrictions and only applied the European Union sanctions. 

"The accusation that 'Lithuania is implementing Lithuanian sanctions' is false. Pure propaganda," he said.

Separately, a European Commission press officer confirmed that European Union representative to Moscow Markus Ederer had been meeting with representatives of the Russian ministry regarding the subject Tuesday.

“We can also confirm that our head of delegation to Russia had a meeting in the Russian ministry where he explained our position and implementation of EU sanctions,” the official said.

The US State Department on Tuesday confirmed the death of an American citizen in Ukraine whose obituary said he died in mid-May while fighting in the war.

"We can confirm the death of U.S. citizen Stephen Zabielski in Ukraine," a State Department spokesperson said. 

According to his obituary, published on June 1 in "The Recorder,"  a newspaper in New York, said Zabielski "died on Sunday, May 15, 2022, while fighting the war in Village of Dorozhniank, Ukraine."

He was 52 years old and is survived by his wife and five stepchildren, according to the obituary. 

Zabielski is the second known American to be killed in combat in Ukraine. Marine Corps veteran Willy Cancel was killed in April fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged creative film professionals to do more to “promote Ukrainian bravery,” in an address the Cannes Lions International Festival for creative industry. 

“I believe that the power of human creativity is greater than the power of a nuclear state that is stuck in the past,” Zelensky said. “Speak of Ukraine. Don't let the world switch to something else."

In 117 days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Zelensky has made more than 70 speeches around the world, including at parliaments, international institutions and business forums. 

Russian troops have captured the frontline village of Toshkivka in the Donbas region as they keep trying to seize the strategic city of Severodonetsk.

The head of the Severodonetsk district military administration, Roman Vlasenko, told CNN on Tuesday that the village had not been under Ukrainian control since Monday.

Toshkivka is located south of Severodonetsk, where Ukrainian forces have mounted fierce resistance to Moscow’s armies. 

In the embattled city of Severodonetsk, in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, attacking Russian forces have enough reserves to launch a large-scale offensive, according to the head of the region's military Serhiy Hayday.

Here are the latest developments on Russia's war in Ukraine:

A top Russian official has described Lithuania’s announcement to ban the transit of European Union-sanctioned materials to Russia through Kaliningrad -- Russia’s enclave in the EU -- as “hostile” and promised retaliation.

As reported by the Ria Novosti state-owned news agency, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said: “Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions. Measures are being worked out in an interdepartmental format and will be taken in the near future."

Patrushev arrived in Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast, on Tuesday to meet with its governor, Anton Alikhanov.

Lithuanian Railways, the state-owned railway company, had notified Russia that starting midnight on June 18, transit trains with goods subject to EU sanctions would no longer be allowed to pass through, Alikhanov said on his telegram channel Friday.

Meanwhile, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted that the transit of passengers and non-sanctioned goods continues uninterrupted, that the country has not imposed any unilateral, individual or additional restrictions, and that it is acting fully in accordance with EU law.

Germany will continue to support Ukraine with weapons "as long as needed," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a speech at the Annual meeting of the Federation of German Industries on Tuesday.

Scholz also reaffirmed Germany's commitment to stand with Lithuania and other eastern allies.

"These sanctions do work. Yes, these sanctions are hurting ourselves as well. They hurt our companies, but they are right," Scholz said.

Scholz said his trip to Irpin near Kyiv last Thursday made clear to him that Ukraine belonged to the European family. "I will never forget the images of horror I saw there," he said. Scholz emphasized that he will push for a positive decision on Ukraine as an EU accession candidate.

Ukrainian officials have reported an uptick in Russian shelling around the northeastern city of Kharkiv in the past 24 hours, as the evacuation of people from the territories occupied by Russian forces continued.

“Within 24 hours, the occupiers fired on Kyivsky, Industrial, Saltivsky and Nemyshlyansky districts of Kharkiv,” the head of the Kharkiv region military administration Oleh Syniehubov said in his official Telegram channel.

A CNN team in the Kharkiv area heard explosions in the distance around 11 p.m. local time (4 a.m. ET), later confirming they were coming from the educational institution mentioned by Syniehubov -- a university -- as it was struck.   

According to Syniehubov, three civilians were killed and seven have been injured in the past 24 hours. 

On the line of contact, Ukrainian forces have repelled attacks in the area around Izium while Russia continued to maintain a defensive stance around Kharkiv, trying to prevent a Ukrainian advance, Syniehubov added.

Fighting ensued as 993 people, including 254 children, were evacuated from the temporarily occupied territories in the Kharkiv region, according to Syniehubov. More than 30 buses to Chuhuiv and Kharkiv were used for the evacuation.

Some background: As of June 7, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported around 7.3 million border crossings from Ukraine, with at least 4.8 million refugees in Europe.

In May, Russian officials said almost 1.1 million people had been evacuated from Ukraine to Russia since the February 24 invasion. Of that figure, around 200,000 were children.