June 28, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Additional footage of strikes on Kremenchuk, which were geolocated by CNN, showed one of the two missiles that hit the city on Monday landed on the edge of a city park, close to a road machines factory.

The park is about 500 meters (about 1,640 feet) away from the mall where a missile strike killed at least 18 people.

Earlier Tuesday, the Russian defense ministry said its forces had targeted the road machines plant.

"Aerospace Forces launched a strike with high-precision air-based weapons on hangars with weapons and ammunition received from the United States and European countries," the ministry said. "As a result of a high-precision strike, Western-made weapons and ammunition, concentrated in the storage area for further shipment to the Ukrainian group of troops in Donbas, were hit."

Ukrainian authorities have denied the plant was housing military equipment.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the missile strike on the Kremenchuk mall had been deliberate, and rejected the notion it had been an accident.

“This is not a mistaken hit of missiles,” Zelensky said. “This is a planned Russian strike at this shopping center.”

The United States government took a slew of actions against Russia Tuesday, sanctioning those who it says support Russia's defense industrial base, designating Russian military units for human rights abuses in Ukraine, and implementing a ban on the import of Russian gold.

The moves are the latest in response to Russia's monthslong war in Ukraine and were taken after G7 leaders in Germany agreed to steps, including the gold import ban, meant to weaken Moscow.

In a statement, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions on 70 entities, including State Corporation Rostec — "a massive Russian state-owned enterprise formed to consolidate Russia’s technological, aerospace, and military-industrial expertise" — and its key holdings and affiliates, as well as 29 Russian individuals.

The Treasury Department redesignated the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) — two pro-Russian separatist regions of Ukraine recognized as independent by Moscow — and sanctioned Vitaliy Pavlovich Khotsenko, who is "the newly appointed chairperson of the so-called government of the DNR," and six individuals who "are or have been high level officials in the so-called DNR and LNR governments."

According to the Treasury's statement, the US State Department is imposing sanctions on 45 entities and 29 individuals.

"Included in the State Department’s action is the designation of Russian Federation military units and the redesignation of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which have been credibly implicated in human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine," the Treasury statement said.

The State Department will also move "to impose visa restrictions on officials believed to have threatened or violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence, including on more than 500 Russian Federation military officers and on Russian Federation officials involved in suppressing dissent," it said.

The war in Ukraine shows the "danger" of being too dependent on commodities from authoritarian regimes, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Tuesday, during a press briefing in Madrid.

"The way Russia is using energy as a weapon of coercion highlights the need to quickly wean off of Russian oil and gas," Stoltenberg said.

The NATO chief warned "we must not swap one dependency for another."

"Lots of new green technologies come from China," he said, stressing the need to "diversify our energy sources and our suppliers."

Remember: Stoltenberg's comments come even as the US and some European countries weigh other options for sourcing oil and gas, which include authoritarian regimes like Venezuela and Iran.

The NATO chief also said sanctions against Russia are a price worth paying for freedom.

"Of course, I recognize that our economic sanctions, for instance on parts of [the] Russian industry, on the financial sector, also have global ramifications, also for the energy markets, and therefore, Europeans, NATO allies, the United States ... They pay a price. There's no way to deny that," he said, adding that the price is much lower than the price the countries would pay if "Putin gets his way by using military force against an independent nation." 

"It is the price we have to pay for freedom," he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Tuesday “Russia cannot and should not win the war.” 

“Our support for Ukraine and our sanctions against Russia will be maintained as long as needed and with the intensity needed in the upcoming weeks and months,” Macron told a news conference at the G7 summit in Bavaria.

When asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to end the war in Ukraine before the year is out, Macron responded, "No one is considering an end of the war in the next weeks or months."

He expressed hope an “exit could be obtained at the end of the year," but "only with the certainty that Russia cannot and should not win.”

The French leader refused to use language previously used by Zelensky, describing Russia as a “state sponsoring terrorism.”

Macron also called the Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian shopping center a "war crime."

The G7 leaders will continue to ensure Russia pays a high political and economic price for its war against Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the concluding press conference after the G7 summit in Germany on Tuesday.

No end to the war was foreseeable, and it was "important that we keep up the pressure and continue the support, so that an end becomes possible at all and Russia realizes that it cannot enforce a dictatorial peace," Scholz said.

"Without a fair agreement with Ukraine, the sanctions will continue to exist," Scholz added.

The final communiqué of the G7 leaders published Tuesday said sanctions against Russia would be maintained for as long as necessary.

While the G7 leaders reemphasized their condemnation of "Russia's unjustifiable, unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine," they called on China to press Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

Scholz said he also expected China not to undermine sanctions against Russia.

Cooperation with China was ambivalent, he said, adding the country was "struggling with the consequences of its own Covid strategy, which also has consequences for world trade."

The G7 vowed to support Ukraine for "as long as it takes" with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support. Financial means for Ukraine will amount to over USD 2.8 billion in humanitarian aid in 2022 as well as USD 29.5 billion in budget aid, according to the communiqué.

The German Chancellor meanwhile called for a Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war.

While the G7 is considering capping energy prices to secure supply, price caps for oil imports were an ambitious goal and needed a lot of work beforehand, Scholz said. The G7 leaders had previously vowed to "phase out our dependency on Russian energy."

The Russian Foreign Ministry has added 25 US citizens, including first lady Jill Biden, to a “stop list,” as Moscow retaliates against expanding sanctions from the US and European nations.

“As a response to the ever-expanding US sanctions against Russian political and public figures, 25 American citizens will be added to the stop-list,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.

The US citizens on the list, which also includes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are barred from entering Russia on an indefinite basis, the statement read.

Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution more than a century ago.

Following reports Moscow had failed to pay about $100 million in interest on two bonds during a 30-day grace period which expired Sunday, the White House said the default showed the power of Western sanctions imposed on Russia since it invaded Ukraine.

"This morning's news around the finding of Russia's default, for the first time in more than a century, situates just how strong the reactions are that the US, along with allies and partners, have taken, as well as how dramatic the impact has been on Russia's economy," a senior administration official said on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Germany.

Russia denied it was in default, saying the payments due Sunday had been made, in dollars and euros, on May 27 and the money was stuck with Euroclear, a clearinghouse based in Belgium.

In a statement posted late Monday, Moody's credit ratings agency said the "missed coupon payment constitutes a default."

"On 27 June, holders of Russia's sovereign debt had not received coupon payments on two eurobonds worth $100 million by the time the 30-calendar-day grace period expired, which we consider an event of default under our definition," it said.

The historic default — the first time Russia has defaulted since 1918 — had been widely anticipated after half the country's foreign reserves were frozen and the US Treasury ended a carve-out from sanctions allowing US bondholders to be repaid by Russia.

Read the full report here.

A Moscow court found Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin guilty of disobeying police, giving him 15 days of jail time, the press service of the court said in a statement Tuesday.

"Upon considering [the case], the court has appointed Yashin I.V. an administrative punishment in the form of administrative arrest for 15 days," the court said.

Yashin pleaded not guilty, the statement said.

Yashin gave a statement during the hearing and published it on his Telegram channel, saying it was an attempt to persecute him for his political views and force him to escape the country. He had previously repeatedly said he was not inclined to do so.

"I am an opposition politician, an independent MP, a critic of President Putin, and an opponent of the war with Ukraine. This detention is a way to put pressure on me," Yashin said. "I want to officially declare: First - the case against me is fabricated, I am innocent. Second - the war with Ukraine must be stopped immediately. Third - Putin must leave. Fourth - Russia must be free."

Over the past few days, Russia has stepped up the use of a variety of missiles against targets across Ukraine -- attacks that have resulted in civilian casualties in several places, most notably in Kremenchuk on Monday.

Ukraine's armed forces chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, said Tuesday: "Four days ago, the enemy fired 53 cruise missiles from various platforms, three days ago -- 26 missiles, two days ago -- almost 40, and 12 in the last 24 hours."

Separately, Ukraine's Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrskyi, said that more than 100 missiles had been fired at Ukraine in the last few days. 

At least 18 people were killed in the missile attack that hit a shopping center in Kremenchuk.

The Ukrainian military commented at the weekend about the variety of Russian missiles being used, some of which appear to have been taken out of storage and do not provide the precision that the Russian Defense Ministry claims.

Ihnat said the range of weapons included naval "Kalibr" cruise missiles and missiles such as the KH-22 that are launched from strategic bombers such as the TU-95 and TU-22M3 -- and are capable of speeds of up to 3,000 kilometers per hour.

Ihnat said that Russia had previously used the TU-22M3 bombers from bases in the Rostov region and the Black Sea region of southern Russia. "Now Russia has moved these planes to the north, and flying into the airspace of Belarus, they launch strikes at the North of Ukraine."

He described the KH-22 missile, which Ukrainian officials say was used in the Kremenchuk strike, as "one of the most destructive missiles." It can carry an explosive payload of 1,000 kilograms and is carried by the TU-22M3. 

KH-22 missiles, he said, had been used in strikes against the Chernihiv and Cherkasy regions. Russia has also used the KH-59 in attacks on Ukraine and short-range ballistic missiles such as the land-based Soviet-era Tochka-U missile (which Ukraine also has), as well as a range of sea-launched missiles from the Black Sea. 

Some analysts believe the growing use of KH-22 missiles stems from developing shortages of more modern precision missiles.

Writing for the Jamestown Foundation on June 16, Pavel Luzin estimated that Russia had fired more than 2,100 cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles since the invasion began and was "facing a growing deficit of these types of stand-off weapons."

Luzin estimated that Russia’s current maximum annual production capacity of new cruise and short-range ballistic missiles "is likely no higher than 225."

Ukrainian officials will not disclose what percentage of Russian missiles they shoot down, though they have frequently had success in destroying missiles fired at Kyiv, Odesa and Mykolaiv before they hit their targets. Ihnat said that it is a "more realistic goal for our air defenses" to shoot down slower cruise missiles.