June 30, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has urged Russia to ensure that the death penalty imposed on two British nationals by a pro-Russian court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) is not carried out.

The ECHR on Thursday announced it had decided to grant interim measures in the cases of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, calling on Russia to ensure "appropriate conditions of their detention" and to provide them with any necessary medical assistance.

“The European Court of Human Rights has decided to grant interim measures in the cases of Pinner v. Russia and Ukraine, and Aslin v. Russia and Ukraine (application nos. 31217/22 and 31233/22) concerning two British nationals who are members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the ECHR said in a press release.

The two nationals had surrendered to Russian forces, and have since been sentenced to death.

“The Court indicated in particular to the Government of the Russian Federation, under Rule 39 (interim measures) of the Rules of Court, that they should ensure that the death penalty imposed on the applicants was not carried out,” the ECHR added.

The ECHR can grant interim measures in cases in which the court believes there is an “imminent risk of irreparable harm.” Such measures are only passed on an “exceptional basis,” according to the court.

Russia remains party to the European Convention on Human Rights until September 16, the Council of Europe said. Its membership gives the court jurisdiction in cases involving the Russian Federation.

The court also said on Thursday that the issue of jurisdiction in the so-called DPR is under “active consideration.”

Thursday's decision followed an application by Pinner and Aslin on Monday.

The two British citizens and Moroccan national Brahim Saadoune were sentenced to death on June 9, accused of being "mercenaries" for Ukraine, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

The ECHR granted interim measures in Saadoune's case on June 16.

US President Joe Biden and his fellow NATO leaders depart a highly consequential summit on Thursday that rendered the defense alliance larger, more muscular and more focused.

What's unclear is whether any of the steps taken to respond to the war in Ukraine at this week's meetings in Europe -- new sanctions, more military aid and a reinvigorated NATO -- can change the battlefield momentum that currently favors Russia.

Before returning to Washington, Biden will convene a news conference Thursday where he's certain to address the state of the war. His top spy on Wednesday said the US assessment of the conflict remained "grim."

The alliance is poised to grow larger after formally inviting Finland and Sweden to join. The path was cleared for the two countries, each with long histories of military non-alignment, after Turkey dropped its objections, giving this summit a somewhat unexpected boost as it commenced.

Leaders made major enhancements of NATO's force posture along its eastern edge, increasing the number of high-alert troops by sevenfold. Biden announced new rotational deployments of US troops in the Baltics and Romania, new ships to Spain and planes to the United Kingdom, and for the first time a permanent Army garrison headquarters in Poland.

After dancing around the issue for years, NATO made clear in its updated mission statement that Russia now poses the "most significant threat to Allied security." And it mentioned China for the first time, saying the budding partnership between Moscow and Beijing "runs counter to our values."

Read more here.

The number of people who have died as a result of a bombing on a five-storey apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv has increased to six, according to the emergency services.

Eight missiles hit the city early on Wednesday, according to regional officials.

“The bodies of 6 people have been pulled from the building. A further 6 have been injured,” they said in a short post on Telegram.

The apartment was struck on Wednesday, and Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych earlier said the number of dead had risen to four. He said there had been a total of eight strikes, and the Russians had used a modified KH-55 missile in the attacks. He said he was not sure whether the apartment building that was hit was the intended target.

A total of 114 people have died in Mykolaiv since the war began.

The dismantling of the Kremenchuk mall and search for survivors in the aftermath of the Russian missile strike continued overnight Wednesday and into Thursday, according to the Mayor of Kremenchuk, Vitalii Maletskyi.

Rescue workers were now dismantling parts of the mall “near the epicenter of the explosion,” he said. Maletskyi added that the missile struck and exploded in a home appliance store and that the rubble in this part of the mall was extensive, so he feared this might be where other bodies may be found.

The number of dead remains at 18, but 21 people are still missing, he said.

The attack targeted a site in central Ukraine far away from the epicenter of Russia's war, which has recently been focused in the east of the country. Ukrainian officials said the attack was conducted by a Russian KH-22 missile, which is capable of carrying an explosive warhead of up to 1 ton.

Russian forces have left Snake Island in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Thursday, after they carried out what they said was a “successful” operation.

On Monday, the Ukrainian military said it hit a second missile system on the island, as well as multiple Russian personnel in their efforts to keep them at bay.

In a short post on Telegram the Operation Command South on Thursday, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that “the enemy hastily evacuated the remnants of the garrison in two speedboats and probably left the island.”

Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in a Telegram post that Ukraine's armed forces had "conducted a remarkable operation."

Early on Thursday Ukrainian Armed Forces said the results of an overnight operation were being assessed, but were viewed as a “success” as Russian forces were forced to evacuate using speedboats.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, said on Telegram that the "occupiers" had left after being “unable to withstand the fire of our artillery, missile and air strikes."

He also thanked the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Odesa region “who took the maximum measures to liberate a strategically important part of our territory,” referring to Snake Island.

However, Russia gave a slightly different narrative of the events on the island.

Lieutenant General of the Russian Armed Forces, and spokesperson of the Russian army, Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing that Russian forces left the island "as a gesture of goodwill."

He added that “the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation finished fulfilling the assigned tasks in Snake Island and withdrew the garrison that had been operating there.”

Konashenkov intimated that the removal of Russian troops should allow an easing for the passage of grain, “this solution will prevent Kyiv from speculating on an impending grocery crisis citing the inability to export grain due to total control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea by Russia.”

Some context: Snake Island is a small but strategic island in the Black Sea. It was the scene of one of the opening salvos of the war in Ukraine, with demands from a Russian warship calling for the Ukrainian defenders to surrender, who boldly replied with “Russian warship go f*** yourself.”

This post has been updated.

The bombing of the mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, “should be investigated as a potential war crime,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

In a report published on Thursday, Yulia Gorbunova, a senior Ukraine researcher at HRW added that “if the Russian authorities don’t, the International Criminal Court and other investigative bodies should.”

In a thorough report into the bombing, HRW spoke with 15 people to publish their report, including the injured, doctors, mall staff, other witnesses and local officials.

Gorbunova added “the civilians of Kremenchuk who suffered such an intense loss from June 27 strike, deserve justice. There needs to be a thorough investigation, and those responsible should be held to account.”

Having a neighbor like Russia at the end of the street means 59-year-old Vytas Grudzinskas doesn't get much rest. "I can see the soldiers best at night," he says, pointing to a patch of green behind his neighbor's garden.

"They have a shooting range they use over there behind that field. In the afternoon, you can hear the guns," he said.

Grudzinskas has his own weapon, a machine gun, which he keeps locked in a cupboard, close at hand — although his guard dog, a Maltese terrier, might be less effective in battle.

The small city of Kybartai where Grudzinska lives lies inside both NATO and the European Union but also along one of the world's hottest borders — the Suwalki corridor. This tract of land, about 60 miles wide, is sandwiched between Russia's heavily fortified, nuclear-armed, Baltic bolthole of Kaliningrad and its ally, Belarus.

The pass — viewed by many analysts as a weak point within NATO — is caught in a pincer grip between Kremlin troops. The fear is that if Ukraine fell, Russia would advance through it next, possibly cutting off the Baltic states in days.

The scars of Soviet occupation run deep in this part of Europe. Tens of thousands of Lithuanians were forcibly deported to gulags in Siberia and the far north by the Soviets in the 1940s and 1950s. Almost 30,000 Lithuanian prisoners perished in the forced labor camps.

So, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Grudzinskas joined Lithuania's century-old volunteer militia — the Riflemen — and took up arms in his own backyard.

Read the full story here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a fresh warning over Finland and Sweden's bids to join NATO, saying while Russia was not bothered if the two countries joined the bloc, it would "respond symmetrically" to any military or infrastructure build up.

Here are the latest headlines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 10 Russian missiles hit "civilian targets" in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday, killing at least five people.

"There were also strikes at Ochakiv, Dnipro, the Russian shelling of the Kharkiv region, Sumy region, Donbas."

Zelensky also said the situation in Lysychansk, Avdiivka, and communities in the Bakhmut direction "remains extremely brutal, very difficult."

"We are doing everything we can to provide our military with modern artillery systems to respond properly to the occupiers," he said.

Some context: Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych on Wednesday said there were "only 18 days" since the start of the invasion that the southern Ukrainian city was not fired upon with missiles or cluster shells.

More than 114 residents had died due to Russian attacks in that time, he said. It was not clear if that number included all casualties cited by Zelensky later that day.