July 14, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine's top prosecutor and officials from the International Criminal Court and the European Union are meeting in The Hague today to discuss investigating war crimes committed during the conflict.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova traveled to the Ukraine Accountability Conference in the Dutch city to coordinate evidence sharing, prosecution strategy and the legal framework of bringing war criminals to justice.

“The world is united with Ukraine to find effective means to bring Russia to justice for the atrocities its forces commit on our land,” Venediktova tweeted from The Hague. 

In an opening statement at the conference, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said: “The national justice system of Ukraine has already taken important steps of investigation and trial, which we are monitoring. Given the breadth of the challenges it is facing it is crucial that the international community continues to support increased capacity for Ukraine’s investigations into alleged war crimes committed on its territory, whatever the circumstances.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba are expected to deliver closing statements by video link later today.

Venediktova previously said Ukraine has identified more than 600 Russian war crime suspects and has started prosecuting around 80 of them. Two Russian soldiers have already been convicted under Ukrainian criminal law.

Russia continues to deny any troops have been involved in war crimes in what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Nine NATO countries affected by the Russian aggression in Ukraine have been invited to take part in the traditional Bastille Day parade in Paris on Thursday, to demonstrate France’s commitment to its partners and allies.

“It's a rather strong signal symbolically,” French armed forces spokesperson Pascal Ianni told Franceinfo Thursday.

“Why this signal? Because France has been resolutely committed to strengthening the deterrent and defensive posture of NATO since the beginning of the war in Ukraine,” he added.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria “will have the honour of opening the parade on foot” with 106 troops.

French troops deployed to NATO's Eastern Flank will follow the march down the Champs-Elysées.

French President Emmanuel Macron is also set to give a rare 45-minute live interview from the Elysée Palace after taking part in the parade.

In France, July 14 marks the anniversary of the capturing of the Bastille prison in 1789 -- a symbol of the French Revolution -- and a military parade takes place every year down the Champs-Elysées.

A total of 4,925 troops are to take part this year, alongside 65 fixed-wing aircraft, 25 helicopters, 181 vehicles and 200 horses of the Republican Guard.

More than 100 of Ukraine's Azov fighters will face trial, said Denis Pushilin, leader of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). 

Last fighters: The Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol — the final holdout of Ukrainian resistance in the otherwise Russian-occupied southern city — fell to Russian forces in May when the final group of fighters at the steel plant surrendered.  

At the time, Russian authorities said more than 1,700 fighters defending the steel plant had left and were either in detention or in hospital in the self-proclaimed DPR. 

Western governments and human rights groups fear those convicted may face the death penalty.  

Path cleared for executions: Last Friday, the Donetsk People’s Republic parliament abolished its ban on executions, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Yelena Shishkina, who chairs the parliament’s committee on criminal and administrative law, said "the option to use capital punishment will serve as a deterrent against very grave crimes," according to TASS. 

It comes as Britons Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin, and Moroccan Brahim Saadoune, appeal death sentences after they were convicted of being "mercenaries" for Ukraine by a court in the DPR. 

Previously, Shishkina has ruled out the possibility of releasing any Azov fighters as part of a prisoner exchange.  

Talks between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations held in Istanbul Wednesday resulted in the parties agreeing to form "a Joint Coordination Centre under the UN auspices" to ensure that Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea can be secured, according to Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President's office.

The center will be located in Istanbul and the task will be to carry out "general monitoring and coordination of safe navigation in the Black Sea," Yermak said Wednesday.

Some context: More than 20 million tons of grain remain stuck in Ukraine due to Russia's blockade of Black Sea ports, according to Ukrainian officials.

Before the war, wheat supplies from Russia and Ukraine accounted for almost 30% of global trade, and Ukraine is the world's fourth-largest exporter of corn and the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the US State Department. The UN World Food Program — which helps combat global food insecurity — buys about half of its wheat from Ukraine each year and has warned of dire consequences if Ukrainian ports are not opened up.

About 80% of Ukraine’s grain exports were shipped from the country’s Black Sea ports before Russia's invasion.

With those routes blocked, Ukraine hopes to speed up grain exports through reopened Danube River routes, made possible after Ukrainian troops recaptured Snake Island in June.

A line of barges waiting to sail up the Danube River and load up on grain at one of Ukraine’s river ports will take several weeks to clear, deputy minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Vysotsky said in a televised address Wednesday.

A pair of SU-27 Russian fighter jets tried to bomb Snake Island, known as Zmiinyi Ostriv in Ukrainian, according to the South Ukrainian Operational Command.

The targeting of Snake Island is significant, as Russian forces had abandoned the island on June 30 following a Ukrainian offensive. The island, located in the Black Sea off Ukraine's southern coast, is widely seen as strategically important to the war as it grants access to the Danube River and its small inland ports to ships carrying Ukrainian grain.

There have been repeated airstrikes on the island since the Russians left, on July 2 and 7.

A pair of KA-52 helicopters also attacked the southern region of Kherson three times, with no casualties, the Operational Command said. 

It added that the Russian Navy had regrouped its ranks, saying it had three missile ships and two submarines at sea that "pose a threat to the entire territory of Ukraine."

A total of 349 children have been reported killed and more than 1,000 injured in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday.

The Donetsk region has seen the highest rates of children affected, followed by Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Zaporizhia.

Some context: Widespread fighting is continuing in the country, with Ukrainian forces on the offensive in the south. Meanwhile, Russian artillery is active in Donetsk and Kharkiv.

The southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv came under a "massive missile attack" on Thursday morning, according to Vitalii Kim, head of the region's military administration.

Reports from officials on the ground said the city was shelled by "more than 10 missile strikes" from a S-300 surface-to-air missile system.

One person was reported injured.

The shelling targeted the Mykolaiv Hotel, two educational institutions and a trolleybus depot, according to 1st Capt. Natalia Humeniuk, head of the United Coordination Press Center of the Security and Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine.

Russian forces continued their advance toward the towns of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region on Thursday, the Ukrainian military said.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said an attempted Russian assault in the direction of the village of Kurulka was "unsuccessful" and Moscow's forces "retreated."

Russian forces "fired from tanks, barrel and jet artillery" in the Bakhumt direction on a series of towns, including Soledar and New York on the northern outskirts of Donetsk.

Moscow's forces also shelled Kramatorsk and were "leading an offensive" west of the city, the Ukrainian military said.

Russian troops were apparently running low on food supplies and their ranks were seeing a downward trend due to "significant losses and refusal to participate in hostilities," the Ukrainian military added.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it "strongly condemns" the decision by North Korea to officially recognize the "so-called" independence of the Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine, according to a statement released Wednesday. 

In response, Ukraine announced the severance of diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea's official name. 

For almost eight years, the two breakaway enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine have been the site of a low-intensity war between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, which has left more than 14,000 people dead.

War broke out in 2014 after Russian-backed rebels seized government buildings in towns and cities across eastern Ukraine. Intense fighting left portions of Luhansk and Donetsk, in the Donbas region, in the hands of Russian-backed separatists. Russia also annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that sparked global condemnation.

North Korea's move Wednesday makes it the only country other than Russia and Syria to recognize the two breakaway enclaves.