???? Live: Several killed in Russian attack on residential area in Zaporizhzhia region, governor says

Issued on: 10/07/2023 – 09:11

8:12am: Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in Ukraine, statistical analysis suggests

Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and Meduza worked with a data scientist from Germany’s Tubingen University using Russian government data to determine the human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

They relied on a statistical concept popularised during the Covid-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than in other years.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses

8:01am: Several killed in Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia region, governor says

Four people died and 11 were injured in Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region when distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday.

Governor Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s. He added that Russia carried out 36 targeted strikes on 10 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Reuters could not independently verify the report. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the 500-day war that Russia has been waging against its neighbour.

7:58am: Russia’s top general Gerasimov appears in first video since mutiny

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has appeared in a video in which he is seen listening to a report about Ukrainian missile attacks. It is his first public appearance since the Wagner Group’s failed June 24 mutiny.

The video was made available by the Russian defence ministry which said the footage showed Gerasimov participating in a meeting on Sunday. In the video, the general is sitting in a military command room on a white leather seat, speaking to top generals and giving orders, including to the head of military intelligence (GRU).

5:30am: US, Ukraine’s top diplomats speak on phone ahead of NATO summit

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said late on Sunday they held a phone call to discuss this week’s NATO summit and Kyiv’s counteroffensive campaign to reclaim land taken by Russia.

The US State Department said in a statement that the two diplomats had discussed “progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive”.

Kuleba said on Twitter that the call was to work out details ahead of the NATO summit, which starts on Tuesday in Vilnius.

2:15am: Russian embassy condemns US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

The White House has in effect confessed to committing war crimes by agreeing to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian embassy in the US said in comments published late on Sunday.

“We paid attention to (White House national security spokesperson John) Kirby’s statements about the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine. The official admitted de facto to committing war crimes by the United States in the Ukrainian conflict,” the embassy said on the Telegram messaging app.

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of already using cluster munitions in the 500-day war that Moscow has been waging against Kyiv. Ukraine promised last week the munitions that the US decided to ship to Kyiv will not be used in Russia.

1:45am: Ukrainian forces advance in south, hold ‘initiative,’ Zelensky says

Ukrainian troops pressed on with their campaign to recapture Russian-held areas in the southeast on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelensky said in broadcast comments that his country’s forces had “taken the initiative” after an earlier slowdown.

Russian accounts said heavy fighting gripped areas outside the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russian mercenary Wagner forces in May after months of battles.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said heavy fighting raged in two areas of the southeast.

“We are consolidating our gains in those areas,” she wrote.

1:29am: Ukrainian fencing team likely to miss Paris 2024 Olympics, says Kharlan

Ukraine athletes’ boycott over the presence of Russians and Belarusians at the fencing World Championships could cost the country valuable points and jeopardise its qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games, Ukrainian sabre fencer Olga Kharlan said.

Ukraine will not take part in the individual events at the World Championships starting on July 22 in Milan, just as they did at last month’s European Championships, after the International Fencing Federation (FIE) allowed Russia and Belarus fencers to compete as neutrals.

Four-time Olympic medallist Kharlan, a member of the Ukraine Fencing Federation Athletes’ Commission, said Russia and Belarus featuring in these tournaments will prevent Ukraine from qualifying for individual events at next year’s Games in Paris.

“Given all the bans, I can’t qualify for the Olympics in the individual competition. I need to earn points to get to the Games. I need to participate in all competitions,” Kharlan told Ukrainian news site Tribuna in an interview released on the weekend.

Key developments from Sunday, July 9:

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday said the country should not “block” the United States from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, while defending its opposition to the use of the controversial weapon. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced hope for the “best possible result” from an upcoming NATO summit where Kyiv is looking for a greenlight regarding its bid to join the alliance.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the leaders of the NATO defence alliance should discuss Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at the summit that starts on July 11.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)