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A British citizen who has been sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine has launched an appeal against the verdict. Aiden Aslin, 28, a British-Ukrainian former care worker from Nottinghamshire who was a Ukrainian marine, was captured by Russian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol in April.

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said alternative routes to retrieve grain stuck in Ukraine would need to be looked at, including through Europes Danube River, if it cannot be moved via the Bosphorus strait in Turkey. The Turks are absolutely indispensable to solving this. Theyre doing their very best We will increasingly have to look at alternative means of moving that grain from Ukraine if we cannot use the sea route, if you cant use the Bosphorus, he told parliament on Monday.

Turkey has halted a Russian-flagged cargo ship off its Black Sea coast and is investigating a Ukrainian claim that it was carrying stolen grain, a senior Turkish official said on Monday.

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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 132 of the invasion - The Guardian

Ukraine needs $750 billion for its recovery plan, prime minister says

Ukraine will need a massive $750 billion for its recovery following Russia's invasion, the county's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said while speaking to international leaders in Switzerland gathered for the Ukraine Recovery Conference.

Shmyhal also said that Russia's invasion has so far resulted in more than $100 billion in damage to Ukrainian infrastructure.

Country leaders, private sector and NGO representatives attended the conference to discuss a sort of "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy, who spoke to the conference attendees via video call, warned that there was "really colossal" work needed to reconstruct the areas that have already been taken back from Russian troops. In addition to that, "we will have to free over 2,000 villages and towns in the east and south of Ukraine," he said.

The eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk in Donetsk is readying for a major battle after Russian forces captured neighboring Luhansk province.

"Everyone knows that there will be a huge battle in Sloviansk," one Ukrainian soldier told the Associated Press. Soldiers defending the city told the AP that they are severely outgunned by the Russians.

The city, home to roughly 100,000 people before the war, was captured by pro-Russian fighters in 2014 and held for three months before being retaken by Ukrainian forces. For many in the city, the war has been going on since then. Roughly three-quarters of Sloviansk's population has fled since late February, and city officials are urging remaining civilians to evacuate.

Natasha Turak

Moscow will respond in kind to Bulgaria's expulsion of 70 of its diplomats, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said following the largest-ever expulsion of Russians from the EU country. The Russian embassy staff were ordered to leave Bulgaria by Monday.

While the two have historically close ties, Bulgaria is a member of NATO and its government took a strong stance backing sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow responded by cutting gas supplies to the country in April.

"Anyone who works against the interests of Bulgaria will be called to go back to the country from which they came," BulgarianPrime Minister Kiril Petkov said. Petkov has accused Moscow of launching a "hybrid warfare" campaign against his government.

Natasha Turak

Plumes of smoke rising to the sky during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Lysychansk, Ukraine, on July 1, 2022. Russia claimed it had captured Lysychansk on Sunday, a development later confirmed by Ukraine.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russian troops on "liberating" Ukraine's eastern Luhansk province after several weeks of brutal fighting. A huge proportion of the area's infrastructure, including residential buildings, has been destroyed.

Speaking on television with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin said that the troops who fought in Luhansk should rest but that other troops should keep fighting, according to a Reuters translation.

Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from the majority of the area, although President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged to win back the lost territory. Russian forces are now expected to turn their focus to neighboring Donetsk, which together with Luhansk makes up the Donbas region, Moscow's top territorial priority.

Natasha Turak

Washington's ambassador to China spoke out against Russia during a forum and criticized China's foreign ministry for repeating Russian "propaganda."

Ambassador Nicholas Burns called Russia's war in Ukraine "the greatest threat to global world order," and said he hoped China's government would stop spreading Russian rhetoric that blamed NATO for the crisis.

"I hope foreign ministry spokespersons would also stop telling lies about American bioweapons labs, which do not exist in Ukraine," Burns said during the event entitled the "World Peace Forum," hosted by Tsinghua University.

Burns was speaking among top French, British, Chinese and Russian diplomats to an audience of Chinese and other foreign diplomats, students and professors. The event was organized as a talk among representatives of the five permanent U.N. Security Council member states.

Also speaking at the forum, U.K. ambassador Caroline Wilson said, "If Russia has its way, we would have global anarchy." Russia refutes the West's criticisms. The ambassadors' comments were rare for China, a country that broadly stifles dissent.

China has refrained from condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine both in world politics and in media. Much of its media takes a narrative that places blame on the West and criticizes sanctions imposed on Russia.

Natasha Turak

Residents pump water from a public well on June 09, 2022 in Sloviansk, Ukraine.

Scott Olson | Getty Images

Russia has captured Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region and will now turn its focus to neighboring Donetsk, Luhansk's regional governor Serhiy Haidai said.

The governor expects Russian forces to concentrate their attacks on Sloviansk, a city with a pre-war population of roughly 100,000 that was the first to be seized by Russian-backed forces in 2014. It was then retaken by Ukrainian troops.

Haidai also named the town of Bakhmut as a key target for Russia.

Luhansk and Donetsk, known collectively as the Donbas, has been the site of sporadic fighting between Ukrainian and pro-Russian troops for many years. Moscow has called capturing the Donbas an "unconditional priority."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed that Ukraine will take back its land seized by Russia.

Natasha Turak

Britain's Ministry of Defense has said that Russian forces, having seized the Luhansk province in the Donbas after weeks of intense shelling, are likely to employ the same tactics to seize Donetsk

Scott Olson | Getty Images

Britain's Ministry of Defense has said that Russian forces, having seized the Luhansk province in the Donbas after weeks of intense shelling, are likely to employ the same tactics to seize Donetsk, which makes up the rest of the eastern region of Ukraine.

"The fight for the Donbas has been grinding and attritional and this is highly unlikely to change in the coming weeks," the ministry said in its latest intelligence update on Twitter on Monday.

"Russia's Ministry of Defence had earlier claimed to have completed the encirclement of Lysychansk and secured full control of the city," the U.K. said of the weekend's developments in the Luhansk. It added that "Russia's focus will now almost certainly switch to capturing Donetsk Oblast, a large portion of which remain under the control of Ukrainian forces."

The U.K. noted that the invasion is continuing to have a devastating impact on Ukraine's agricultural sector, causing major disruption to the supply chains of seed and fertilizer which Ukrainian farmers rely on.

"Russia's blockade of Odesa continues to severely constrain Ukraine's grain exports. Because of this, Ukraine's agricultural exports in 2022 are unlikely to be more than 35% of the 2021 total."

"Following its retreat from the Black Sea outpost of Snake Island, Russia misleadingly claimed that 'the ball is now in Ukraine's court' in relation to improving grain exports. In reality, it is Russia's disruption of Ukraine's agricultural sector which continues to exacerbate the global food crisis," the ministry concluded.

Holly Ellyatt

President Zelenskyy described how the country's sportsmen and women and have been affected by the war, with thousands of Ukrainian athletes unable to train, hundreds of sports facilities destroyed, and a large number killed in the fighting.

Issei Kato | Reuters

As many as 89 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine, the country's president told Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, on Sunday.

President Zelenskyy described how the country's sportsmen and women and have been affected by the war, with thousands of Ukrainian athletes unable to train, hundreds of sports facilities destroyed, and a large number killed in the fighting.

"Many Ukrainian athletes joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend our country, to defend it on the battlefield. Some 89 athletes and coaches have been killed in hostilities. Thirteen were captured and are in Russian captivity," he told Bach.

The IOC has offered a new support package for Ukrainian Olympians. The IOC's Bach said his position was unchanged when it comes to Russian and Belarusian athletes being barred from participating in some international competitions held under the auspices of the IOC.

"The time has not yet come to lift such a ban," Bach said.

Holly Ellyatt

Destruction from a missile attack in Bakhmut City, in the southeast of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the Donetsk region of the Donbas on July 3, 2022.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Russian forces have turned their attention to capturing more parts of the Donetsk region of the Donbas, with the province coming under heavy shelling on Sunday, according to the head of the province.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk oblast (or province), said it was a "difficult Sunday in Donetsk region [with] rocket strikes and shelling throughout the region."

He said the area's largest cities Kramatorsk and Sloviansk were the most affected. Six people, including one child, were killed in Sloviansk after what Kyrylenko described as "massive shelling during the day." Nineteen people were injured and multiple residential buildings were damaged.

Kramatorsk, meanwhile, was shelled by a Russian "Smerch" multiple launch rocketsystem, he said. "During the day they damaged a hotel and residential complex, in the evening they destroyed a road, targeted a school and the territory of a kindergarten and a clinic," Kyrylenko said on Telegram in a post accompanied by images of heavily damaged and destroyed residential buildings.

The shelling in Kramatorsk left one person injured while in a residential area another person was killed.

"In just one day, the Russians killed at least 7 civilians and wounded at least 20 in Donetsk region," Kyrylenko said. CNBC was not able to immediately verify the information.

Holly Ellyatt

Plumes of smoke rising to the sky during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Lysychansk, Ukraine, on July 1, 2022. Russia claimed it had captured Lysychansk on Sunday, a development later confirmed by Ukraine.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy conceded on Sunday that his forces have had to retreat from the city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk province in the eastern Donbas region, but vowed to return to the area.

"If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in fire power, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing," he said in his nightly video address.

"That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons."

Zelenskyy said Russia had enough multiple rocket launch systems to destroy "city after city in Ukraine" and that the reality is that "they have gathered most of their firepower in Donbas."

The president defended the decision to prioritize lives over land, noting: "The fact that we protect the lives of our soldiers, our people, plays an equally important role. We will rebuild the walls, we will win back the land, and people must be protected above all else."

Russia claimed it had captured Lysychansk on Sunday, a development that was later confirmed by Ukraine. Russian forces now control the Luhansk region and are expected to now focus on capturing more territory in Donetsk. Russia has said its main aim in the war is to "liberate" the Donbas region in east Ukraine where two breakaway pro-Russian, self-styled "republics" are located.

Holly Ellyatt

Excerpt from:
Russian forces turn firepower on Donetsk after capturing Luhansk; Zelenskyy vows Ukraine will win back its land - CNBC

One of the pure joys of being a college professor in my D.C. dotage is having former students and their friends now mostly in government reach out for advice. As I have been in the intelligence game for four decades, most of them these days ask about Ukraine and what we intelligence guys did in the old days that helped win the Cold War.

So, I tell them. Some things worked. Some things didnt. It took a long time. And victory was not achieved by intelligence alone. Its often not the response they want to hear but it is the truth. Intelligence has its fine uses and its distinct limits. Ukraine is no exception.

James Bond had good writers

I am often asked about why we dont have better human intelligence? Isnt it a waste of time? Well, let me say: We always have had good human intelligence and excellent collectors. What we dont have are people willing to roll over like a Bond movie henchman and spill the beans.

The term used to describe Russia is hard target. And by a hard target I mean the SVR/FSB/GRU spying mechanism is huge, worldwide, and ubiquitous, especially in Russia. They keep an eye on their people and home turf. You cant meet Vesper Lynn in a bar and get the goods on the evil mastermind Ernst Blofeld. It takes years of determining what sources are good and who are not and meeting clandestinely with the opposition on your tail.

Add to that another factor: Dictators like Vladimir Putin dont sit around like Dr. Evil (if I may throw another movie in) planning aloud his next move. Few know whats in his head and perhaps, he himself may not be sure. Either way, getting to the leadership is nearly impossible, and the information you do get is likely filtered through different levels of direct access and the always-present biases. Not easy, but gold when you get it.

There are no crystal balls

My former students are also quick to judge intelligence analysis. Why did we overestimate the strength of the Russian army? Why cant we tell how sick Putin is? When will he be overthrown? Why dont we use more open-source information cyber space is filled with information like this dont you guys read it?

Of course there are enormous amounts of information available on Ukraine. More in this war than perhaps any other in my lifetime. TikTok, Tweets, and Instagram directly from the front lines. And analysts, like judges, do read the paper. But and this comes from a guy who ran private sector analysis companies more information does not necessarily mean better.

And there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what an analyst does. Analysts estimate. They approximate. They speak in levels of confidence. They sort through vast caverns of information. They are not sooth seers who predict the future. And no one in my 40 years has ever come across a single report of any kind that says John Doe will be standing on the corner of 16th and L, and at 15:30 hours he will detonate a belt bomb filled with nails. You are most likely to get a dozen separate and slightly contradictory reports from several sources vaguely describing each aspect of the event. A puzzle wrapped in a fog.

Rambo did not win Afghanistan

And then there is covert action, a subject everyone likes to bring up but few really understand.Rambo III. Charlie Wilsons War. Hollywood shapes the subject. Sadly, reality does not have good scriptwriters.

Simply put: A covert action is an order issued by the president and briefed to the Congress addressing a particular international political issue and outlining U.S. Government actions short of the use of direct military force.

In warfare, covert action is not full-scale warfare. The brave French resistance did not win the war: Allied troops invading France did. Americas covert actions in Afghanistan gave the Mujahadeen a fighting chance. Ultimately, a number of factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union caused Russia to quit the war in Afghanistan.

Covert action is about training and financing partisans. It is about arming them, showing them how to use the arms and hoping you can keep the weapons under control and find the unused ones after the war. Theres a big, lucrative black market out there for weapons.

But, covert action is also about coordinating actions within the U.S. Government and our Allies to support the effort. Economic and political sanctions, effectively countering propaganda these too are part of a success program.

And none of this happens immediately. The first Afghanistan conflict lasted over a decade; some of our efforts were made successful because we had been pressing on the USSR for four decades. Ukraine will be the same.

The spice in the soup

In the final analysis as I tell my now disillusioned, but I hope wiser students intelligence is the spice in the policy soup: necessary and important, but not the soup itself. It can gather excellent sources, but it cannot be expected to reach into the minds of dictators like Putin. Intelligence analysis is predictive and estimative; it succeeds sometime and fails others. And covert action is meant to inflict pain and influence the outcome, but not win the war.

So, my ultimate lesson for my former students is this: With all our foreign policy tools, including intelligence, it will take time, persistence, diligence, and stamina to win in Ukraine. Weve done it before. It can be done again.

RonaldA. Marksis a former CIA officer who served as Senate liaison for five CIA Directors and intelligence counsel to two Senate Majority Leaders. He currently is president of ZPN Cyber and National Security Strategies, a non-resident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center at The Atlantic Council and visiting professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

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What good is intelligence in Ukraine? - The Hill

Frederick Kempeis the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Council.

This is a story of evil versus good.

It's the story of a despot's ruthless attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine, versus the historic, but nonetheless insufficient, rallying of democratic states to save the country.

At midday on Monday, in the central Ukrainian industrial city of Kremenchuk, sitting serenely astride the Dnipro river, about 1,000 men, women and children wandered the Amstor shopping mall, trying to enjoy some normalcy amidst a brutal war.

Some 185 miles away and a few thousand feet overhead, Russian bombers flying over Russia's Kursk region likely Tupolev Tu-22M3s, released at least two Kh-22 medium-range, 2,000 lb. nuclear-capable cruise missiles, developed in the 1960s to destroy aircraft carriers. An air raid siren wailed, and Ukrainians, well-practiced in the fifth month of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war, scrambled for safety.

Around the same time at Schloss Elmau luxury retreat in Germany's Bavarian Alps, the Group of Seven leaders, representing the world's largest democracies, huddled around conference tables in an effort to add to their far-reaching sanctions on Putin and Russia. They debated options to choke the finances that fuel Putin's war, including putting a price cap on oil sales to Russia that could reduce the $1 billion dollars the world pays Russia every day for energy.

As they struggled to make progress, one of the missiles screamed down on the shopping mall. A CCTV video captured a bucolic day, with wispy clouds adorning the otherwise blue sky, and then the massive fireball of the blast and the curling up of a gigantic black smoke plume. Shattered glass and debris flew past the camera.

A day later, as Ukrainian officials tallied the death toll at least 20 dead and 59 wounded in a war where Putin's military has already killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians NATO leaders gathered for the summit that had brought me to Madrid. They were abuzz about the timing of Putin's shopping mall strike, knowing that it was aimed as much at them as Ukraine.

"Talk as much as you want," Putin seemed to be saying to them. "Sign whatever documents you like. I'll outlast you and your spoiled societies with my war of attrition, restoring imperial Russia and sealing my place in history even as your decadent West continues its decay."

Putin could be confident that despite historic agreements in Madrid this week and even though arms deliveries from the United States and its partners are increasing in numbers and quality, no one was yet willing to provide the heavier, longer range, precision weaponry that could have prevented the shopping mall strike and so many others, and might allow an urgently needed counteroffensive.

Even so, NATO reached a level of unity unseen in more than 30 years.

At the end of a marathon, hours-long negotiating session involving NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Finnish President Sauli Niinist, and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, the sides reached an agreement that cleared the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO and end, in Sweden's case, two centuries of neutrality.

The following day NATO leaders would sign off on a new Strategic Concept, highlighting Russia as their most present danger but including China for the first time as a matter of common concern. The leaders of Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand attended a NATO summit for the first time as partners and guests.

NATO's China language signaled that the alliance understood it faced a global and interrelated challenge. Considering that 30 countries needed to sign off on the text, many of them still with China as their number one trading partner, it's a powerful read.

"The People's Republic of China's stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values," it said. Later it continues, "The PRC seeks to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic minerals and supply chains. It uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence. It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in space, cyber and maritime domains."

There was a lot of celebratory talk among allies about their increased unity and deepened purpose, including President Joe Biden's declaration that NATO was sending an "unmistakable message" to Putin.

Among other agreements, NATO acted to shore up its eastern and southern flanks, and the U.S. Army will send a corps headquarters to Poland and more troops to the Baltics and Romania. NATO pledged to increase its high-readiness forces from 40,000 to 300,000, even as Sweden and Finland brought it significant new military weight.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares heralded the summit as potentially as significant as Yalta (heaven help us) or the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At a NATO Public Forum that the Atlantic Council co-hosted on the margins of the summit, I asked French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna how she would rank the historic moment.

"History will tell," she said.

No one should miss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's message to G-7 leaders this week that they must provide him the means for a counteroffensive to push back Russian troops before winter sets in and Ukraine's allies lose interest in the face of growing economic headwinds.

"Russia is waging two wars right now," writes Greg Ip in the Wall Street Journal. "A hot war with Ukraine whose costs are measured in death and destruction, and a cold war with the West whose costs are measured in economic hardship and inflation."

Putin might fold over time in the face of a more determined West and better armed Ukraine, writes Ip, but he's wagering that he can "inflict enough short-term cost on Western consumers that political support for Ukraine will crumble."

I leave Madrid encouraged by an increased consensus among European and Asian democracies that a Ukrainian defeat would be disastrous for Europe and world order as other despots calculate their own opportunities.

Yet I also come away discouraged that for all this week's progress, the military support and sanctions still aren't equal to the historic stakes.

In this contest between a determined despot and rallying democracies, the forces for good had an excellent week. If they don't build upon it, and fast, it won't be enough.

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Op-ed: In Putin's evil vs. good war against Ukraine, the forces of good prevailed at NATO this week - CNBC

Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelensky wished the U.S. a happy Independence Day on Monday as the nation fights for its own independence against the ongoing Russian invasion.

I appreciate the leadership assistance of the United States in Ukraines defending of common values freedom, democracy and independence, Zelensky tweeted, wishing Americans and President Biden a happy July 4th.

The U.S. has made supporting Ukraine a cornerstone of its foreign policy since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24. Washington has committed $6.9 billion in security assistance since Russias invasion began, uniting Western nations against the move and bringing tensions with Moscow to a boiling point not seen since the Cold War.

Happy 4th or July to all our American friends and thanks for standing with us in the darkest hour. Together, we will prevail, the Ukraine governments official Twitter account said.

The Ukrainian military orchestra on Monday released a video of the group performing the U.S. national anthem, sung in English, in honor of the holiday.

Dear American friends, we appreciate all the support we receive from the United States, and today we sincerely wish you happy Independence Day, an unnamed uniformed military official said in the video following the groups performance.

The gesture was one of many from the Ukrainian military.

On behalf of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and on my own behalf, I convey my heartfelt wishes to the American people on the anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraines armed forces, wrote in a Facebook post.

I wish you every success in your future endeavors, prosperity, much happiness and robust health, he continued.

The general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also marked July 4 in a post.

Happy 4th or July to all our American friends and thanks for standing with us in the darkest hour, the Ukrainian governments official account tweeted on Monday. Together, we will prevail.

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Ukraine, Zelensky wish US a happy July 4th, release video of military band playing Star-Spangled Banner - The Hill