June 20, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen arrives for a press conference at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on Tuesday.

The European Union proposed a four-year financial assistance package for Ukraine worth $55 billion, the union’s commission president said in a news conference Tuesday. 

The assistance will be administered through loans and grants, EU President Ursula von der Leyen said. It aims to provide Ukraine with “perspective and predictability” as well as “incentivize other donors to step up” their support. 

Norway, which is not part of the European Union, also recently announced it will allocate funds for Ukraine.

In a news release, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Oslo will provide 250 million Norwegian kroner (approximately $23 million) for Ukraine’s “nuclear safety and security.” And around $9.3 million will be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “to ensure that IAEA experts can maintain a presence in Ukraine.”

Norway is also increasing funding for “nuclear safety and security cooperation” with Ukraine by $14 million. The funding will be administered by the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) and will be used “to reduce the risk of radiological incidents.”

Within the last day, the Ukrainian military reported 35 clashes with Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, according to an earlier update from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russia continues to focus on the areas of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka in the Donetsk region, the update said.

Here’s what else you should know to get up to speed:

On the ground. Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense, said Ukrainian forces “are gnawing our way meter by meter” to advance, also noting that the main strike of the counteroffensive “is still ahead.” Maliar said in an interview Tuesday with Ukrainian media that Ukraine’s offensive is ongoing in several directions in the south. Meanwhile, she claimed that Russia’s main offensive is in the east. 

Meetings. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London. Blinken briefed Kuleba about his meetings in Beijing and talks with Chinese officials about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Matt Miller, State Department spokesperson.

Aid and recovery. The United Kingdom is set to outline a landmark financial support package for Ukraine this week, according to 10 Downing Street. Ukrainian officials and the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine on Tuesday also discussed the establishment of a Community Recovery Fund, a joint approach to the recovery of Ukraine at the community level. 

Dam collapse update. At least 21 people are dead and 28 others were injured following the Nova Kakhovka dam collapse earlier this month in the Kherson region, according to Minister Ihor Klymenko of Ukraine’s Internal Affairs.

Returned prisoners. Three out of 11 soldiers who were held as prisoners of war (POWs) by Russia and who were relocated to Hungary earlier this month, have now returned to Ukraine, according to a spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry.

Three out of 11 soldiers who were held as prisoners of war (POWs) by Russia and who were relocated to Hungary earlier this month, have now returned to Ukraine, according to a spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry.

Nikolenko claimed on Monday that the soldiers were being “kept in isolation, do not have access to open sources of information, their communication with relatives takes place in the presence of third parties, [and] they are denied the right to establish contact with the Embassy of Ukraine.” 

The Hungarian government has refuted Nikolenko’s claim and denied its involvement in the POWs transfer. 

“These eleven people can move freely in Hungary, they do what they see fit, they interact with whoever they want,” Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

Satellite images of the Nova Kakhovka dam before its collapse (left, on June 5) and after the disaster (right, on June 7).

At least 21 people are dead and 28 others were injured following the Nova Kakhovka dam collapse earlier this month in the Kherson region, according to Ihor Klymenko, minister of Ukraine’s Internal Affairs.

At least five of those killed were injured by Russian attacks during the dam evacuations, he said on Telegram Tuesday.

The epidemiological situation in the region is stable and under control, but Klymenko warned residents against fishing and consuming fish in the affected areas. 

Russia and Ukraine continue to point fingers as to who was responsible for the dam collapse. Ukrainians estimate the cost of damage to be 1.5 billion euros.  

The United Kingdom is set to outline a landmark financial support package for Ukraine this week, according to 10 Downing Street. 

The announcement will be made at the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Wednesday, hosted jointly between the UK and Ukraine in London. More than 400 companies from 38 countries will pledge “to back Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction in the wake of Russia’s illegal invasion,” said Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank Group. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Downing Street said the package would include $3 billion of World Bank loan guarantees and $305 million of bilateral assistance. According to the statement, the funding is said to support vital public services, such as schools and hospitals. 

Downing Street said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will also announce up to $318 million of new capital for the UK’s Development Finance Institution, the British International Investment (BII).

Downing Street said the BII funding would boost UK aid for Ukraine, including mine clearance, disaster relief kits, reform programmers and energy projects. The statement outlined that over half of the BII funding will be used for humanitarian support through partners such as the UN and the Red Cross.

Ukrainian officials and the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine on Tuesday discussed the establishment of a Community Recovery Fund, a joint approach to the recovery of Ukraine at the community level. 

The main priorities of the fund “will include the restoration of housing, critical and social infrastructure, as well as humanitarian demining of territories and support for local businesses,” the Ministry for the Restoration of Ukraine said in a statement.

According to the statement, the UN plans “to mobilize US $300 million for the needs of the fund over the next five years,” with a start-up budget of $50 million. 

Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, said that “a regional structure of support teams” will be created to help communities cope with the challenges of recovery.  

According to UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown, the UN and the Government of Ukraine are already working on the recovery of the cities of Kharkiv and Izium, where “central and local authorities, the UN and the public are working together to rebuild damaged infrastructure,” which includes demining, clearing debris and rebuilding of housing medical facilities. 

Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defense said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces “are gnawing our way meter by meter” to advance, also noting that the main strike of the counteroffensive “is still ahead.”

“The tasks that are being given to the military are being fulfilled, so the gradual advance in all directions, where the offensive began is taking place,” Maliar said. “However, the main strike is still ahead.”

Maliar said that Ukraine’s offensive is ongoing in several directions in the south; meanwhile, she claimed that Russia’s main offensive is in the east. 

The Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksii Danilov, said on Tuesday that one of Ukraine’s main priorities right now is “to exhaust” and destroy Russian artillery and armament systems. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London. 

“We discussed next steps to bolster Ukraine’s counter-offensive capabilities, preparing the Vilnius summit deliverables on Ukraine’s NATO membership perspective, and growing the global support for the Peace Formula,” Kuleba said in a tweet, adding that he thanked the United States for its support.

The United Kingdom and Ukraine will jointly host the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, which aims to work toward international investment to rebuild the country in the wake of the Russian invasion.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in London on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefed Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba about his meetings in Beijing and talks with Chinese officials about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to State Department spokesperson Matt Miller.

The top US and Ukrainian diplomats met in London ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which formally kicks off on Wednesday.

At a press conference Monday in the Chinese capital, Blinken said the Chinese government had made assurances it would not provide lethal support to Russia. However, he noted the US has concerns that Chinese companies could be providing such assistance to Moscow.

In his meeting with Kuleba, Blinken “underscored the United States’ support for Ukraine’s economic recovery, and the importance of continued close collaboration through the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform,” according to a readout from Miller.

Ukrainian servicemen fire from a tank in a field near the frontline town of Bakhmut on Monday.

The Ukrainian military reported 35 clashes with Russian forces in eastern Ukraine within the last day, according to the latest update from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russia continues to focus on the areas of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka in the Donetsk region, it said in the update.

Over the last day, Russia attacked Ukraine with 35 Iranian Shahed drones, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said, adding that 32 were destroyed.

The update also claimed that Russia “launched more than 72 airstrikes and fired 36 times from multiple launch rocket systems” at Ukrainian troops and settlements, injuring civilians.

An Iskander-M ground-launched cruise missile was also used in an attack on civilian infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia, the General Staff added.

The military said Russian forces are on the defense in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

An explosion of a drone is seen over Kyiv on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Russia launched attacks at Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Lviv. Ukrainian officials also said Russia targeted cleanup operations following a massive dam collapse in the south two weeks ago.

Here’s what you may have missed in today’s coverage of the war in Ukraine:

Kyiv drone attack: Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said in a statement that Iranian-made drones “entered the capital in waves” and from multiple directions, prompting air raid alarms to go off for over three hours. According to Popko, it’s the second Shahed drone attack on Kyiv this month.

Elsewhere, Russia hit Zaporizhzhia in the south and Lviv in the west, according to Ukrainian officials.

Kherson cleanup efforts turn deadly: At least one emergency worker was killed and eight others were injured on Tuesday in a Russian attack on restoration operations in Kherson after the Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak.

Meanwhile, oil pollutants that weigh at least 150 tons are drifting along the Dnipro River, according to Yermak. There has been 95,000 tonnes of dead fish and additional dolphin corpses found on Black Sea shores in Bulgaria and Turkey, he said.

Relationships with China: The Kremlin said that a high-stakes meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this weekend will not threaten Moscow’s “strategic partnership” with Beijing. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he called on Beijing to use its influence on Russia to halt Moscow’s invasion during a joint news conference with China’s Premier Li Qiang in Berlin.

On the battlefield: Ukraine said it will continue to conduct offensive operations on the war’s southern front, while Russia said it had prevented any advances. Both Ukraine and Russia claimed that their troops have inflicted heavy losses on the other side.

Here’s the latest map of control:

A view of the Kakhovka reservoir in southern Ukraine on June 15.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, called for Russia to be held accountable for the ecological disaster caused by the June 6 collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam.

Oil pollutants that weigh at least 150 tons are drifting along the Dnipro River and “may reach the Mediterranean,” according to Yermak. 

The Kakhovka reservoir is decimated, with 95,000 tonnes of dead fish and additional dolphin corpses being found on Black Sea shores in Bulgaria and Turkey, he said.

In particular, Yermak claims the resultant flooding from the dam breach will have significant environmental repercussions and predicts “at least half (of the forests) will die.” The flooded area was inhabited by 20,000 wild animals.

Yermak also said that 50,000 hectares (about 124,000 acres) of Ukrainian forest have been flooded.

The Ukrainian Agricultural Ministry has previously expressed concern surrounding the Nova Kakovka dam incident, conveying that the collapse flooded 10,000 hectares (about 25,000 acres) of agricultural land.  

Ukraine’s health ministry urged residents on Monday against swimming and fishing in the waters of Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions.

About 40 surface water monitoring points have been set up along the river channel in the flood zone and along the seacoast in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions, according to the statement. The most dangerous pollutants in the water were salmonella, rotavirus, worm eggs, and E. coli. 

Remember: Both sides have blamed each other for the incident at the dam, but neither has provided any proof.

CNN’s Mariya Knight and Maria Kostenko contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian servicemen of the 30th Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi Separate Mechanized Brigade ride in a T-80 main battle tank captured earlier from Russian troops, at a position near the frontline town of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on June 19.

Ukraine will continue to conduct offensive operations “in several directions” on the war’s southern front, it said on Tuesday.

Russia’s forces have suffered heavy losses there, as well as in the east, the Ukrainian government’s Centre for Strategic Communication said, in a statement that framed this as a metric of success, alongside the Ukrainians’ claim yesterday to have made military advances.

The statement claimed that Moscow’s forces were hemorrhaging personnel in battles along the front line, comparing Russian casualties to those it sustained in the months-long fight over Bakhmut, an eastern city once known by both sides as the “meat grinder.”

“As of now, in the hot battles in the east and south, Russian troops are suffering the same heavy losses in manpower and equipment as they did near Bakhmut,” the statement said.

What Russia says: In Moscow, defense officials claimed that Ukraine’s attempts at offensive actions on the front line had been “unsuccessful,” however.

On state television on Monday night, war correspondent Georgy Mamsurov – who reports for state TV channel VGTRK and is embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine’s occupied south – told Channel One’s “60 Minutes” program that Ukraine’s losses were far greater than those seen by Moscow, saying that “the Armed Forces of Ukraine are constantly pulling up their reserves, throwing them into this Zaporizhzhia meat grinder.” 

Mamsurov also spoke about Piatykhatky: one of eight southern settlements that Ukraine claimed to have taken in recent days. Some Russian military bloggers have characterized as a “grey zone”. 

“We all learned over the last couple days the name of the settlement of Piatykhatky,” Mamsurov said. “On the map you can see that the village of Piatykhatky is in a serious (geological) depression and whoever is currently occupying this settlement is in the most vulnerable position, because around this settlement are heights. They are occupied on the north side, by AFU troops, and these heights have artillery and large-caliber machine guns, armored vehicles. They are working from there. But from the south side, those are our positions.”

Mamsurov said Russia could “blanket” any Ukrainian troops entering Piatykhatky “with aviation artillery.”

A flooded area of Kherson, Ukraine, after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached, on June 10.

At least one emergency worker was killed and eight others were injured on Tuesday in a Russian attack on restoration operations in Kherson, according to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

“The Russian army fired on rescuers in Kherson who were clearing silt” caused by recent flooding from the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post. 

Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko added:

“Killing rescuers during the elimination of one of the largest man-made disasters is a lowly act and a manifestation of fear,” said Klymenko.

The Kherson regional prosecutor said that the workers were employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and that “a pre-trial investigation into the violation of the laws and customs of war (Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) has been initiated.”  

Some background: The dam collapse was one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades.

At least 600 square kilometers (232 square miles) of the southern Kherson region experienced flooding. The catastrophe destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of people of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage.

It’s still impossible to say whether the dam collapsed because it was deliberately targeted or if the breach could have been caused by structural failure. Russia and Ukraine each blame the other country for causing the break.

CNN’s Ivana Kottasová and Gianluca Mezzofiore contributed to this report.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang, give a joint press conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on June 20.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he called on Beijing to use its influence on Russia to halt Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Now it is important to avoid a frozen conflict,” Scholz said during a joint press conference with China’s premier Li Qiang on Tuesday in Berlin.

“It is important that China continues not to supply weapons to the aggressor,” Scholz said, adding that a ban of nuclear weapons was important.

Earlier this year, Western officials flagged concerns that Beijing could be considering bolstering Russia’s military with lethal aid, an allegation refuted by Chinese officials.

Scholz and Li will continue the bilateral government consultations Tuesday afternoon with German Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Zheng Shanjie, China’s chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission at the economic forum.

In 2022, China was Germany’s most important trading partner for the seventh time, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on June 19.

The Kremlin said that a high stakes meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will not threaten Beijing’s ties with Moscow.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov emphasized the importance of fostering a “predictable relationship” between Beijing and Washington, acknowledging China’s “sovereign right” to engage with other nations.

“The level of strategic partnership with China allows us to be sure that building such relations with other countries will never be directed against our country,” Peskov added.

Some background: Blinken traveled to Beijing at the weekend in an attempt to smoothen diplomatic ties between the US and China, which have flared in recent years over geopolitical issues including Xi’s stance on the war in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Western officials raised concerns that China could be considering providing Russia with lethal military assistance, an accusation denied by Beijing.

Following his two-day visit to Beijing, where he met with top Chinese officials including Xi, Blinken stated that both sides recognized the need to stabilize their bilateral relationship.

CNN’s Kylie Atwood, Jennifer Hansler and Nectar Gan contributed reporting.

An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 20.

Russia launched “another massive air attack” on Kyiv Tuesday with Iran-made attack drones, a senior Ukrainian military official said.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said in a statement that the “drones entered the capital in waves” and “from different directions,” prompting the air raid alarm to go off for over three hours. 

According to Popko, this is the second Shahed drone attack on Kyiv this month. At the time of his statement, the impact of the strike in terms of possible victims or property destruction was still unclear.

Yurii Malashko speaks during an interview in Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine on May 23.

Several buildings were damaged in Zaporizhzhia city and the surrounding suburbs by Russian shelling in the early hours of Tuesday, a local Ukrainian official said.

There were no casualties, according to Yurii Malashko, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration.

Malashko said the strikes targeted “communications area, property and equipment belonging to an agricultural and farming enterprise, as well as a popular recreation area.”

A CNN team in Zaporizhzhia heard at least seven explosions to the southeast of the city early on Tuesday.

These strikes come as Russia appears to be moving personnel and heavy military equipment from other parts of Ukraine to the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to multiple authorities.

Maksym Kozytskyi speaks in Lviv, Ukraine on May 9.

A critical infrastructure facility in the western Ukrainian region of Lviv was hit Tuesday morning, a local official said.

A fire broke out on the scene and is being extinguished, he added.

Here’s the latest map of control: