GOP Rep. McCaul on how Ukraine can gain NATO membership
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What we covered here
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance – a major development on the eve of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
US President Joe Biden will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit, an official familiar with the meeting told CNN. Russia’s war along with a possible pathway for Kyiv to join the alliance are expected to dominate the gathering.
President Vladimir Putin met Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin days after his short-lived mutiny last month, the Kremlin claimed Monday, clearing up some confusion over Prigozhin’s whereabouts but adding to the mystery over what was the greatest threat to Putin’s rule yet.
In Ukraine, the military claimed it had liberated 169 square kilometers (more than 65 square miles) of territory in the south since mid-May, as Russian forces continue their assault in the east.
Swedish leaders applaud Turkey’s endorsement of NATO bid
From CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey
Top Swedish officials on Monday applauded Turkey’s decision to endorse their country’s NATO bid.
“We have tonight after some negotiations in Vilnius reached an agreement with Türkiye on Sweden’s membership in NATO, which means that ratification will now commence,” Foreign Affairs Minister Tobias Billström said in a tweet.
Sweden’s mission to NATO also celebrated the announcement, made on the eve of a highly anticipated summit of alliance leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania.
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US senator voices reservations about US sales of F-16s to Turkey
From CNN's Nicky Robertson and Morgan Rimmer
Menendez is seen during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, DC, in May.
Menendez has had a long-standing opposition to selling the jets to Turkey, citing the autocratic leadership of President Recip Tayyib Erdogan. In January, CNN reported that the New Jersey Democrat said, “Until Erdogan ceases his threats, improves his human rights record at home — including by releasing journalists and political opposition — and begins to act like a trusted ally should, I will not approve this sale.”
Menendez said he could come to a conclusion on the possible sale of F-16s “in the next week.”
More background: Weapons sales are approved by Congress, and once the administration formally informs Congress it intends to sell arms, lawmakers have 30 days to block the deal, which they can do by passing a joint resolution of disapproval.
Meanwhile, Menendez’s fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said that Turkey’s decision to drop its opposition to Sweden’s entry was “great news for the West.”
“It strengthens the Western alliance significantly, and it shows Mr. Putin that the West is strong, united, and growing stronger against his aggression in Ukraine. Any thought that the West is giving up, any thought that the West is divided, is shown to be false by today’s development of Sweden joining NATO and of Turkey relenting,” he said.
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Turkey has agreed to back Sweden's membership to NATO. Here's what to know
Stoltenberg and other world leaders have expressed their support for the agreement, saying that Sweden joining NATO is good for the alliance and for security.
Here’s what to know:
More on Sweden’s ascension to NATO: Turkey’s agreement to allow Sweden to become a member of NATO has been in the works since last year, according to Stoltenberg. He said the move was not a result of “new negotiation” and that the agreement “builds on what we agreed a year ago in Madrid.” The announcement represents a shift from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had earlier on Monday suggested Sweden could only join the alliance after his country is accepted into the European Union.
What leaders are saying: US President Joe Biden welcomed Turkey’s decision to support Sweden, adding that he was ready to work with Erdogan. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Sweden’s membership to NATO is “in everyone’s interest.” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, called it a “historic step.” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, whose country joined NATO in April, said that “Finland’s NATO membership is not complete without that of Sweden.”
Biden and Zelensky to meet: US President Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit on Wednesday, an official familiar with the meeting confirms. Russia’s war in Ukraine is among the top agenda items for NATO leaders, along with discussing a future pathway for the war-torn country to join the alliance.
Germany will announce new support for Ukraine at NATO summit: Germany will announce new support packages for Ukraine during the upcoming NATO summit, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. The preliminary work is “practically completed,” Pistorius said during a joint news conference with his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in Berlin.
Ukrainian counteroffensive making slow progress: The Ukrainian military says it has liberated 169 square kilometers (about 65 square miles) of territory in the south since the beginning of the offensive in mid-May, an area roughly the size of the city of Odesa. Meantime, at least seven people were killed in a Russian attack on a school in Orikhiv in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.
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A 6-year-old underwent a first-of-its-kind heart transplant in Ukraine despite the raging war
From CNN's Radina Gigova and Svitlana Vlasova
The mother of the donor — a 4-year-old boy — visits the 6-year-old girl who received his heart.
Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center
Amid the raging war and constant threat of Russian missiles, a successful heart transplant has been performed on a patient just 6-years-old — a girl who received the heart of a 4-year-old boy, authorities with the Heart Institute of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday.
The 6-year-old girl, who is a patient at the Heart Institute in Kyiv, was on the waiting list for a donor. She received the heart of the boy, whom doctors had declared brain dead after suffering a brain aneurysm, the Heart Institute said.
Ukrainian doctors operate on a 6-year-old girl who needed a new heart. The operation lasted for about three hours.
Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center
Doctors began preparing for the heart transplant after securing the permission of the boy’s parents. The operation took place on Sunday evening and lasted for about three hours, the Heart Institute said.
The Heart Institute said it was the first time in Ukraine that a heart transplant on children so young had been performed.
The transplant was performed by a team of doctors led by Dr. Boris Todurov, chief scientist of the Department of Surgical and Minimally Invasive Treatment. He worked alongside 18 other staff members during the operation.
“The operation went smoothly, the girl was extubated two hours after the operation,” Todurov said in a post on his official Facebook page.
The Heart Institute also released images from the operation and a picture of the girl recovering after surgery. The picture of the girl after surgery also shows the mother of the boy standing next to her hospital bed, the Heart Institute said.
Three more of the boy’s organs — two kidneys and a liver — were transplanted to two other children at another hospital in Kyiv, the National Children’s Hospital “Ohmatdyt.” The two kidneys were transplanted to a 12-year-old boy from the occupied part of Kherson region. “He had been waiting for a transplant for more than 3 years and lived at the Ohmatdyt,” the hospital said in a Facebook post. A liver was transplanted to a 15-year-old boy from the Kirovohrad region, it added.
Postmortem transplants would not be possible without the relatives of donors making the decision “to save the lives of people they do not know after losing a loved one,” Dmytrieva said. “This is the noblest manifestation of humanity. Especially when it comes to the loss of a child.”
Since the beginning of 2023, 23 heart transplants have been performed for both children and adult patients, the Heart Institute said.
Cardiovascular surgeries during wartime: If an operation is already underway and air raid systems are activated, the operation cannot be interrupted and will continue even if there is an attack on the city, the Heart Institute told CNN on Monday.
If the operation hasn’t started, the team of doctors and the patient wait for the air raid sirens to stop and only then do they begin the operation.
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CNN Exclusive: Major companies accused of breaking promises to leave Russia
From CNN's Matt Egan
More than 1,000 major companies pledged to leave Russia after Vladimir Putin launched his war in Ukraine, but some well-known firms stand accused by researchers of violating their pledge.
For the companies that did leave, the unprecedented corporate exodus, championed and chronicled by Yale professor Jeff Sonnenfeld, dealt a serious financial and symbolic blow to Moscow and the Russian economy.
Now, as Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine exceeds the 500-day mark, Sonnenfeld and his team are naming and shaming a slew of companies they accuse of breaking their promises to leave or at least drastically scale back their presence in Russia, including well-known companies like Heineken, Unilever, Philip Morris and Oreo-maker Mondelez.
The Yale research, shared exclusively with CNN, is based on whistleblowers, on-the-ground experts, students operating inside Russia, corporate documents and news media reports.
“These companies are breaking their promises. They are functioning as wartime profiteers,” Sonnenfeld told CNN in an interview. “It’s beyond disappointing. It’s shameful and unethical.”
The “poster child” for this problem is the popular Dutch brewing giant Heineken, Sonnenfeld said.
In March 2022, just one month after the invasion of Ukraine, Heineken won praise for promising to leave Russia. However, 16 months later Heineken still has seven breweries and 1,800 employees in Russia, according to Yale. Not only that, but Heineken has since launched a series of new brands in Russia, gobbling up market share caused by the exodus of other major beer brands.
“They are not pulling out. They are doubling down,” said Steven Tian, director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
In March 2022, snack and candy giant Mondelez promised to scale back “all non-essential activities in Russia while helping maintain continuity of the food supply.” Mondelez said it would focus its operation on “basic offerings.”
However, Mondelez — the company behind Oreo cookies, Triscuit crackers and Nabisco snacks, says it still employs 3,000 people in Russia.
Residents of Ukraine's Sumy region will not face forced evacuations, military official says
From CNN's Svitlana Vlasova
A frame from a video shows rescue workers at a damaged building after a drone strike, in Sumy, Ukraine, on July 3.
National Police of Ukraine/Reuters/FILE
Residents of Ukraine’s Sumy region will not be forced to evacuate amid increased Russian shelling, said Volodymyr Artiukh, head of the Sumy regional military administration.
Artiukh cautioned those who wish to remain.
“People should just be aware that if they stay in the ‘death zone,’ which is the only way to describe this area, they are taking responsibility for their lives,” Artiukh said.
Earlier, the regional military administration said it would order the evacuation of areas near the Russian border.
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Senate progressives voice concerns over Biden’s move to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine
“I am deeply concerned about the use of a weapon that has such terrible long-term consequences for civilians,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CNN.
Sen. Bernie Sanders also said he had “concerns” about the president’s move.
More background: Cluster munitions scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines. Over 100 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban.
CNN’s Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky contributed to this report.
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Russia says Turkey is turning into an "unfriendly country" after a series of "provocative decisions"
From CNN’s Mariya Knight
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, Turkey on July 07.
Murat Cetinmuhurdar/TUR Presidency/Getty Images/FILE
A Russian defense official told Russian state media that Turkey is turning into an “unfriendly country” after a series of “provocative decisions.”
“The events of the past weeks, unfortunately, clearly demonstrate that Turkey is gradually and steadily continuing to turn from a neutral country into an unfriendly one,” Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, told state media TASS.
The series of “provocative decisions” came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Turkey on Friday, he said, pointing to Ankara endorsing Ukraine’s NATO bid and releasing Azovstal leaders, despite an agreement about them staying in Turkey until the end of the war.
Zelensky said on Saturday that five men, part of the Azovstal defense which defended Mariupol following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, would return back to Ukraine from Turkey. The five Ukrainian soldiers surrendered following the fall of Mariupol.
After their release from Russian captivity, they were taken to Turkey as part of a prisoner swap back in September where they were obliged to stay until the end of the war, according to the terms of the swap.
“Such behavior could not be called anything other than a stab in the back,” he said, calling the “unfriendly step” a result of pressure from NATO.
Bondarev said that the only reason NATO needs Turkey is “to control the Black Sea straits and stabilize or destabilize the Middle East region,” and said Turkey should think about “leaving NATO and creating an alliance with Russia.”
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Turkey received Sweden's full support for EU entry, state media reports
From CNN's Hande Atay Alam and Tatiana Arias in Atlanta
Sweden fully supports Turkey’s entry process into the European Union, state-run news agency Anadolu reported — citing a top Turkish official late Monday.
This comes as NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announced that Turkey had agreed to back Sweden’s NATO bid on Monday, with a statement from the alliance outlining that Stockholm would “actively support” efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s accession process to the European Union.
Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that Sweden’s membership of NATO should be linked to Turkey’s membership of the EU, arguing, “Turkey has been waiting at the gate of the European Union for over 50 years now,” and “almost all NATO member countries are European member countries.”
More background: Turkey’s EU membership bid has been on hold since 2016 — when an attempted coup failed to remove Erdogan from power. Erdogan has since tightened his grip on power through constitutional reforms that have prompted concerns from the EU on human rights and legal grounds.
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Agreement with Turkey for Sweden to join NATO is not a result of “new negotiation," alliance chief says
From CNN’s Duarte Mendonca
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg answers questions during a press conference on July 10.
Celestino Arce/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Turkey’s agreement to allow Sweden to become a member of NATO has been in the works since last year, the alliance chief said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the move was not a result of “new negotiation” and that the agreement “builds on what we agreed a year ago in Madrid.”
Stoltenberg went on to say that discussions between both nations have been able to address each of their concerns and find “common ground.”
“What we have seen is that we have been able to reconcile the concerns that Turkey has expressed and with the concerns that Sweden has expressed, and then we have been able to find a joint ground, a common ground and move forward based on that,” he said.
Sweden joining NATO is good for the alliance, the NATO chief said, adding that “this is in the security interest of all of us.”
Asked when Sweden can be expected to officially become a NATO member, Stoltenberg showed himself unwilling to commit to an answer, saying that it was up to Turkey to make an announcement, and preferred to focus on the merits of a “historic day.”
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Biden and Zelensky to meet Wednesday during NATO summit in Lithuania, official says
From CNN's Arlette Saenz
US President Joe Biden waves as he arrives in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Monday, July 10.
Susan Walsh/AP
US President Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit on Wednesday, an official familiar with the meeting confirms.
The meeting will be one sign of unity as Zelensky’s attendance at the summit had been in question. Russia’s war in Ukraine is among the top agenda items for NATO leaders gathering in Vilnius, Lithuania, along with discussing a future pathway for the war-torn country to join the alliance, which has prompted some division among leaders.
Biden poured cold water on the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO as the war is ongoing and cited reforms the country would still need to make to join the alliance.
Zelensky had previously said he does not plan on attending the summit “for fun” as he seeks a clearer pathway for his country to join the alliance along with security guarantees.
“It would be an important message to say that NATO is not afraid of Russia. Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in NATO. Only under these conditions, our meeting would be meaningful, otherwise, it’s just another politics,” Zelensky said in an interview with ABC.
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It's nighttime in Kyiv. Here's what you need to know
Biden meets Sunak in London: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden agreed on the need to “strengthen” their alliance and maintain support for Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement Monday. The two leaders discussed Ukraine’s counteroffensive and emphasized the “importance of the country’s international partners committing to its long-term defense, providing the support Ukraine needs to win this war and secure a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
Kyiv pushes for NATO membership: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s push for NATO membership is expected to be among the key issues at the summit. Ukraine wants a unanimous invitation from NATO members to join the defense alliance, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said NATO has agreed to let Kyiv bypass a detailed formal process in its application. Biden has stressed, however, that the war must end before NATO considers Ukraine.
Germany will announce new support for Ukraine at NATO summit: Germany will announce new support packages for Ukraine during the upcoming NATO summit, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. The preliminary work is “practically completed,” Pistorius said during a joint news conference with his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in Berlin.
Ukrainian counteroffensive making slow progress: The Ukrainian military says it has liberated 169 square kilometers of territory in the south since the beginning of the offensive in mid-May, an area roughly the size of the city of Odesa. The Institute for the Study of War said that “the current pace of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is reflective of a deliberate effort to conserve Ukrainian combat power and attrit Russian manpower and equipment at the cost of slower territorial advances.”
Prigozhin and Putin have met: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin after his short-lived mutiny at the end of June. There has been widespread speculation about where the Wagner leader has been since the aborted mutiny on June 23-24.
Moscow accused of “war crime”: Russia’s deadly bombing Sunday of a school where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid is a “war crime,” according to police in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region. The death toll in the attack has risen to at least seven after three bodies were pulled from the rubble on Monday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in an evening update. Search operations have now been completed, the emergency service said.
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World leaders welcome Turkey’s decision to support Sweden’s ascension to NATO
From CNN's Nikki Carvajal and Tatiana Arias
US President Joe Biden leaves 10 Downing Street after a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on July 10.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
US President Joe Biden welcomed Turkey’s decision to support Sweden’s ascension to NATO on Monday, saying he stood “ready to work with President ( Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan and Turkey on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
“I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister (Ulf) Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd NATO Ally,” Biden said in a statement shortly after the announcement.
The US president also thanked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for his leadership. As CNN previously reported, Stoltenberg said that Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also welcomed the move, saying in a tweet that Sweden’s membership to NATO is “in everyone’s interest.”
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, whose country joined NATO in April, said that “Finland’s NATO membership is not complete without that of Sweden.”
“Now we are one clear step closer to completion. With Sweden, the whole Alliance will be stronger,” Niinisto said in a tweet.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, called it a “historic step.”
President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda said in a tweet that the agreement will significantly strengthen the Baltic sea region and the entire Alliance, adding that the allied countries are united and strong. The NATO summit is being held in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Some context: The announcement came on the eve of NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, and represents a stunning about-face from Erdogan, who had earlier on Monday suggested Sweden could only join the alliance after his country is accepted into the European Union.
Erdogan has stood in the path of Sweden joining NATO for more than a year over a multitude of concerns.
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Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s NATO bid, alliance chief says
From CNN’s Sugam Pokharel in London
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 10.
Turkish Presid
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday that Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance.
“Glad to announce that after the meeting I hosted with @RTErdogan & @SwedishPM, President Erdogan has agreed to forward #Sweden’s accession protocol to the Grand National Assembly ASAP & ensure ratification. This is an historic step which makes all #NATO Allies stronger & safer,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a tweet after a meeting in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
Sweden will “actively support” efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s accession process to the European Union, NATO said in a statement after the meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Stoltenberg.
Allowing Sweden into the alliance “benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference.
Erdogan earlier on Monday asked for Brussels to clear Turkey’s path into EU membership before approving Sweden’s NATO membership.
“Since the last NATO Summit, Sweden and Türkiye have worked closely together to address Türkiye’s legitimate security concerns. As part of that process, Sweden has amended its constitution, changed its laws, significantly expanded its counter-terrorism cooperation against the PKK, and resumed arms exports to Türkiye, all steps set out in the Trilateral Memorandum agreed in 2022,” the NATO statement read.
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Analysis: Biden and Erdogan's comments could overshadow NATO summit – and help Putin
From CNN's Luke McGee
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Joe Biden walk during a meeting at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.
(Made Nagi/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)
NATO leaders meet in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Tuesday, with two big issues on the agenda: Sweden’s membership to the US-led alliance and providing a smooth path into the group for Ukraine. But comments from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Joe Biden have diverted the attention from both of these key issues.
On Monday morning, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that Sweden’s membership of NATO should be linked to Turkey’s membership of the European Union.
Turkey’s EU membership bid has been on hold since 2016, when an attempted coup failed to remove Erdogan from power. Erdogan has since tightened his grip on power through constitutional reforms that have prompted concerns from the EU on human rights and legal grounds. The official position in Brussels now is that Turkey would not meet the official criteria to join the bloc.
The Turkish president has been on the West’s naughty step for a number of years. His relationship with Putin has been a problem for many Western allies, whether it be his cooperation with Russia in Syria or painting himself as the key negotiator between the West and the Kremlin on Ukraine. Sweden provides Erdogan with some rare leverage.
It is therefore a headache, but not a huge shock, that Erdogan is using a key international summit to play his best hand. And for what it’s worth, Swedish officials are still confident the deal will be done.
The second headache for NATO comes in US President Joe Biden’s comments to CNN this weekend that Ukraine should not join the alliance until the war is over. Multiple NATO officials told CNN on Monday that these comments were regrettable as they have allowed the conversation to shift from all the good things the alliance has done and will do for Ukraine, to a largely irrelevant conversation about immediate membership.
Both of these issues might be distractions from the main parts of the summit, but Western officials know that distractions that can be spun to make the West look disunited will be welcomed in Russia at the moment.
The death toll in the Orikhiv school attack in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region has risen to at least seven after three bodies were pulled from the rubble on Monday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in an evening update.
Search operations have now been completed, the emergency service said.
Russia’s deadly bombing Sunday of the school where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid is a “war crime,” according to police in the Zaporizhzhia region.
A “guided aerial bomb” was used in the attack, officials claimed. Those killed range in age from 43 to 47, and the injured have been hospitalized with varying degrees of severity, he said.
CNN’s Olga Voitovych and Alex Stambaugh contributed reporting to this post.
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Turkey's EU membership should not impede Sweden getting into NATO, US State Department says
From CNN's Michael Conte and Jennifer Hansler
From left, Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson meet in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Monday, July 10.
Yves Herman/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
The United States does not believe Turkey’s quest for admission into the European Union should impede Sweden’s accession to NATO, the State Department said Monday.
“The United States has for a number of years supported Turkey’s EU aspirations, and we continue to do so,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, adding that it was ultimately up to the EU and Turkey.
“However, we do not believe that it should be an impediment to Sweden’s accession to NATO,” he said.
Miller said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “made that point” in his conversations with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan over the past several days. The two have spoken three times in five days.
What Turkey is saying: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tied the two issues together in public comments on Monday — just a day before the start of the NATO summit, adding another obstacle for Sweden’s accession to the alliance.
“First, let’s clear Turkey’s way in the European Union, then let’s clear the way for Sweden, just as we paved the way for Finland,” Erdogan said.
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Another person found dead after shelling in Zaporizhzhia region, local official says
From CNN's Svitlana Vlasova and Radina Gigova
In this handout image from the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, debris from destroyed buildings is strewn along the ground after a Russian airstrike in Orikhiv on July 10.
Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration/Handout/Reuters
At least five people have died and nearly a dozen others have been injured as a result of a Russian attack on a school building Sunday in the Ukrainian city of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, the head of the region’s military administration said in a Monday update.
The death toll rose to five after another body was pulled from the rubble by rescuers, Yurii Malashko said.
“Just as we were clearing the rubble, we had another shelling of Orikhiv, and a guided aerial bomb was dropped near the place where the rubble is being cleared,” the official said in the update.
Another person was wounded by this latest shelling, he added.
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Rescue efforts continue for those trapped under rubble of destroyed building, Ukrainian emergency service says
From CNN's Svitlana Vlasova and Radina Gigova
Ukrainian emergency crews work at the scene of a Russian airstrike in Orikhiv on July 10.
Andriy Andriyenko/AP
Rescue efforts are continuing in the Ukrainian city of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, as emergency teams are trying to find more people trapped in the rubble of a building destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Sunday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in a statement.
Three people are “likely” still trapped under the rubble, the service said.
At least four people were killed and 11 others were injured in the Russian bombing of a school, where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid, according to Yurii Malashko, head of the Zaporizhzhia region military administration.
Zaporizhzhia police have described the attack as a “war crime.”
