Putin’s forces accused of abducting 150 Ukrainian children from Luhansk – latest

Russia has been accused of abducting 150 children from the occupied Luhansk region.

The National Resistance Centre of Ukraine said the children were taken from the Luhansk’s Starobilsk district on 8 June to two centres in the Prikuban district of Russia’s Karachay-Cherkess republic.

According to a Ukrainian national database, over 19,000 children have been illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.

Explosions were heard in central Kyiv on Friday as an African delegation visited Ukraine on a peace mission, Reuters witnesses and the Kyiv mayor reported.

Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, President of the Union of Comoros Azali Assoumani, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Egypt’s Prime Minister Mustafa Madbuly visited a site of a mass grave, in the town of Bucha.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the central Podil district and warned that more missiles were headed towards the capital. Another Reuters correspondent in Kyiv saw the smoke trail of two missiles in the air.

It was not clear if those missiles were fired by Russia or by Ukrainian air defences.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is still open to any contacts to discuss a resolution of the Ukraine conflict, Russian news agencies reported.

The comments came on the eve of a visit by African leaders to present a new peace initiative to Putin, nearly 16 months after he launched Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine.

“President Putin was and is open to any contacts to discuss possible scenarios for solving the Ukrainian problem,” Interfax quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Russia has long said it is open to negotiations, but says Ukraine must recognise the “new realities” on the ground, where its forces control some 18% of Ukrainian territory.

Moscow claimed last autumn to have annexed four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine as well as the Crimea peninsula, which it seized in 2014.

Ukraine says its own peace plan, which envisages the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian land, must be the basis for any settlement of the war.

The African delegation was due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday before meeting Putin in St Petersburg on Saturday.

An air raid alert was issued in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the Kyiv region on Friday as African leaders visited on a peace mission.

Kyiv authorities issued the alert after the Ukrainian air force said several Russian Kalibr missiles had been launched from the Black Sea and were “heading north” towards Kyiv.

The African delegation was expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv later on Friday.

The Kremlin on Friday said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is still open to any contacts to discuss the resolution of the Ukraine conflict, Russian state news agency RIA reported.

Republican and Democratic members of the U.S. Congress introduced legislation on Thursday that would make it easier for Ukraine to fund its fight against Russian invaders by using seized and frozen Russian assets.

The U.S. Congress has approved more than $100 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid for Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.

While leaders of both parties insist U.S. support for the Kyiv government remains strong, some members of Congress have questioned how long that level of aid can continue amid calls to clamp down on government spending.

The bill’s sponsors said their intention is to ensure Moscow pays for damage caused by the invasion, not U.S. taxpayers.

“Over a year into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, more than $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets remain frozen globally,” said Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a sponsor of the bill.

“Given Russia’s brutality and continued war crimes against the Ukrainian people, it is only right that Russian government funds in the United States be seized and repurposed to help Ukraine rebuild its country,” he said.

Among other things, the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives would give the U.S. president the authority to confiscate Russian assets frozen in the United States and transfer them to help Ukraine.

It also would bar the release of funds to sanctioned Russian entities until Russia withdraws from Ukraine and agrees to provide compensation for harm caused by the war.

The bill’s other Republican sponsors include Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Representatives Joe Wilson, Thomas Kean and Brian Fitzpatrick.

Democratic sponsors include Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Marcy Kaptur, a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, as well as Representatives Steve Cohen and Mike Quigley.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Ukraine on Friday as part of an African peace mission, the South African presidency said on Twitter.

Ramaphosa is expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and then travel to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Saturday.

Russian troops who have destroyed German-made Leopard tanks and U.S.-supplied armoured vehicles being used by Ukraine will receive bonus payments, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said this was part of a wider reward scheme under which more than 10,000 Russian servicemen had received individual bonuses since the start of the war nearly 16 months ago.

On the basis of reports from Russian field commanders, “payments are currently being made to servicemen of the Russian Federation Armed Forces who in the course of military operations destroyed Leopard tanks, as well as armoured fighting vehicles made in the USA and other NATO countries”, the ministry said.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday awarded the “Hero of Russia gold star” medal to soldiers who Moscow said had destroyed Leopard tanks and U.S.-made Bradley fighting vehicles being used by Ukraine, which has launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive.

The ministry said that up to May 31, a total of 10,257 servicemen had been rewarded for destroying 16,001 items of Ukrainian and Western military equipment.

An enemy armoured vehicle was worth 50,000 roubles ($596) and a tank 100,000 roubles, it said.

Military pilots and air defence operators received 300,000 roubles for every destroyed Ukrainian plane or helicopter. Hits on Tochka-U and U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launch systems were rewarded by the same amount.

Watch live as Nato defence ministers meet in Brussels for the first time since latest Ukrainian counteroffensive got under way.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said that Russian general-major Sergei Goryachev was almost certainly killed in a strike on a command post on or around 12 June 2023, in southern Ukraine.

The top Russian general Goryachev was the chief of staff of 35th Combined Arms Army (35 CAA).

“With 35 CAA’s nominated commander, General-Lieutenant Alexandr Sanchik, reported to be filling a gap in a higher HQ, there is a realistic possibility that Goryachev was the acting army commander at the time of his death,” the ministry said today.

Goryachev is the first Russian general confirmed killed in Ukraine since the start of 2023, the MoD said.

“It continues a war record which has been both difficult and controversial for 35th CAA: in March 2022 elements of the army were present during the massacre of civilians in Bucha, and in June 2022 the force was largely wiped out near Izium,” the ministry added.