Russia-Ukraine war live: 150 children abducted from Luhansk and taken to Russia, says Ukraine

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The senior Russian general killed in a Ukrainian missile strike in the Zaporizhzhia region on Tuesday was possibly acting commander of the Russian army at the time of his death, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.

The ministry said in its latest intelligence briefing that Gen-Maj Sergei Goryachev was “almost certainly” killed in a strike on a command post in southern Ukraine. He was the chief of staff of the 35th combined arms army (CAA).

A Russian-installed official in Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, confirmed the death on Tuesday, offering his condolences.

The UK defence ministry said in its briefing, posted on Twitter, that Goryachev was the first Russian general confirmed killed in Ukraine this year.

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 Goryachev’s death “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.

African leaders could propose a series of “confidence-building measures” during their initial efforts to mediate in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, according to a draft framework document seen by Reuters.

The Senegalese and South African presidents are heading a delegation including the Egyptian prime minister and leaders from Zambia and the Comoro which is to travel to Kyiv on Friday and St Petersburg on Saturday, the news agency reported.

They are expected to meet the Ukrainian and Russian presidents.

The framework document, which has not been made public, states the objective of the mission is “to promote the importance of peace and to encourage the parties to agree to a diplomacy-led process of negotiations”.

The conflict, as well as the sanctions placed on Russia by major trading partners of the [African] continent, have had an adverse effect on African economies and livelihoods.

The document lists a number of measures that could be proposed by the African leaders as part of the first stage of their engagement with the warring parties. The measures could include a Russian troop pullback, removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, sanctions relief and suspension of the implementation of an international criminal court arrest warrant targeting Vladimir Putin.

The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, had given him a description of the African efforts.

Ukraine says 150 children have been illegally taken from the occupied Luhansk region to Russia.

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.

It said 19,393 children had so far been illegally transferred to Russia from Ukraine’s occupied territories, quoting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying last month.

The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in March for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children.

In granting the request for warrants by the ICC prosecutor, a panel of judges agreed that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, bore responsibility for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.

On Thursday, the National Resistance Centre said 750 children from Luhansk were expected to arrive this month at the two centres in Karachay-Cherkess.

It also said “so-called medical examinations” of children were being conducted in the Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories.

Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. I’m Adam Fulton and we’ll start with a rundown of the latest developments.

One-hundred-and-fifty children have been illegally taken from the Luhansk region to Russia, according to Ukraine’s National Resistance Centre. It said the children were taken from the occupied region’s Starobilsk district on 8 June to two centres in the Prikuban district of Russia’s Karachay-Cherkess republic.

It added that 750 children from Luhansk were expected to arrive at the centres in June.

In other news:

Ukraine has regained control of more than 100 sq km (38 sq miles) of territory in its counteroffensive, senior Ukrainian military commander Brig Gen Oleksii Hromov has claimed.The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said there was a “gradual but steady advance” but that Russian forces were putting up “powerful resistance” on the southern front.

The UN nuclear watchdog chief has said the situation is “serious” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant but a number of measures have been taken to stabilise it. Rafael Grossi said after visiting Europe’s largest atomic power plant that inspectors would stay at the Russian-occupied facility but that signing a document on security on the site was “unrealistic” while the two sides were still fighting. Ensuring water for cooling the plant was a priority, he said, adding that the station could operate safely for “some time”.

Gunfire briefly halted Grossi’s convoy as it headed back to Ukrainian-held territory following the visit to the Zaporizhzhia plant, but the delegation was in no immediate danger, a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

Ukrainian fighter pilots are being trained to fly F-16 jets, Nato’s secretary general has revealed. Nato allies have yet to agree on delivering the so-called fourth-generation US fighters to Ukraine, but Jens Stoltenberg said the training of Ukrainian personnel was under way.

A group of UN experts said they had written to Moscow raising concerns about the use of torture by Russian military forces on Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.

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

Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned a Canadian diplomat in Moscow in protest over the confiscation of an Antonov plane in Toronto, and warned that Russian-Canadian relations were on the “verge of being severed”.

The Russian and Algerian presidents, Vladimir Putin and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, pledged to deepen their two countries’ “strategic partnership” during a three-day state visit by Tebboune as the Kremlin seeks to pivot towards Asia and Africa.

A Russian anti-war activist died in a detention centre in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where he had alleged he was being mistreated, his lawyer said.

The US, the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark announced they would partner to send defence equipment, including hundreds of missiles, to Ukraine. A joint statement released by the British government said delivery of the equipment had already begun and should be completed “within several weeks”.

As many as 100 Russian troops gathered for a motivational speech near Ukraine’s eastern frontline may have been killed in a strike earlier this week, prompting fury among Russian military bloggers.

Members of the European Parliament called on Nato allies to honour their commitment to Ukraine by inviting the country to join the defence alliance and support opening EU accession negotiations this year.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged Switzerland to allow the re-export of weapons to Ukraine, telling its parliament that the move would be vital in combating the Russian invasion.

Russian missiles hit two industrial facilities in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Thursday, and an elderly woman was killed by Russian fire in the southern Kherson region, local officials said. The Kryvyi Rih mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, reported no deaths in the latest attack on Zelenskiy’s home town but said a 38-year-old man was reportedly wounded.

Russian forces claimed they successfully hit drone production facilities in Ukraine using high-precision, long-range weapons.

The defence ministry and the Federal Security Service considered it possible to hold elections on 10 September in the four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims to have annexed, the state news agency Tass reported the head of Russia’s electoral commission as saying.