Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine’s counteroffensive will be ‘very impressive’, US general says

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Ukraine’s president has declared his country’s military is ready to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive and hinted at concern about the possibility of Donald Trump retaking the White House.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal, suggested that a significant attack could come soon and said he hoped a change in the US presidency would not impact military aid to Kyiv.

“We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelenskiy told the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, although he acknowledged he did not know how long the counteroffensive would take or how well it would go.

Read more: ‘We will succeed’: Zelenskiy says Ukraine ready to launch counteroffensive

A peace plan to end the war in Ukraine proposed by Indonesian defence minister, Prabowo Subianto, (see 8.30am post) has been dismissed by Ukraine.

Subianto called on defence and military officials from around the world, gathered at the Shangri-La Dialogue defence meeting in Singapore, to issue a declaration calling for a cessation in hostilities.

However, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said Russia had committed the act of aggression, occupying Ukrainian territories, and any proposals for a ceasefire would allow it to regroup and reinforce, Reuters reports.

Nikolenko said:

There are no disputed territories between Ukraine and the Russian Federation to hold referendums there,” he said.

In the occupied territories, the Russian army commits war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Russia is now trying in every possible way to disrupt the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Here are some images coming to us over the wires.

Russia will come back to full compliance with the New Start treaty if Washington abandons its “hostile stance” towards Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov.

The United States said earlier this week that it would stop providing Russia with some notifications required under the arms control treaty, including updates on its missile and launcher locations, to retaliate for Moscow’s “ongoing violations” of the accord, Reuters reports.

According to Ryabkov, the move did not come as a surprise to Moscow, and Russia’s decision to suspend the New Start treaty stands despite any countermeasures.

The Tass news agency quoted him as saying:

Regardless of any measures or countermeasures from the US side, our decision to suspend the Start treaty is unshakable.

And our own condition for returning to a fully operational treaty is for the US to abandon its fundamentally hostile stance toward Russia.

Petraeus also said that Ukrainians are determined “to liberate” all of its territory:

Well, there are quite categorical that winning for them is liberating all their territory.

There’s no hedging on that. There are no discussions behind closed doors that oh look, we could give this up or give that up. They are determined to liberate their country. And again, to win the war and then win the peace.

And of course, there will need to be some kind of, I think, some kind of negotiated resolution. We certainly don’t ever want to see another frozen conflict with new frontlines. And there’s a lot of pressure on Russia.

Petraeus also said Putin could “hang on” in power once the war with Ukraine is over.

He has still total control. Certainly, there’s some criticism of the ministry of defence, defence minister Shoigu, the chief of the general staff Gen Gerasimov and so forth, that’s allowable. No one criticises Putin or not generally, there has been some somewhat indirect by Prigozhin, by a few others.

I think he probably could hang on to that power. And what we have to watch for are any indicators that the inconceivable, the toppling of Putin, could all of a sudden, seem very possible.

Petraeus continued to discuss Putin and whether he could escalate attacks:

I think you can’t dismiss it. But I think that the actions to dissuade him from doing that have been very considerable. And I think I would certainly hope that they have convinced him that he and Russia would be much worse off if tactical nuclear weapons were used.

President Xi, his partner without limits has actually turned out to have very distinct limits, and prime minister Modi from India at their summit, some months back, both of them made it very clear that this is something he shouldn’t even think about.

Petraeus also spoke to the Today programme about the possibility of Ukraine retaking Crimea”:

I do tend to think that they [Ukraine] will cut this ability of the Russians to resupply Crimea, along the southeast coast, they will severe that line of communication and begin the process of isolating Crimea as well.

However, when asked if he thought they would take Crimea, he said:

Not in this counteroffensive. No.

But if they can get to the point of beginning to isolate Crimea, I think that changes the dynamics very, very substantially. It couldn’t even prompt Putin to start to consider a negotiated resolution.

You know, right now, of course, he thinks that the Russians still are going to be able to out-suffer the Ukrainians, the Europeans and the Americans, and we have to do everything we can to enable the Ukrainians to prove him wrong.

We’ve got more from Petraeus, who said he believed US support for Ukraine would continue in the event of a Republican president:

If you look at what was done in the debt ceiling agreement the other day, there’s a little bit of fine print that says that they will revisit issues having to do with aid for Ukraine, in other words, that that is not going to prevent them from doing more for Ukraine.

There’s very strong bipartisan support for Ukraine. I think that will continue and there’s going to be a big effort to make sure that those in the part of the Republican party that have questioned aid for Ukraine, to persuade them that that is a bad idea frankly. And now if this offensive succeeds the way I think that it can and likely will. That will be a huge boast.

More from Petraeus, whoalso said that joining Nato was “required” but the language to reach this had to be “ironclad”.

The big, looming issue right now has to do with the language on a path to Nato membership for Ukraine that will be announced at the 11 July Vilnius Nato summit. That should be as ironclad as absolutely possible. Obviously, they’re not going to become a member while the war is still going on. But that is going to be crucial.

Even Henry Kissinger, who cautioned against Nato membership for countries that were former Russian republics, has now concluded that this is indeed inevitable. It’s required.

Nato’s security now rests on the border between Ukraine and Russia, as we’ve seen. You can’t arm Ukraine the way that we have and not see that as again, integral to our security. But I think that the support will continue.

Gen David Petraeus has said Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “very impressive” and can succeed, adding that the Ukrainians are “determined to liberate their country”.

Petraeus, who was director of the CIA and led international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan before that, has been in Kyiv recently, meeting President Zelenskiy and others.

He spoke about the situation in Ukraine to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

On the counteroffensive, he said:

I think that this counteroffensive is going to be very impressive.

My sense is that they will achieve combined arms effects in other words, they will successfully carry out combined arms operations where you have engineers that are breaching the obstacles and diffusing the minefields and so forth; armour following right on through protected by infantry against anti-tank missiles; air defence keeping the Russians aircraft off them; electronic warfare jamming their radio networks; logistics right up behind them; artillery and mortars right out in front of them.

And most important of all … is that as the lead elements inevitably culminate after 72-96 hours, physically that’s about as far as you can go, and they’ll have taken losses … you have follow-on units that will push right on through and capitalise on the progress and maintain the momentum and I think that can get the entire Russian defence in that area moving, then I think you have other opportunities that will open up on the flanks as well.

Ukraine’s plans for a counteroffensive against Russian occupation remain on track, its deputy defence minister told Reuters on Saturday, despite an “unprecedented” wave of missile and drone attacks across the country in recent weeks.

Ukraine will “start the counter-offensive, with the ambition to liberate our territories this year,” he added.

Volodymyr V Havrylov said that alongside cruise missile strikes, Ukraine had faced repeated volleys of ballistic missiles in May, especially in urban centres including the capital, Kyiv.

“Their primary goal is to stop our counter-offensive and target decision-making centres,” he said on the sidelines of the security conference, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

Havrylov called Russia’s heavy use of ballistic missiles in May a “last strategic resort” and noted that his country’s air defence systems had been “more than 90% effective” against the attacks, Reuters reports.

For Russia “it was a huge surprise to find that the effectiveness of (their ballistic missiles) was almost zero against modern air defence systems, which we received from our partners,” he said.

Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Saturday his country was ready to launch a much-awaited counter-offensive. Havrylov said the missile barrages had not affected the timing.

He said:

Nothing can stop our efforts, our desire, and our confidence that we’ll win this war.

Havrylov declined to comment about recent drone attacks and border incursions into Russian territory, including some strikes that reached near Moscow.

Havrylov added:

They (Russia) have a lot of internal events that are of course linked to this war. We have a lot of people inside Russia who support Ukraine.

Havrylov said Ukraine expects Nato allies to provide a detailed roadmap to membership at the defence pact’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month.

He said:

We want to see a clear … set of steps to be taken by both sides. Not just an indication that the door is open.

He added that Ukraine also expected guarantees of security to be provided while the country is in a “transition period” on the way to membership.

He dismissed a proposal by Indonesia’s defence minister at the Singapore meetings to establish a demilitarised zone to halt the fighting in Ukraine, saying:

We are not going to negotiate any deal related to loss of our territory, including Crimea.

Indonesia’s defence minister has proposed a peace plan for the war in Ukraine, calling for a demilitarised zone and a United Nations referendum in what he called disputed territory.

Prabowo Subianto called on defence and military officials from around the globe gathered at the Shangri-La Dialogue defence meeting in Singapore on Saturday to issue a declaration calling for a cessation in hostilities.

He proposed a multi-point plan including a ceasefire “in place at present positions of both conflicting parties” and establishing a demilitarised zone by withdrawing 15 kilometres (nearly 10 miles) from each party’s forward position, Reuters reports.

He said the demilitarised zone should be observed and monitored by a peacekeeping force deployed by the United Nations, adding that a UN referendum should be held “to ascertain objectively the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants of the various disputed areas”.

Subianto said:

I propose that the Shangri-La dialogue find a mode of… voluntary declaration urging both Ukraine and Russia to immediately start negotiations for peace.

Indonesia’s proposal follows president Joko Widodo’s visit to Moscow and Kyiv last year, where he offered to play peace broker between their leaders and rekindle peace talks. He was also chairman of the G20 group of major economies at the time.

Speaking on the same panel, Josep Borrell Fontelles, high representative and vice president of the European Union’s European Commission, noted that if military support for Ukraine stopped, the war would quickly end – but with that country’s sovereignty falling to outside aggression.

“We cannot stop supporting militarily Ukraine because we don’t want the peace which is … the peace of the surrender. The peace of the stronger,” Borrell said.

President Volodymr Zelenskiy has proposed a 10-point peace plan, calling for Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine.

Chief diplomatic adviser Ihor Zhovkva said Ukraine had no interest in a ceasefire that locks in Russian territorial gains.

Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Saturday.

The Ukrainian president told the Wall Street Journal:

We strongly believe that we will succeed. I don’t know how long it will take. To be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it, and we are ready.

Reuters also reported that Zelenskiy said last month that Ukraine needed to wait for more western armoured vehicles arrived before launching the counteroffensive.

He has been on a diplomatic push to maintain Western support, seeking more military aid and weapons, which is key for Ukraine to succeed in its plans.

Russia holds swaths of Ukrainian territory in the east, south and south-east. A long spell of dry weather in some parts of Ukraine has driven anticipation that the counteroffensive might be imminent. Over the past several weeks Ukraine has increased it strikes on Russian ammunition depots and logistical routes.

On Saturday Ukraine’s military said in a daily report that Mariinka, in the Donetsk region in the east, was the focus of fighting. Ukrainian forces repelled all 14 Russian troops’ attacks there, the report said.

The forced deployment of once-elite Russian VDV troops to Bakhmut amid the withdrawal of Wagner mercenary forces means “the whole Russian force is likely to be less flexible in reacting to operational challenges”, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

The ministry’s latest intelligence update said Russia’s VDV (airborne forces) had assumed an increasingly important role in the devastated eastern Ukrainian city and that elements of the 76th and 106th divisions and two additional separate VDV brigades were now deployed to the area.

The ministry said in its briefing, posted on Twitter:

The VDV is much degraded from its pre-invasion ‘elite’ status. However, Russian commanders have likely attempted to maintain some of these still relatively capable units as an uncommitted reserve.

Because they have instead been forced to deploy them to hold the front line in Bakhmut, the whole Russian force is likely to be less flexible in reacting to operational challenges.

Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton and here’s a look at the latest.

The forced deployment of once-elite Russian VDV troops to the devastated city of Bakhmut amid the withdrawal of Wagner mercenary forces means “the whole Russian force is likely to be less flexible in reacting to operational challenges”, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.

More on that story soon. In other news:

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has ordered shelters to be operational on a 24-hour basis, after allegations that three people who were killed by falling debris from a Russian missile attack were stuck outside a “locked” air raid shelter. Three people including a child were killed and at least 11 people injured in Thursday’s early morning missile attack. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Klitschko and other city leaders of negligence.

The top US military officer has said training for Ukrainian forces on advanced US Abrams tanks has started, but those weapons crucial over the long term in trying to expel Russia from occupied territory will not be ready in time for Kyiv’s imminent counteroffensive.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Friday the US was working with Ukraine and other allies to build consensus around the core elements of a “just and lasting peace” to end the war with Russia. Washington would also encourage initiatives by other countries to bring an end to the conflict, as long as they upheld the UN charter and Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Ukraine would be ready to continue exporting grain across the Black Sea as part of a “plan B” without Russian backing if Moscow pulled the plug on the current grain export deal and it collapsed, Ukraine’s farm minister has said.

Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, has released excerpts of his correspondence with prison administrators, detailing his sarcastic demands for things like a bottle of moonshine, a balalaika and even a kangaroo. His requests were denied.

A Russian-installed official in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said Ukrainian forces had shelled the Russian-controlled port city of Berdiansk, on the Sea of Azov. Footage showed a large cloud of grey smoke rising from near the port area.

The former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev has reacted to the imposition of sanctions on him by Ukraine and has defended his investments in occupied Crimea.

Three people were killed and four injured, including a three-year-old girl, by fire from Ukrainian armed forces, according to Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of the occupied Donetsk region.

Britain supports Ukraine joining Nato, the defence minister, Ben Wallace, has said on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, saying the path is open to them although political realities may slow the process as it is not possible to add members in the middle of a war. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he understood Ukraine would not join Nato while at war with Russia.

Ukrainian-backed Russian rebel groups have said they are still fighting inside Russia’s Belgorod region, despite Moscow’s claims on Thursday to have repelled the incursion. The Freedom of Russia Legion posted videos on social media of combat apparently in the Belgorod village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, between the Ukrainian-Russian border and the town of Shebekino, the legion’s stated goal. Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said two people were killed and two injured when Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the town of Maslova Pristan.

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the chair of Ukraine’s parliament, has posted to social media about meeting Lithuania’s president, saying: “We are grateful for the support of Lithuania, the EU and the Euro-Atlantic future of Ukraine.”

The Belarusian tennis star Aryna Sabalenka skipped her post-match press conference at the French Open tennis tournament on Friday, citing mental health reasons, two days after she was asked to comment on the war in Ukraine after her second-round win.

Two long-range drones attacked fuel and energy infrastructure in Russia’s western Smolensk region but no injuries or fires were reported, the region’s acting governor said.

An aide to Mariupol’s Ukrainian mayor has claimed three people were killed by the detonation of a landmine on the Mariupol-Donetsk H20 highway. Petro Andryushchenko said the incident happened near Olenivka, the location of a prison massacre earlier in the war.