Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Vladimir Putin evacuates nine Belgorod Russian villages as fighting continues

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said on Tuesday that the Russian army and other security forces were still conducting what he called a counter-terrorism operation.

“The clearing out of the area by the Ministry of Defence in conjunction with the security forces is continuing,” Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Do not yet return to your homes,” he told local residents who had been evacuated on Monday.

He said one elderly lady had died while being evacuated and two people were being treated in hospital for various injuries, but that no civilians had been killed in the clashes.

“We are waiting for the conclusion of the counter-terrorism operation,” he said.

He also said Russian air-defence forces had shot down drones over the region.

The two groups that have claimed responsibility for the incursion are the Freedom of Russia Legion – a Ukraine-based Russian militia led by Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev that says it is working inside Russia for Putin’s overthrow – and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC).

Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, said the US government is aware of the reports that American armoured vehicles were used in the incursion into Russia, and that they are investigating the reports.

But he added that the US does not “encourage or enable strikes inside of Russia, and we’ve made that clear”.

“I will say that we’re skeptical at this time of the veracity of these reports,” Mr Miller said in response to a New York Times report.

“But as we’ve also said,” he added, “it is up to Ukraine to decide how to conduct this war.”

Anti-Russian fighters appeared to have used US-made armoured vehicles in the Belgorod Oblast incursion, according to pictures and videos verified by New York Times.

At least three such US-made vehicles were used with two of those captured by Russian forces.

The group behind the incursion that has sparked evacuations in Belgorod used MRAPs, known as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected, which were first built by the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and Washington has sent several to Ukraine.

The two groups that have claimed responsibility for the incursion are the Freedom of Russia Legion – a Ukraine-based Russian militia led by Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev that says it is working inside Russia for Vladimir Putin’s overthrow – and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC).

One of the photos of a seized MRAP showed a Russian soldier standing next to a vehicle which had a white spray-painted marking of an upward-pointing arrow. A vehicle with a similar symbol was seen in a video just hours before the incursion into Russia.

The Russian navy’s Generalissimo Suvorov, a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, is set to move to its permanent base in the Kamchatka Peninsula in August, Tass reported, as Moscow is stepping up its military presence in the Pacific.

The nuclear submarine, which came into service at the end of 2022, can carry up to 16 nuclear-tipped Russian Bulava missiles, each of which can carry more than one nuclear warhead.

“The submarine Generalissimo Suvorov will make an inter-naval transition from the Northern Fleet (in the Arctic) to the Pacific Fleet in August,” the state TASS news agency reported, citing a source close to the military department.

“The transition will be carried out along the Northern Sea Route, including in a submerged position.”

Russia has been boosting defences in its vast far eastern regions bordering the Asia-Pacific, accusing the US of expanding its presence there and raising security concerns in Japan and across the region.

Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) said it has launched a criminal investigation into Andrei Ruzinsky, a Russian commander Reuters identified last year as helping lead the military occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Mr Ruzinsky was commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s 11th Army Corps, which crossed into Ukraine in early 2022 and took control of a chain of towns south of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

The SBU said in a statement that it had served notice on Mr Ruzinsky, who is on Russian soil, that he was suspected of entering into a conspiracy to conduct acts of military aggression.

It said he had ordered attacks using heavy weapons on populated areas, and that he had given orders to the military commandant in the town of Balakliia, where there were multiple cases of civilians being detained and tortured, according to Ukrainian officials and residents.

Russia withdrew from the area in September last year.

Just over a year ago the final Ukrainian soldiers left the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, ending a nearly three-month siege of the city by Russian forces, writes Kit Macdonald for Independent Voices.

The Ukrainian troops’ mission – to tie Russian forces up in the city for as long as possible and kill as many of them as possible in the process – was complete. Ukraine pulled off a similar trick in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, twin cities on either side of the Donets River, during May and June 2022.

Now, perhaps the perfect realisation of these tactics has either just ended, is ongoing but close to ending, or is about to take a new twist.

Read the full piece here:

Ukraine is investigating the alleged role of Belarus in the forced transfer of children from Russian-occupied territories, Kyiv’s prosecutor general’s office has said.

The announcement came in response to a report by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s office told Reuters it has launched criminal proceedings into “the forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children” from the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv, including to Belarus.

“The fact and circumstances of taking Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the so-called ‘recreational camps’ in Belarus are currently under investigation in the mentioned criminal proceedings,” it said.

Reuters did not receive answers to questions sent to Lukashenko’s office.

Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko was forced to dismiss claims that he was seriously ill as he appeared in footage broadcast by state media today, telling officials: “I’m not going to die, guys.”

Rumours about the state of the 68-year-old autocrat’s health have circulated since he appeared at a military parade in Moscow on 9 May, looking tired and unsteady on his feet.

Sounding hoarse, Mr Lukashenko told a meeting on health issues that he had been suffering from an adenovirus, which is a common cold virus. Footage of the encounter was broadcast by Pul Pervovo, a state outlet that reports on Lukashenko’s activities.

“If someone thinks I am going to die, calm down,” he said, adding that while it only took three days to recover from such a virus, he had been too busy to take time off immediately.

“I’m not going to die, guys. You’ll have to struggle with me for a very long time to come,” he said.

World Health Organisation (WHO) members met today in Switzerland to discuss resolutions to the health emergency in Ukraine triggered by Russia’s invasion.

The organisation declared a health emergency in Ukraine after Vladimir Putin’s troops launched a full-scale invasion over a year ago.

US president Joe Biden is deeply concerned about Russia’s decision to extend the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the White House has said.

Mr Gershkovich, arrested in Russia in March on espionage charges, was remanded in custody until 30 August in Moscow on Tuesday, state news agency RIA reported, citing the Russian court.

The White House said Mr Gershkovich and US citizen Paul Whelan should be released from Russian detention immediately.