Image source, REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he has been charged in a new criminal case and faces up to 15 more years in prison if found guilty.

His comments were posted on social media, where Navalny says he's been charged with creating an extremist organisation and inciting hate towards authorities.

The latest charge follows a nine-year sentence he received in March this year for fraud and contempt of court, before which he was already facing prison for up to two years.

Navalny has consistently argued Russia's charges against him are politically motivated.

Image source, Reuters

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has presented state awards to local KGB agents for their part in what he said was an operation to rescue Belarusian lorry drivers stranded in Ukraine since Russia invaded it in February.

Lukashenko said on state television that after Russia's so-called "special operation" began, a few dozen drivers became "hostages to the situation" and had to be brought back home by the Belarusian security services. He said two of the drivers were killed.

“I am grateful to you for the operation carried out by you to free our people, practically from captivity”, Lukashenko said.

A staunch ally of Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko raised eyebrows earlier this month when he said the war had “dragged on” – while also defending Russia’s invasion.

Belarus shares a border with Ukraine and Russia sent troops from there when it launched its invasion.

Paul Kirby
Digital Europe editor

Severodonetsk and its neighbour Lysychansk, set either side of the Siverskyi Donets river, are a central part of the old coal producing region of Donbas.

Severodonetsk is home to the giant Azot chemical plant, which produces nitrogen-based fertilisers and in normal times is a major regional employer. Lysychansk features Ukraine’s second biggest oil refinery.

Image source, Serhiy Haidai

Severodonetsk has been bombarded by Russian forces for weeks.

The Mir hotel complex and the bus station on the north-east fringe of the city were among the first areas to fall to Russian fighters. Now the Russians have control of the south-east section too and are edging towards the centre.

Regional chief Serhiy Haidai, who is from the city, has long appealed for civilians to leave, although he says up to 15,000 of the city’s 120,000 population remain.

It fell briefly to Russian proxy fighters in 2014, but was recaptured and has since served as Luhansk’s main administrative hub.

Image source, Serhiy Haidai

Lysychansk, on the southern bank of the river, is still fully in Ukrainian hands although supplies of electricity and drinking water have been cut.

Before the war there were three bridges across the river, now there is just one and that is closed.

In normal times it has a population of around 100,000 and the refinery lies along the road out of the city to the south-west. The refinery and the road itself have been systematically shelled by Russian forces in recent days.

French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was killed on the road to Lysychansk yesterday as part of an evacuation effort.

In Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko has released footage accusing Russia of "insidiously" bombing a residential area in the city of Slovyansk.

The attack - which is said to have taken place overnight in to Tuesday - marks Russia's "next war crime on our land", Kyrylenko said in a Facebook post, external. "The whole territory of Donetsk region is now a battlefield," he added.

Donetsk is one of the regions where fighting has intensified over the last week, owing to Russia stepping up its campaign to take the east of Ukraine, following its failed attempt to capture Kyiv, the capital city.

Image source, .

The BBC’s Russia Editor, Steve Rosenberg, looks at what Russia’s papers have to say about the impact of sanctions imposed because of the invasion in Ukraine.

Image source, REUTERS/Johanna Geron

EU leaders have been meeting at a two-day summit in Brussels, which has involved intense negotiations between member states over a sixth package of sanctions against Russia.

What have they agreed?

Following opposition from Hungary, EU leaders have compromised and agreed a deal to block most Russian oil imports by the end of 2022.

The EU-wide ban will affect oil that arrives by sea - around two-thirds of imports - but not pipeline oil, which Hungary uses.

All 27 member states have had to agree on the plans.

Why has the deal been difficult to agree?

Newly-re-elected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had argued his country's economy would not be able to cope with an embargo on Russian oil.

Hungary imports 65% of its oil from Russia and Viktor Orban is a long-term ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For weeks Hungary's PM has threatened to veto the EU sanctions package and insisted solutions to guarantee his country's energy supply needed to be found first.

However, Orban has today hailed Hungarian exemptions in the deal as a major victory for his country over the European Commission.

What have other leaders said?

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky urged EU leaders to end internal rows.

Before the deal was agreed, Poland responded to Hungary's opposition by proposing a price equalisation system to stop any fellow EU member benefitting from Russian oil imports.

Robert Greenall
BBC News

Image source, Reuters

A Ukrainian refugee in the UK says she recognises items apparently looted from her house sitting on top of a Russian tank in a recent photo.

Alina Koreniuk says the box in the photo contains a new boiler she planned to install before the war started.

She and her children left Ukraine on 8 April and are staying with a British couple in Nottinghamshire.

The picture, taken in late May, shows the tank moving past bombed residential buildings in the eastern town of Popasna.

Russian forces have been in control of the town, in the Luhansk region, since 8 May.

Read more of this story here.

Image source, Reuters

Ukraine has identified more than 600 Russian war crime suspects and has started prosecuting around 80 of them, the country's prosecutor-general says.

Iryna Venediktova is in the Hague where she has been meeting her counterpart from the International Criminal Court and other officials to discuss war crimes charges.

The list of suspects includes "top military, politicians and propaganda agents of Russia", she told a news conference earlier.

She added that Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia had decided to join an international investigation team in Ukraine.

An update now on Ukraine's grain crisis.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the country is willing to lift its blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports - allowing the safe passage of ships carrying products such as wheat and corn - but Ukraine needed to make the waters safe first.

Lavrov is quoted by the Interfax news agency as telling reporters in Bahrain that he needed Ukraine to "de-mine the coastal waters in [its] territorial sea" before such a move could be made.

It comes less than a week after Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba described as blackmail a separate offer from Russia to lift the same blockade, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

Before the war, 90% of Ukraine's exports left via these deep ports, but all are now closed.

Ukraine's inability to export its grain has led to global food prices soaring and concerns around a possible food crisis in Europe.

Quentin Somerville
Reporting from Lysychansk

“There are too many Russians,” said the message from the National Guard captain inside Severodonestk. “But we are holding for now.”

The city and neighbouring Lysychansk mean a lot to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces - taking both would give them full control of the region of Luhansk, which along with Donetsk, make up the eastern Donbas region. But are they as vital to Ukraine’s war?

Both are small cities and feature high-rise buildings and factories which would present a challenge to invading infantry. Russia has been relying on big artillery bombardments to take territory in Donbas.

Both sides are suffering heavy casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimates 50-100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying daily.

So the Ukrainian command may decide a tactical retreat would better serve their medium-term interests, giving it time for its forces to be resupplied and receive new Western weaponry.

Image source, Getty Images

Oil prices have hit fresh highs after European Union leaders agreed a Russian oil import ban last night.

Brent crude rose above $123 a barrel on Tuesday, the highest it's been for two months.

Prices for oil and gas have soared in recent months, fuelled - in part - by the Ukraine war. Brent crude has risen more than 70% over the past year.

Russia currently supplies 27% of the EU's imported oil and 40% of its gas, and oil prices climbed again on news of the latest EU embargo.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said prices were rising because European countries now need to find alternative sources of supply.

Meanwhile, the rising cost of living threatens to curtail some EU countries' appetite for further sanctions which could also hurt their own economies.

Katya Adler
BBC Europe Editor, reporting from Brussels

Now EU leaders have reached political agreement to ban 90% of oil imports from Russia by end of the year... they’re split over gas imports.

So many EU countries are hugely reliant on Russian gas, and EU consumers are already suffering spiralling fuel costs.

Still, the hawkish Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania along with Poland are keen on a ban as soon as possible.

As the EU mulls another package of Russia sanctions it's finding it increasingly hard to punish Russia economically while not incurring too much pain for EU businesses and consumers.

Today French figures showed inflation at a record high, a day after German figures for May hit highest level in almost 50 years. European Central Bank officials meet next week to decide how far and how fast to raise interest rates.

Consumer price hikes in the EU are due to global supply chain problems provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic and have been hugely exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Image source, Reuters

Russia has said bodies found "inside a cooling unit" in tunnels underneath the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol will be handed over to Ukraine.

Russia's defence ministry said its troops found "152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine's armed forces" at the steelworks - adding that "four mines" were found underneath the bodies, the AFP news agency reports.

Russian forces took control of the port city in April, but thousands of Ukrainian defenders remained at the steel plant, protecting Ukraine's last foothold in Mariupol.

They finally surrended earlier this month and have been taken to Russian-occupied territory, where they remain. Russia has indicated that they will be put on trial.

As you may well know, the city of Mariupol fell to opposition forces earlier this month.

The news agency Reuters has today filed a set of pictures showing how residents have been adapting to life under Russian occupation.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

As we've been reporting, local officials say the evacuation of civilians out of Severodonetsk has been stopped due to Russian shelling.

The regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, told the BBC earlier that up to 15,000 civilians may still be trapped in the city.

And Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency which has long operated out of the city, told Reuters that he was "horrified" by its destruction.

"[Thousands of civilians] remain caught in the crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity," he said.

"The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape."

If you're just joining us, here's what you need to know about the war in Ukraine right now:

Situation on the ground: Fighting continues in eastern Ukraine. "The front line has cut [Severodonetsk] into two halves," city head Oleksandr Stryuk told Ukrainian TV. Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Haidai described it as "a grave situation there".

Russia sanctions: The European Union has defended its latest round of sanctions against Russia.The bloc agreed to cut oil imports from Russia by almost 90% by the end of the year. But, a deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, Ihor Zhovka, said sanctions had come far too late.

US weaponry: A key advisor to Ukraine's President Zelensky has responded to President Biden's decision not to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. Oleksiy Arestovych says rockets with ranges of around 70km would be "more than enough" for the Ukrainian army to repel Russian offensives.

Russian energy giant Gazprom says it has stopped gas supplies to Dutch gas firm GasTerra after the company refused to pay in roubles.

GasTerra said it had anticipated the move by purchasing 2 billion cubic metres of gas elsewhere.

"This is not yet seen as a threat to supplies," said Economy Affairs Ministry spokesman Pieter ten Bruggencate. The partly state-owned firm buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government.

Moscow has already halted natural gas supplies to Bulgaria, Poland and Finland, citing their refusal to pay in Russian roubles.

Laura Gozzi, BBC Monitoring

Image source, Getty Images

European media expressed muted relief - and some disappointment - at the news that the EU will enforce a partial oil embargo on Russia.

Pro-government papers in Hungary welcome the exemption that allows the country to keep receiving cheap crude from Moscow.

The lead story on the Magyar Nemzet website has Prime Minister Viktor Orban saying: "Families can sleep peacefully tonight, we kept out the most hair-raising idea.” Another fiercely pro-Orban paper declares: “Viktor Orban: We have protected Hungarian families!”

Meanwhile, in Germany, conservative tabloid Bild reveals the "fierce row" behind the scenes at the summit: "All member states were willing to make sacrifices in favour of Ukraine, but the fear of competitive disadvantages compared to countries with exceptional rules was just as great".

Other German papers, Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, say the "slimmed-down" agreement was worked out in order to get past the "blockade" by Hungary.

In Italy, Il Foglio also notes the embargo won't be immediate - or as sweeping as some had hoped: "The sixth round of sanctions was watered down considerably [and] the ban won't kick in for another six months."

The paper also says other measures - like banning Russians from buying real estate in Europe - were also scrapped at the last minute.

Image source, Reuters

A cargo ship carrying metal has left the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and headed to Russia, a pro-Moscow separatist leader has said.

It is the first time a vessel has sailed from the Russian-occupied port since it fell to Russian forces earlier this month.

"Today 2,500 tonnes of sheet metal rolls left the port of Mariupol, the ship is heading to Rostov," Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin separatist leader in Donetsk, said on messaging app Telegram.

On 27 May, the same ship became the first one to enter the port since the end of hostilities, Russian news agency Tass reports.

Image source, Suspilne Poltava

Two Russian soldiers have been jailed for 11 and a half years for war crimes by a Ukrainian court.

Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov pleaded guilty to the charges. Both men were members of an artillery unit that had, among other targets, shelled a school in the north-eastern Kharkiv region from Russia.

The soldiers, who were later captured by the Ukrainian military, listened to the verdict from a reinforced glass box in the court in central Ukraine.

Their lawyers argued that the servicemen were fulfilling orders and were forced to commit the crime, but the court rejected that argument.

The war crimes trial was the second Ukraine has held since the Russian invasion. At the first, captured soldier Sgt Vadim Shishimarin was jailed for life for killing a civilian.