War in Ukraine, live: The ‘human cost’ of the battle of Severodonetsk ‘is simply appalling’, according to Volodymyr Zelensky

Presented live by Pierre Bouvier, Anna Villechenon and Alexandre Priam

Cover photo: The city of Lysyhansk, a neighboring city of Sieverodonetsk, is the scene of relentless Russian bombing. June 13, 2022. ARIS MESSINIS / AFP

• Kyiv claims to have lost a quarter of its arable land to the Russian occupation. According to the Ministry of Agriculture of Ukraine, the production is enough to cover domestic consumption. But the impossibility of exporting the grain produced abroad raises fears of “a hurricane of famine” in the coming months, according to the UN.
• Ukraine’s application for candidate status for the European Union (EU) will be answered shortlyUrsula von der Leyen promised that on Saturday. “We want to support Ukraine on its European path,” assured the President of the European Commission, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a visit to Kyiv.
• In the east, on the front line, where the Russian offensive has been intensifying for a few days, “the enemy focused most of its efforts on the north of the Luhansk region”, on Sunday, where it “uses artillery extensively and, unfortunately, has a ten-to-one advantage” in this regard, he explained on Facebook Valeri Zalouzhny , the supreme commander of the Ukrainian army. “Despite heavy fire, we managed to stop the enemy,” he added. In the morning, the Ukrainian presidency reported “constant attacks and artillery shelling on Sievarodonetsk and the surrounding villages”.
• Amnesty International on Monday (13 June) accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The organization says hundreds of civilians have died in relentless attacks on Kharkiv, many carried out with cluster bombs. The human rights NGO says it has found evidence showing Russian forces used cluster bombs, 9N210 and 9N235 ammunition and cluster mines, two categories regulated by international treaties, in seven attacks on residential neighborhoods in Ukraine’s second-largest city in the north-east of the country are forbidden.
• President ZelenskyySelenskyj reported on Saturday evening about the recapture of towns by Ukrainian troops, such as Tavriïsk in the Kherson region and Zaporijia Oblast, while the Russian army is still bombing the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. The area around Chortkiv in western Ukraine was also shelled in the evening, said regional governor Volodymyr Trouch.
• In an interview aired Friday on the Feigin Live YouTube channel, Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to President Zelenskyy, admitted that the Ukrainian army lost about ten thousand fightersamounting to a hundred a day.
• I spoke by video at the Asia-Pacific Security Forum, Zelenskyy reiterated the call for the international community to urge Russia to end the blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea portsotherwise “the food shortage will inevitably lead to political chaos that could lead to the fall of many governments”.
• Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe said at the forum on Sunday that Beijing “supports the peace talks”. between the two warring factions and assured that his country had “never provided material support” to Russia in this conflict.

You can find our live from yesterday here.

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