Ukraine-Russia war latest: International arrest warrants issued for former Russian defence minister and top general (2024)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Russia's former defence minister and its military chief of staff for allegedly attacking civilian targets in Ukraine.

The court is accusing Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov of war crimes and the crime against humanity of inhumane acts.

The judges consider there to be reasonable grounds to believe that the men were responsible for "missile strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure" from 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March, 2023.

"During this timeframe, a large number of strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations were carried out by the Russian armed forces in multiple locations in Ukraine," the court added.

The move obligates the court's 123 member states to arrest the pair and transfer them to The Hague for trial if they set foot on their territory.

Regular readers will remember that in March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia.

It also issued a warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, on similar allegations.

Our senior correspondents and military experts have been taking your questions about the war in Ukraine.

This week, Carmy has asked:

Have Western media given an honest account of Ukrainian military failures over the last year? I know they've had weapons shortages and the aid was delayed but that's not the whole story, is it?

Military analyst Sean Bellhas this to say...

Thanks for your question, Carmy.

Clearly I cannot speak for all Western organisations, but having worked inside newsrooms for a couple of years now I do know the mainstream media does its best to provide an objective assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For my part I am not a reporter or journalist, but as a military analyst with nearly three decades of experience of military operations I leverage that experience - and contacts - to try to provide an objective review of the very dynamic situation on the ground.

However, all objective reporting requires access to information and that is often difficult to ensure during prolonged conflicts. Russia consistently denies damage caused by Ukrainian attacks - even when there is clear evidence to the contrary - and often seeks to mislead.

But the mainstream media - and I have seen this at Sky News - works tirelessly to try to ensure accurate reporting, despite the difficulties.

Before commenting on the tactical performance of Ukrainian forces, context is important.

Russia started the conflict with a significantly larger army, air force and navy, and also had greater quantities of, and more modern, military capability.

Russia also had the benefit of surprise - it had spent years planning this invasion, whereas Ukraine was being reassured up until the eve of the invasion that Russia had no plans to attack.

Moscow expected Ukraine to fall in a matter of days, but more than 800 days later Ukraine is not subjugated and Kyiv has pushed Russia out of a significant proportion of the lands once occupied.

Crucially, the bravery, determination and commitment of the Ukrainian military has been outstanding. It has been the single most important factor in ensuring that - despite the odds - Ukraine has prevailed.

Ukraine knows it cannot get embroiled in a traditional 20thcentury grinding war of attrition - Russia's greater mass would ultimately prevail.

Therefore, Ukraine has had to innovate, adapt and experiment, in the midst of a national battle for survival. Perhaps inevitably, not all of Ukraine's initiatives would have had the desired outcomes, but in the circ*mstances it is very hard to label such outcomes "mistakes".

Ultimately, books will be written after this brutal war to analyse and dissect each element, and that will be the time to assess the respective performances of the combatants and the timeliness and robustness of the West's response.

Meanwhile, I am confident that both sides will be analysing their battlefield performance, gaining experience and evolving tactics accordingly.

After all, in my experience you learn far more from your mistakes than you do your successes.

If you're just checking in, here's a recap of what has happened in the last 24 hours - and we'll be back with live updates a little later today.

• Vladimir Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, said the Russian president's peace proposals could stop conflict in Ukraine almost immediately, state-run TASS news agency reported. Mr Putin said on 14 June he would be ready for peace talks "tomorrow" if Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine has said it won't give up any of its territory;
• An elderly woman was killed, four people injured and scores of buildings damaged in multiple air attacks by Ukraine on the Belgorod region overnight;
• The Kremlin yesterday blamed the US for an attack on Crimea with US-supplied ATACMS missiles but the US hit back at the claims, calling them "ridiculous" and "hyperbolic". The Russian foreign ministry summoned the American ambassador;
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had appointed brigadier general Andriy Hnatov as commander of the joint forces of Ukraine's armed forces, replacing Lieutenant-General Yuri Sodol;
• The EU approved a plan to use €1.4bn (£1.19bn) in profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine;
• A Russian double-tap missile attack killed at least five people and wounded 41 others, including four children, in the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk on Monday, regional officials said;
• North Korea warned the US over sparking a "new world war".

That's all of our live coverage on the conflict for now.

We'll bring you any major developments overnight, and we'll be back with our regular updates in the morning.

The US is expected to announce it is sending an additional $150m (£118m) in munitions to Ukraine.

According to a US official, who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, the package includes anti-armour weapons, small arms, grenades and artillery rounds, among other support.

The upcoming shipment is also expected to include munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

That system is capable of firing the longer-range missiles from the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which Russia has said would prompt retaliation and risk escalating the conflict.

The package is expected to be announced tomorrow.

On day 850 of the Ukraine war, we take a closer look at how Ukrainian servicemen in the Donetsk region are taking the fight to Russian troops near by.

The images below show Mykhailo, Ihor and Oleh of the 33rd Separate Mechanised Brigade preparing and loading a self-propelled howitzer before firing towards Russian troops.

The first day of mourning has taken place inRussia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan after attacks that the authorities say killed 20 people.

Gunmen opened fire on two Orthodox churches, a synagogue and a police post in the attacks in the cities of Makhachkala and Derbent yesterday.

Russia's national anti-terrorist committee described the attacks - in a predominantly Muslim region with a history of armed insurgency - as terrorist acts.

The attack is the deadliest in Russia since March, when gunmen opened fire at a concert in suburban Moscow, killing 145 people.

The affiliate of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan that claimed responsibility for March's raid quickly praised the attack in Dagestan, saying it was conducted by "brothers in the Caucasus who showed that they are still strong".

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War argued that the Islamic State group's North Caucasus branch, Vilayat Kavkaz, was likely to have been behind the attack, describing it as "complex and co-ordinated".

Russian claims that the US was behind yesterday's strikes in Crimea are "ridiculous" and "hyperbolic", according to a spokesperson for the US state department.

Officials say four people died and around 150 more were injured in the attack as missile debris fell on a beach in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.

Russia's defence ministry said the missiles used by Ukraine were US-supplied ATACMS missiles, and claimed US specialists programmed them.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow earlier today that the "involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences".

During a US state department briefing, spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked about Russia's claims, which he said were unfounded and wrong.

"I don't have any assessment of the underlying attack, including who was responsible for it. But you have seen Russia make ridiculous claims about responsibility in the past," he said.

"You might recall after the terror attack in Moscow in March, they blamed the US despite the US warning them about the attack.

"It's not unusual for Moscow to make ridiculous, hyperbolic claims about responsibility that aren't born out of facts."

Mr Miller had previously been asked about the strikes in Crimea, to which he said the US laments any civilian casualties in the ongoing war.

On providing weapons to Ukraine, Mr Miller added: "We provide weapons to Ukraine so that it can defend its sovereign territory against armed aggression, including in Crimea, which, of course, is part of Ukraine.

"Russia could stop this war today and end the suffering caused by the war Russia launched if it ended its occupation of sovereign Ukrainian territory and stopped launching attacks on civilians."

We reported earlier on a fire at a former Russian electronics research institute near Moscow that has killed at least eight people.

We've now got video of the scene - with people visible leaning out of windows as smoke engulfs the building.

It is not yet clear what caused the fire to start.

By Ian King, business presenter

The EU today launched its 14th package of sanctions against Russia - this time targeting Vladimir Putin'sliquefied natural gas exports (LNG) for the first time.

The measure is the latest attempt by the blocto deny Mr Putin'sregime of money as his war on Ukraine drags into its 29th month.

No EU bans on Russian gas yet

The sanctions, which will kick in after a nine-month transition period, fall short of an outright ban on Russian LNG shipments.

This partly reflects the fact that EU members are themselves still allowed to buy LNG from Moscow- even though the bloc has set a target of phasing out Russian fossil fuels by 2027.

The EU followed the leadof the United States and the UK in banning Russian oil imports, with one or two limited exceptions, in 2022 after Russia attacked Ukraine.

What latest sanctions do

The key measure in the package, signed off late last week in the face of opposition from Germany and Hungary,is a ban on trans-shipments off EU ports of Russian LNG - essentially preventing the commodity from being sold to third countries via EU ports.

Part of the package also targets specific vessels - including an initial 27 oil tankers - that are used to get around the price cap slapped on Russian oil by the G7 countries.

Read the full story here...