War in Ukraine: Recent Developments

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

The US Senate ratifies Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession and strongly supports the expansion of the transatlantic military alliance in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

With the approval of all 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is required before previously non-aligned Finland and Sweden can join, the United States will be the 23rd to agree.

Of the seven member countries that have yet to formally agree, only Turkey has raised a challenge, demanding certain concessions from both countries to support their membership.

This includes extraditing dozens of government opponents, whom she calls “terrorists,” from both countries in exchange for her support.

Ankara has said a special committee will meet Finnish and Swedish officials in August to assess whether the two nations meet the conditions.

Eight people were killed and four injured when Russian shelling hit a bus stop in the frontline town of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said.

“According to preliminary information, there was artillery fire. They hit a public transport stop where there was a crowd at the time,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region administration of Ukraine, writes on Telegram.

The attack comes as Kyiv is ordering civilians to evacuate the war-torn Donetsk region, which is bearing the brunt of Moscow’s grueling eastern offensive.

Ukrainian officials say Russia continues to bomb cities along the extensive frontline, particularly in Mykolaiv to the south and Kharkiv to the northeast.

Human rights organization Amnesty International has accused Ukrainian forces of violating international law and endangering civilians by setting up bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals.

Their tactics “in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks,” says a new report, and some Russian “war crimes,” including in the city of Kharkiv, are unrelated to the tactics.

But it lists incidents in which Ukrainian forces appeared to have endangered civilians in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbass and Mykolaiv regions.

Ukraine criticized the report as “unfair”.

“This behavior by Amnesty International is not about finding the truth and reporting it to the world, it is about creating a false equation – between the perpetrator and the victim, between the country that has hundreds and thousands of civilians, Cities, territories and… a country desperately defending itself,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video posted to Facebook.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announces he will launch a fact-finding mission to uncover the “truths” about a prison where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a bomb attack last week.

Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for prison strikes in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka in eastern Ukraine that have killed over 50 people.

Moscow said among the dead were Ukrainian forces, who laid down their arms after weeks of repelling Russia’s brutal bombardment of the sprawling Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

A Syrian ship leaves the Lebanese port of Tripoli after being cleared for release after being seized over allegations it was carrying flour and barley stolen from Ukraine.

Investigations have failed to prove the Laodicea was carrying stolen goods, officials say.

Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow forces of looting its grain stores since Russia invaded on February 24.

Ukraine says it is “disappointed” by the decision, which will encourage Russia to “continue thefts in temporarily occupied southern Ukraine with impunity.”