Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukraine pleads for heavy weapons ahead of NATO meeting

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Jun 14, 6:37 am
Ukraine pleads for heavy weapons ahead of NATO meeting

The only way to end the war in Ukraine, either on the battlefield or behind the negotiation table, is a parity of weapons, Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said on Monday.

“Being straightforward — to end the war we need heavy weapons parity,” Podoliak said on Twitter.

According to the presidential adviser, Ukraine’s military wish list includes 1,000 howitzers, 300 multiple launch rocket systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones.

“Negotiations are possible from a strong position, which requires parity of weapons,” Podoliak said. “There is simply no other way.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba echoed Podoliak’s plea for weapons on Monday in a tweet that recounted Ukraine’s recent military triumphs achieved with limited resources.

“Ukraine has proven it can punch well above its weight and win important battles against all odds,” Kuleba said, pointing at victories in the battles of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv. “Imagine what Ukraine can do with sufficient tools,” the Foreign Minister added. Kuleba urged Ukraine’s partners “to set a clear goal of Ukrainian victory and speed up deliveries of heavy weapons.”

Podoliak said a meeting of NATO defense ministers will be held in Brussels on June 15.

“We are waiting for a decision” on the weapons, Podoliak said.

The group, known as the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, will convene a meeting for the third time in a bid “to ensure that we’re providing Ukraine what Ukraine needs right now,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said at a press briefing in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday.

Austin, who will be in attendance in Brussels, said that Ukraine needs support “in order to defend against Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked assault.” The secretary of Defense noted that looking ahead, Ukraine will require help “to build and sustain robust defenses so that it will be able to defend itself in the coming months and years.”

In his Monday evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to tell people in the occupied territories “that the Ukrainian army will definitely come.”

“Tell them about Ukraine. Tell them the truth. Say that there will be liberation,” the president said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials played down threats of possible food shortages in the country due to the ongoing conflict. While Ukraine lost 25% of its sown area as a result of Russia’ full-scale invasion, the country’s food security was “in no way” threatened, Taras Vysotsky, the first deputy minister of Agrarian Policy, said at a press briefing for Ukrainian media on Monday.

“Despite the loss of 25% of sown areas, the structure of crops this year as a whole is more than sufficient to ensure consumption, which in turn also decreased due to mass displacement and external migration,” Vysotsky said.

The deputy minister added that Ukraine has “already imported about 70% of essential fertilizers, 60% of plant protection products and about a third of the required amount of fuel” before the war erupted in late February. According to Vysotsky, current sowing volumes are enough to ensure domestic consumption and even exports.

Jun 13, 9:26 am
Bodies of tortured men exhumed in Bucha

Another mass grave has been dug up in Bucha, uncovering the bodies of seven men who authorities believe were tortured and killed during the bloody occupation of the city in March.

Police told ABC News their hands were tied with ropes behind their backs and they were shot in the knees and head.

“They were killed in a cruel way,” police spokesperson Iryna Pryanyshnykova said. “These were civilian victims. The people here were killed by Russian soldiers and later they were just put into a grave to try to hide this war crime.”

It’s not clear why the men were killed, Pryanyshnykova said.

She said experts will analyze DNA to identify the victims.

-ABC News’ Britt Clennett

Jun 13, 6:24 am
Zelenskyy: Ukraine fighting for ‘every meter’ of Severodonetsk

Russian forces have pushed the Armed Forces of Ukraine out of the center of Severodonetsk, Ukrainian officials said.

“They are pressing in Severodonetsk, where very fierce fighting is going on — literally for every meter,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address on Sunday evening.

Russian forces now control about 70% of the city, as intense shelling makes mass evacuation and the transportation of goods impossible, Sergiy Haidai, another Ukrainian official, said.

Around 500 people, including 40 children, are sheltering in the city’s Azot chemical plant, Haidai said.

While the Ukrainians try to organize their evacuation, authorities of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic have given an ultimatum to Ukrainian troops in the city.

“They have two options: either follow the example of their colleagues and give up, or die. They have no other option,” said Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People’s Militia Department of the DPR.

-ABC News’ Yulia Drozd and Tanya Stukalova

Jun 12, 5:33 pm
Zelenskyy sends virtual message to Sean Penn’s CORE benefit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the annual Hollywood fundraiser for actor Sean Penn’s nonprofit Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) Saturday night with a powerful video message urging people to continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“All of you have heard about the horrors that Ukraine is going through. Tens of thousands of explosions and shots, hundreds of thousands wounded and killed, millions who have lost their homes,” Zelenskyy said in his virtual speech. “All of this is not a logline for a horror film. All of this is our reality.”

Zelenskyy’s video message included footage showing missiles striking homes and apartment complexes in Ukraine, civilians dead in the streets of Ukrainian cities and children playing in parks amid the backdrop of bombed buildings.

Among those attending the CORE fundraiser, held at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angles, were Penn and CORE co-founder Ann Lee, former President Bill Clinton, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, singer John Legend, and actors Patrick Stewart and Sharon Stone.

The group said the event raised more than $2.5 million for CORE’s disaster relief and preparedness work, including its urgent humanitarian response in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy noted that Penn traveled to Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion and witnessed the atrocities firsthand. He thanked Penn and his group for the continued support for Ukraine.

“We have been resisting it for 107 days in a row,” Zelenskyy said of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “We can stop it together. Support Ukraine, because Ukraine is fighting for the whole world, for democracy, for freedom, for life.”

Jun 12, 4:17 pm
Russia’s firepower superiority 10 times that of Ukraine’s in Luhansk: Military chief

Ukraine’s Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny said Sunday that he told his American counterpart, Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Russian firepower superiority in the Luhansk region is far greater than that of Ukrainian forces.

Zaluzhny said that during a briefing he told Milley that Russian forces are concentrating their efforts in the north of the Luhansk region, where they are using artillery “en masse” and their firepower superiority is 10 times that of Ukraine’s.

“Despite everything, we keep holding our positions,” Zaluzhny said.

Zaluzhny also said Russia has deployed up to seven battalion tactical groups in Severdonetsk, a city in the Luhansk region. He said Russian shelling of residential areas in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine has resumed.

Russian forces destroyed a second bridge leading into Severodonetsk and are now targeting a third bridge in an effort to completely cut off the city, Luhansk region Gov. Sergiy Haidai said Sunday. Ukraine’s army still controls around one third of the city, he said.

Haidai said that Ukrainian forces are still holding onto the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where around 500 civilians are taking shelter.

If Severodonetsk falls, Lysychansk will be the only city in the Luhansk region that remains under Ukraine’s control.

Zaluzhny said that as of Sunday, the front line of the war stretched 1,522 miles and that active combat was taking place on at least 686 miles of the front line.

Zaluzhny said that during his briefing with Milley, he reiterated Ukraine’s urgent request for more 155 mm caliber artillery systems.

Jun 12, 12:48 pm
Russian cruise missile attack confirmed in western Ukraine

Russia claims a cruise missile strike destroyed a large warehouse in western Ukraine storing weapons supplied to the Ukrainians by the United States and European allies.

While police in the Ternopil region of Ukraine, where at least one cruise missile hit, told ABC News that no weapons were destroyed, the region’s governor said part of a military facility was damaged.

Ternopil’s governor Volodymyr Trush posted a video showing widespread damage from what he said were four Russian missiles launched Saturday from the Black Sea. Trush said 22 people were wounded, including a 12-year-old child, in the missile strikes.

In addition to the military facility, Trush said four five-story residential apartment buildings were damaged. One of the missiles hit a gas pipeline, he said.

Russia’s defense ministry said Kalibr high presicion sea-based, long-range missiles struck near Chortkiv in the Ternopil province and destroyed a large warehouse full of anti-tank missile systems, portable anti-aircraft missile systems and artillery shells supplied by the United States and European countries.

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