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Russia has a "sufficient stockpile" of cluster bombs and the right to use them if cluster munitions are used against its forces in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV Sunday. Ukraine has pledged to only deploy the munitions it received from the United States to repel enemy soldiers from Ukrainian territory. Cluster munitions are banned in more than 100 countries.
The Russian state has assumed control of the Russian subsidiaries of French yogurt maker Danone's DANO.PA and Danish beer company Carlsberg's CARLb.CO as a retaliatory move after Western countries froze assets of Russian companies abroad.
The U.N.-brokered grain deal that has allowed Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea – is set to expire late Monday. The deal remains in limbo as Putin has not yet said if he will agree to renew it.
Russia-installed officials said traffic was halted Monday on a bridge linking Crimea to Russia’s Krasnodar region, amid reports of explosions on the bridge.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said on Telegram that traffic was stopped due to an “emergency” and that authorities were working to handle the situation.
The bridge is a key supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine. It was previously damaged in an October explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 in a move not recognized by the international community.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine “somewhat intensified” as Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed in at least three areas on the eastern front, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Sunday on the messaging app Telegram.
Ukrainian forces say they are making steady progress along the northern and southern flanks of the war-ravaged city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have occupied since May.
There was also fighting along the southern front in Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces are making minimal gains against formidable Russian fortifications.
Maliar recently claimed that Kyiv’s forces had destroyed six Russian ammunition depots in the space of 24 hours, a remark that hinted at Ukrainian tactics.
“We inflict effective, painful and precise blows and bleed the occupier, for whom the lack of ammunition and fuel will sooner or later become fatal,” she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday in an interview with state television that Ukraine’s operation was “not succeeding” and that attempts to break through Russian defenses had failed.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” TV program, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was never expected to be quick and easy. “We said before this counteroffensive started that it would be hard going, and it’s been hard going. That’s the nature of war. But the Ukrainians are continuing to move forward,” he said.
One man was killed, and several people were wounded Sunday in Russian shelling of a district of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine local officials said.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that seven people were injured in the shelling of the southern Osnovyanskyi district of the city. Reuters could not independently confirm details of the attack and casualty figures.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said Sunday that Ukrainian forces had shelled the Russian town of Shebekino about 5 kilometers from the Ukrainian border with Grad missiles, killing a woman riding her bike.
Both Russia and Ukraine have denied targeting civilians.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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