Russia-Ukraine war live: attacks reported across Ukraine; Putin nuclear weapons threat is ‘real’, says Biden | Ukraine #RussiaUkraine #war #live #attacks #reported #Ukraine #Putin #nuclear #weapons #threat #real #Biden #Ukraine

Patrick Wintour

Western powers will only protect Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar postwar recovery if they agree a unified strategy to make aid conditional on clear progress on combating judicial corruption, reinstating the obligation on Ukrainian public officials to declare assets and ensuring all recovery finds can be digitally traced, according to an authoritative report from the German Marshall Fund.

The US thinktank’s proposals, matching calls from Ukrainian civil society and G7 ambassadors in Ukraine, reflect a concern that donors have not yet assembled a strategy to ensure how recovery funds can be monitored in a country that has made progress in tackling capture by oligarchs since 2014 but still has many unreformed institutions.

The report, published before the UK government-led Ukraine recovery conference takes place in London, argues that Ukraine is fighting a two-front war to defeat Russia and to permanently embed the rule of law.

Members of Ukrainian civil society feel they have been sidelined at the conference, which will be dominated by the private sector and international politicians.

US president Joe Biden says the threat of Russian president Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”, days after denouncing Russia’s deployment of such weapons in Belarus. Reuters reports:

On Saturday, Biden called Putin’s announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus “absolutely irresponsible”.

“When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” Biden told a group of donors in California on Monday.

“They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real,” Biden said.

Last week, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The deployment is Russia’s first move of such warheads – shorter-range, less powerful nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia launched attacks across Ukraine overnight, including on the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland.

Kyiv’s military administration said Moscow had launched a drone attack in the early hours of Tuesday, warning residents to find shelter, in a post on the Telegram messaging app. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The administration later said the city’s air defences had detected and destroyed about two-dozen Iranian-made Shahed drones in the “massive air attack”. It was the second drone attack on the city since the beginning of the month, it said.

In Lviv, a piece of “critical infrastructure” was hit and set on fire, the city’s military administration said, but there were no injuries. Earlier, the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy reported explosions in Lviv and the surrounding area. It was not clear if the explosions came from air defences or from missile strikes.

Air raid alerts also sounded in Zaporizhzhia, the Kyiv Independent reported, noting that the southern city has been heavily targeted by Russian artillery over the past few days.

The situation in the city was “stable” despite a “a restless and noisy night” the head of the city council, Anatoly Kurtev, later said on Telegram. No injuries were reported and there was no damage to residential buildings while all utility systems were working as normal, he said.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.

Moscow launched raids across Ukraine overnight, with Kyiv reporting drone attacks while explosions were also reported in the western city of Lviv and in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia. There were no immediate reports of casualties but authorities in Lviv said a piece of critical infrastructure was set on fire.

US president Joe Biden meanwhile warned that the possibility that Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons was “real”.

“When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” Biden told a group of donors in California.

“They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real,” Biden said.

Other key developments:

• Heavy casualties are being endured by both Ukrainian and Russian forces, British military intelligence has said, two weeks into the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The level of losses among Russian troops was said by British officials to be at its highest level since the peak of March’s battle for Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, with Ukraine claiming to have killed or injured 4,600 soldiers.

• Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Ukraine must prepare itself for a “tough duel” but that “the biggest blow is yet to come”. Separately she said that Russia had concentrated a significant number of units in the east, including air assault troops, but that Ukrainian forces were preventing their advance. She described the situation in the east of the country as “difficult”.

• Ukraine has recaptured the village of Piatykhatky, a settlement on a heavily fortified part of the frontline near the most direct route to the country’s Azov Sea coast, Maliar confirmed. It brings the tally of settlements liberated in the past two weeks up to eight, with 113 sq km of territory said to have been seized from the occupying forces.

• Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged his supporters to begin a broad campaign against Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as he went on trial on new charges of extremism that could keep him behind bars for decades. In a statement posted on social media by his allies, Navalny declared that the decision to close his trial was a sign of fear on the part of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he had asked China’s government to be vigilant about private companies that may be providing Russia with technology that could be used against Ukraine, although he said he had seen no evidence Beijing was providing lethal assistance to Moscow. “With regard to lethal aid to Russia for use in Ukraine, we and other countries have received assurances from China that it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine,” Blinken said in Beijing.

• The British government announced plans to tighten its sanctions policy against Russia, including introducing legislation to keep assets frozen until Moscow has agreed to pay compensation to Ukraine. The new measures will require any individual who has been designated under the sanctions to disclose assets held in Britain.

• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, discussed his country’s need for long-range weapons and pushed for tougher sanctions on Russia in a phone call with Rishi Sunak. The British prime minister said the UK was firmly behind Ukraine and that “small steps forward will bring success”.

• A photograph of a car apparently laden with explosives parked at the top of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam shortly before it gave way has been said to offer further evidence Russia was behind the bombing. A Ukrainian special forces communications official told the Associated Press he believed the car was there to stop any Ukrainian advance on the dam and to amplify a planned explosion originating in the machine room.

• Kyiv has accused Hungary of barring access to 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war whom Russia handed over to the EU country, which has maintained ties with the Kremlin during the invasion of Ukraine. “All attempts by Ukrainian diplomats over the past few days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens have not been successful,” foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said in a statement on Facebook. “Essentially they are being kept in isolation.”

• Nato leaders will not issue a formal invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at a summit in Vilnius in mid-July, Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, said although he added leaders would discuss how to move Ukraine closer to Nato. He also warned against accepting a frozen conflict in Ukraine in return for an end to the war and “accepting a deal dictated by Russia”.

• The Kremlin said Russia’s decision to decline UN help in areas of Russian-held Ukraine flooded by the Kakhovka dam breach was motivated by security concerns and “other nuances”.

• Ukraine deputy minister for strategic industries Sergiy Boyev told Reuters at the Paris airshow that Ukraine was in talks with arms manufacturers in Germany, Italy, France and eastern Europe to boost output of weapons, including drones, and possibly manufacture them in Ukraine. “We are in very detailed discussions with them. And we are certain that we will have the contracts agreements signed within the next few months,” Boyev said.

• A military attack against Sweden cannot be ruled out following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a report by the Swedish military has said, stressing the importance of its swift entry into Nato. The report entitled Serious Times did not single out Moscow for instigating a potential attack but rather said Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s mounting influence in Asia and the world were responsible for rising insecurity.