Crimea

The Russian president defends the military campaign in Ukraine, blaming NATO and Western policies for the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the West for igniting the war in Ukraine, insisting Moscow’s assault was provoked by years of Western provocations.

Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Monday, Putin accused NATO of destabilising the region and dismissed claims that Russia triggered the war.

“This crisis was not triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin told the gathering of regional leaders. He was referring to the 2013-14 pro-European uprising that toppled Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia responded to the revolution by annexing Crimea and backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, leading to a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and devastated large parts of the country.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 escalated the fighting, prompting sweeping sanctions from the United States and the European Union and deepening Russia’s isolation from the West, though not from the rest of the international community.

Putin said Western efforts to draw Ukraine into NATO were a key driver of the war, reiterating that Russia’s security concerns must be addressed before any peace deal can be reached.

“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” he said.

The Russian president highlighted talks he held with US President Donald Trump in August, describing the discussions as “opening a way to peace”. He praised diplomatic efforts from Beijing and New Delhi, saying their proposals could “facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”.

Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday to discuss Ukraine and said he would expand on those talks in bilateral meetings with leaders on the sidelines of the summit. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are also attending.

Moscow and Beijing have promoted the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led alliances, with Putin arguing the world needs a “system that would replace outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models”.

Despite repeated calls from Trump for Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate, peace efforts have faltered. Russia has rejected ceasefire proposals and demanded that Ukraine cede more territory, conditions Kyiv has dismissed as unacceptable.

“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” said Putin.

Part of the source of the conflict “lies in the ongoing attempts by the West to bring Ukraine into NATO”, he said.

Putin also held talks with Modi and Erdogan, and is expected to meet Pezeshkian later on Monday as he seeks to bolster diplomatic backing amid the drawn-out conflict.

Police say they are working to identify deceased suspect.

Five people have been killed and one person wounded in a shooting in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, police say.

The shooting occurred at Or Tor Kor Market in the Bang Sue district of northern Bangkok at 12:31pm (05:31 GMT) on Monday, the Royal Thai Police said.

All five of the deceased victims were security guards at the market, and the suspected perpetrator took his own life, according to police.

“Police are investigating the motive. So far, it’s a mass shooting,” Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief in the Bang Sue district, was quoted as telling the AFP news agency.

The police are working to identify the suspect and investigating “any possible link” to the current border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, the official said.

The shooter was seen in surveillance footage wearing a black T-shirt, a cap, camouflage shorts and a backpack hung over his chest, the Thai Public Broadcasting Service reported.

Gun violence is relatively common in Thailand compared to much of the rest of Southeast Asia.

In 2020, a junior army officer killed 29 people and wounded 58 in a shooting rampage in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it deployed special drones to attack the Russian Kirovske military airfield in Crimea.

Ukraine said it carried out an overnight drone strike on the Kirovske airfield in Crimea and claimed that multiple Russian helicopters and an air defence system were destroyed in the strike.

According to a Ukraine Security Service (SBU) statement, the drones targeted areas where Russian aviation units, air defence assets, ammunition depots and unmanned aerial vehicles were located. The agency claimed that Mi-8, Mi-26, and Mi-28 helicopters, as well as a Pantsir-S1 missile and gun system were destroyed.

“Secondary detonations continued throughout the night at the airfield,” the SBU said, calling the strike part of broader efforts to disrupt Russian aerial operations. “The enemy must understand that expensive military equipment and ammunition are not safe anywhere – not on the line of contact, not in Crimea, and not deep in the rear.”

The Russian defence ministry said more than 40 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight and Saturday morning over Crimea.

At the same time, Ukrainian officials said two people were killed and 14 others were wounded during a Russian drone strike on the port city of Odesa.

Odesa Governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram that those who were killed were due to a drone strike on a “residential building”. Among the 14 injured, “three of them children”, Kiper added.

The governor of the southern Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that one person was killed and three others were wounded in Russian strikes during the past day.

“Russian troops targeted critical and social infrastructure and residential areas in the region,” Prokudin added.

Territorial gains

Amid the latest attacks, Russia’s defence ministry said it had taken control of the settlement of Chervona Zirka in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow has claimed is part of Russia since an illegal election in late 2022.

After direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkiye this month to end the war, which began in 2022, both sides were unable to come to a mutual understanding.

Moscow has said any territory taken during the war must be retained. Kyiv has staunchly rejected any peace proposal that calls for it to give up land to Russia.

On Friday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that the two countries’ demands were “absolutely contradictory”.

“That’s why negotiations are being organised and conducted, in order to find a path to bringing them closer together,” Putin said at a press conference in Minsk, Belarus. He added that the two sides would “continue further contact” after prisoner exchanges agreed at the Istanbul talks had been completed.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted several prisoner-of-war swaps since agreeing to free more than 1,000 captured soldiers.

Here are the key events on day 1,214 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, June 22:

Fighting

• Russia has struck several locations, including Chernihiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 20 over the past day, the Kyiv Independent has reported.
• Ukraine has said it has evidence that Russia is preparing new military operations on European territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said on X.
• Emergency workers have found three bodies under the rubble of a four-storey residential building in Kramatorsk hit by a Russian missile.
• Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii has said that Ukraine will continue, and increase, its strikes against military targets deep inside Russia three weeks after a brazen attack on remote Russian airbases.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy’s office has said Kyiv imposed new sanctions on individuals and legal entities doing business in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea.
• Russia has sent Ukraine at least 20 of its own dead soldiers in recent exchanges with Kyiv due to Moscow’s disorganisation, the Ukrainian president said.
• Russia has rejected the claims, saying that reports over body substitutions are propaganda, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
• “Ukraine has received 6,060 bodies of its servicemen. In return, we have received the remains of 78 Russian soldiers,” the report said.

Video released by Ukraine’s SBU shows what the security service claims was an attack it conducted on the bridge linking Crimea and Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. The SBU says it “severely damaged” the bridge’s supports, though the extent of the damage is not clear from the footage.