Orbán: Hungary rejects more EU funding for Ukraine
Hungary rejects the European Commission’s plans to grant more money to Ukraine and is not willing to contribute additional money to finance the EU’s increased debt service costs, prime minister Viktor Orbán told state radio on Friday.
“One thing is clear, we Hungarians … will not give more money to Ukraine until they say where the previous around €70bn worth of funds had gone,” Orban said.
“And we find it utterly ridiculous and absurd that we should contribute more money to finance debt service costs of a loan from which we have still not received the funds we are entitled to get.”
Orbán was speaking on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels. Budapest – along with Poland – has not received funds from the EU’s recovery fund amid a rule of law dispute.
Reuters reports that on Thursday, EU leaders declared they would make long-term commitments to bolster Ukraine’s security as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged them to start work on a new round of sanctions against Russia.
Orbán said there was almost no chance that EU member states would approve these financial plans and that a “long fight” would start.
Key events
In Kramatorsk, a makeshift memorial has been set up carrying pictures of some of the people killed in a missile strike on a restaurant earlier this week. Twelve people died and at least 56 people were injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. Russia claimed the strike was on a military target.
Ukraine claims to have shot down ten ‘Shahed’ drones overnight
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this roundup of overnight news from across Ukraine:
At night, the Russian army attacked military infrastructure facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region: four S-300 missiles and 13 “Shahed” drones were fired, air defence forces shot down 10 drones, the air force reported.
No people were injured in the night attack in Zaporizhzhia. In Mykolaiv a fire broke out due to the fall of fragments of downed drones, and there were no injuries.
In the Lozova district of the Kharkiv region, a 13-year-old boy found an unknown explosive device in his own yard; he was hospitalised with a traumatic amputation of the fingers of his left hand, the state emergency service reported.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Orbán: Hungary rejects more EU funding for Ukraine
Hungary rejects the European Commission’s plans to grant more money to Ukraine and is not willing to contribute additional money to finance the EU’s increased debt service costs, prime minister Viktor Orbán told state radio on Friday.
“One thing is clear, we Hungarians … will not give more money to Ukraine until they say where the previous around €70bn worth of funds had gone,” Orban said.
“And we find it utterly ridiculous and absurd that we should contribute more money to finance debt service costs of a loan from which we have still not received the funds we are entitled to get.”
Orbán was speaking on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels. Budapest – along with Poland – has not received funds from the EU’s recovery fund amid a rule of law dispute.
Reuters reports that on Thursday, EU leaders declared they would make long-term commitments to bolster Ukraine’s security as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged them to start work on a new round of sanctions against Russia.
Orbán said there was almost no chance that EU member states would approve these financial plans and that a “long fight” would start.
Wagner still reportedly recruiting inside Russia
Overnight, the BBC has been reporting that recruitment continues at Wagner mercenary offices across Russia, despite the fallout from the weekend’s armed mutiny. It writes:
Using a Russian phone number, we called more than a dozen recruitment centres saying, if asked, that we were inquiring on behalf of a brother.
All those who replied confirmed that it was business as usual.
From Kaliningrad in the west to Krasnodar in the south, no one believed the group was being disbanded.
Several people who picked up the phone stressed that new members were signing contracts with the mercenary group itself, not the Russian defence ministry.
“We are working. If something had changed, they’d have told us. But there’s nothing,” a female recruiter in Krasnodar, southern Russia, was clear.
In Volgograd, the man we spoke to said that if someone signed up today, “I could deploy him tomorrow,” and confirmed that Belarus was now a possible destination.
Sarah Rainsford, who compiled the report for the BBC, pointed out on Twitter the contrast between the treatment of the armed insurrectionist group Wagner and those who have peacefully opposed Russia’s president.
It’s amazing to compare the continuing existence of Wagner, which proved a real, physical threat, and – say – Navalny’s political team which was declared ‘extremist’ & banned & prosecuted, just for peaceful political opposition to Putin https://t.co/pmcfKW8TUT
— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) June 30, 2023
The sound of explosions has been reported in the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk. Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is carrying a statement from a local Russian-imposed authority saying that at 8am Moscow time (6am BST): “According to preliminary information, the air defence system of the Russian Federation armed forces went off.”
Citing regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin, Suspilne reports that two people – a 72-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man – have been injured this morning by Russian shelling in the region. The claims have not been independently verified.
Nato is nearing consensus on how to address Ukraine’s membership push at its coming summit and aims to show it is moving “above and beyond” an earlier vow to Kyiv, the US envoy to Nato has said.
Agence France-Presse reports that Kyiv, backed by Nato allies in eastern Europe, has called for a commitment at the gathering in Lithuania in two weeks that it will join the military alliance when the war with Russia ends.
Diplomats at Nato say the US has been reluctant to move beyond a 2008 pledge made in Bucharest that promised Ukraine would become a member but did not set a timeline.
Nato’s 31 member countries are haggling over the exact wording on Ukraine’s potential membership for a final communique at the summit.
The US ambassador to Nato, Julianne Smith, said on Thursday that the final version could begin to answer how Ukraine would eventually become an alliance member.
I think most of us feel confident that we are going to be able to come to an agreement that will reflect where we are and that the Ukrainians will believe and feel is something above and beyond restating Bucharest.
Smith said the alliance was getting closer to finding a consensus on the language but that she did not want to preempt the final phrasing.
Spain will take on the EU’s rotating presidency on Saturday with the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, visiting Kyiv to show steadfast European support for Ukraine as it battles Russian forces, his office has said.
The announcement was made as Sanchez attended an EU summit in Brussels, in which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, participating via video link, confirmed the visit, Agence France-Presse reports.
Spain will hold the EU presidency from July to the end of December, taking over from Sweden. The role puts ministers from the EU presidency country in the chair of most EU meetings, influencing the agenda and priorities of topics being decided.
Zelenskiy told the summit that Sanchez’s visit “says much about the importance … for our Europe and the membership candidacy of Ukraine for the EU”.
EU leaders declared they would make long-term commitments to bolster Ukraine’s security as the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged them to start work on a new round of sanctions against Russia.
Reuters reports that at a summit in Brussels, the leaders restated their condemnation of Russia’s war against Ukraine and said the EU and its member countries “stand ready” to contribute to commitments that would help Ukraine defend itself in the long term.
In a text summarising the summit’s conclusions, the leaders said on Thursday they would swiftly consider the form those commitments would take.
Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, suggested they could build on existing EU support, such as the European Peace Facility fund that has financed billions of euros in arms for Ukraine and a training mission for Ukrainian troops.
“The military support to Ukraine has to [be for the] long haul,” Borrell said.
Greta Thunberg has denounced the ecological havoc caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of international reaction to the disaster.
“Ecocide and environmental destruction is a form of warfare … as Ukrainians by this point know all too well – and so does Russia,” the Swedish climate activist said on Thursday during a visit to Kyiv as part of an international delegation investigating the environmental consequences of the conflict.
And that’s why they are deliberately targeting the environment and people’s livelihoods and homes and therefore also destroying lives.
Thunberg was speaking at a news conference along with Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yerma, Agence France-Presse also reports. She and the rest of the delegation met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the southern region of Kherson on 6 June caused disastrous flooding, killing dozens of people and forcing thousands of others to flee.
Zelensky has criticised what he says is an inadequate international response to the disaster.
A senior Czech official has labelled Russia a “direct military threat” to the Czech Republic and its eastern Nato allies as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continued.
Martin Povejsil, head of the Czech foreign ministry’s security department, said it was “impossible to rule out a direct military threat [from Russia] in the foreseeable future”.
Agence France-Presse reports he was commenting on a new security strategy approved by the Czech government the previous day and designed to raise awareness of the security situation among the Czech public.
“We can see how agendas that were until recently perceived as free of security aspects are gradually taking security into account,” Povejsil said on Thursday, naming science and research – prone to cyber-attacks and espionage – as an example.
The security strategy says the Czech Republic should get ready “for the possibility that it could become part of an armed conflict”.
Ukraine holds nuclear disaster response drills near Zaporizhzhia plant
Ukraine has conducted nuclear disaster response drills in the vicinity of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, regional officials say.
Yuriy Malashko, governor of the southern Ukrainian region that includes the plant, said the drills in Zaporizhzhia city and the district around it were intended to coordinate the response of all services to an “emergency situation” at the plant, Reuters reports.
Ukraine accused Russia this month of planning a “terrorist” attack at the plant involving the release of radiation. Moscow denied the accusation.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Thursday that he wrote to the UN security council and the secretary general, António Guterres, to say:
We do not intend to blow up this NPP [nuclear power plant] we have no intention of doing so.
Reuters television footage showed rescuers in protective gear and gas masks using dosimeters to check passenger cars and trucks for radiation levels and then cleaning wheels before vehicles underwent additional decontamination at specialised washing points.
US considering sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, reports say
The US is strongly considering sending cluster munitions to Ukraine to boost its counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to multiple news reports that cite Biden administration officials.
Cluster munitions are bombs containing smaller bomblets that scatter as they drop from the air, causing wider damage.
US officials said the decision from the White House was expected soon, CNN reported, while NBC News said it could come as early as next month.
Politico reported that late last year the Biden administration said it had “concerns” about delivering the munitions to Ukraine, mainly for humanitarian reasons and also because the US didn’t assess Ukraine as needing them at that point.
In other news:
-
Wagner mercenaries will no longer fight in Ukraine after their leader refused to sign contracts with the Kremlin. Yevgeny Prigozhin refused to sign the contracts, according to the head of the Duma defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov. He said that a few days before the attempted rebellion, Russia’s defence ministry announced that all groups performing combat missions must sign a contract with the ministry, Russian state news agency Tass reported. Prigozhin did not sign the contracts and was informed that Wagner would not take part in what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine, according to Kartapolov, who added: “That is, funding, material resources will not be allocated.”
-
The Kremlin has declined to answer questions about the whereabouts of Sergei Surovikin amid unconfirmed reports that the Russian army general had been detained and was being questioned by the security services. US intelligence has claimed that Surovikin, who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine, had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s uprising, in which Wagner mercenaries captured the city of Rostov-on-Don and moved on Moscow before striking an amnesty deal. Surovikin has not been seen in public since last Saturday.
-
Former US President Donald Trump has said now is the time for the US to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and that Vladimir Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by Wagner’s aborted mutiny. “I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. Trump said everything would be “subject to negotiation” if he were president.
-
Ukrainian forces are advancing “slowly but surely” on the frontlines in the east and south-east of the country as well as around the longstanding flashpoint of Bakhmut, senior military officials have said. Ukrainian commander-in-chief Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi told the chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, that his forces had “succeeded in seizing the strategic initiative”.
-
Ukrainian forces had made advances in sectors in the south designated by two occupied towns, Berdiansk and Mariupol, the Ukrainian deputy defence minister said. “Every day, there is an advance,” Hanna Maliar said on national television. “Yes, the advances are slow, but they are sure.”
-
Mike Pence met Volodymyr Zelenskiy during surprise Ukraine trip. Pence is the first Republican presidential candidate to meet the Ukrainian president during the US campaign. Pence told NBC News: “Coming here just as a private citizen … just steels my resolve to do my part, to continue to call for strong American support for our Ukrainian friends and allies.”
-
Russia has ruled out Switzerland as location for peace talks, saying it had “lost its status as a neutral state” after supporting EU sanctions. Russia’s ambassador to Switzerland said Moscow could not accept any Swiss-hosted peace summit on Ukraine after it joined EU sanctions against his country, adding that Switzerland had lost its reputation for neutrality.
-
The EU is considering imposing a levy on interest made from frozen Russian cash that could raise about €3bn ($3.3bn, £2.6bn) a year to help Ukraine’s recovery from the war. A “windfall contribution” was to be discussed by EU leaders at a current European Council summit in an attempt to harness the value of sovereign Russian funds immobilised by sanctions.
-
The death toll in a Russian rocket attack on a pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk has risen to 12, including four children. Ukraine’s state emergency service said at least 56 people were injured, some critically, when two Iskander missiles were fired into the restaurant in the city centre on Tuesday evening. The regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said rescue attempts had ended. Russia’s defence ministry claimed it killed two Ukrainian generals and up to 50 officers in a missile strike when referring to this attack.
-
Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency has arrested a local man it accused of helping the Russians carry out the attack on Kramatorsk. The SBU said it had arrested an employee of a gas transportation company who helped coordinate the strike and allegedly sent video footage of the cafe to the Russian military. It provided no evidence for the claims.
-
The Russian-imposed acting governor of the occupied Kherson region has denied claims that Ukrainian troops had succeeded in establishing any kind of bridgehead over the Dnipro River at the location of the Antonivskyi Bridge. Vladimir Saldo also claimed Russian forces had repelled multiple landing attempts in the area.
-
The Israeli prime minister said he had rejected calls from Washington and Kyiv to arm Ukraine due to “concerns that I don’t think any of the western allies of Ukraine have”. Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Israel needed “freedom of action” in Syria, where Israel often bombs Iranian targets near Russian forces. He said he also had fears that Israeli weaponry could be captured in Ukraine and turned over to Iran.
-
Hungary’s vote on Sweden joining Nato has again been delayed, with the Hungarian parliament’s house committee rejecting a proposal to schedule the vote on the ratification of Sweden’s membership for next week.