US warns of Russian strikes against civilians in Ukraine

Bloomberg

Russia is preparing to launch intensified strikes against civilian infrastructure as well as government facilities in Ukraine in the coming days, the US embassy in Kyiv said in a statement. It also urged American citizens to leave the country using private ground transportation if possible.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that Russia “may try to do something particularly nasty, particularly cruel” as Ukraine prepares to celebrate Independence Day on Wednesday, which also marks six months since the invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the car bomb that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a political ally, a “dastardly crime.” This came after Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukrainian special services of orchestrating the attack on Saturday. Ukraine has denied any role in the killing.
Russian troops focused intense operations around Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in the Donbas, Ukraine’s General Staff . Parts of the northern Chernihiv and northeastern Sumy regions, as well as areas in the south of the country were also targeted, according to the statement.
Russia shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv on Tuesday, the regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties.
Yandex NV, Russia’s leading search engine, announced a binding deal to rid itself of its controversial news aggregator, which has been criticised by opponents of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine for whitewashing evidence of human rights crimes.
Yandex exchanged its news division and a blog site for VK’s Delivery Club, Russia’s biggest food and grocery delivery service, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The deals come amid a major shift among Russian technology companies brought on by the war in Ukraine. Sergei Kiriyenko, a top aide of Putin, is involved in negotiations over the fate of Yandex with its founder sidelined by European Union sanctions, Bloomberg reported this month. Kiriyenko’s son runs VK.
In a speech, Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto called for reviewing all dependencies on Russia “that can be used against us.”
“Trust in Russia is gone, and there are no prospects for a new beginning,” he told Finnish ambassadors gathered in Helsinki. “This isn’t a time of building connections.” Still, all contacts shouldn’t be severed, he said, adding that channels of communication should be kept open in case of future needs.
Polish President Andrzej Duda visited Kyiv to meet with Zelenskiy to discuss the situation in Ukraine as well as potential military, economic and humanitarian support, Duda’s office said in a Twitter post. It will be Duda’s fifth visit to the neighboring country this year and third since the war broke out on February 24.
Germany has taken in about 1 million refugees from Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February, according to the German interior ministry. And while a portion of those have traveled on to other European countries or returned home, the influx is still at about 700 a day.