June 7, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Russian defense ministry said it has created conditions for two maritime humanitarian corridors to allow for the safe movement of ships in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, according to a statement posted to Telegram on Monday. The statement comes amid international condemnation over Russia's months-long blockade of key ports.

"The Russian Federation is taking the whole range of measures to ensure the safety of civil navigation in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas," the Russian ministry claimed in the statement. "There remains a danger to navigation and damage to port infrastructure from the drift of Ukrainian mines torn from anchors along the coast of the Black Sea states."

Some context: Global leaders have condemned a months-long blockade by Russian forces at key ports in Ukraine — including Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and Odesa on the Black Sea — which has left more than 20 million tons of grain stuck inside the country. The Ukrainian Navy said Monday that approximately 30 Russian ships and submarines continued the blockade of civilian shipping in the Black Sea.

According to the Russian statement, the maritime humanitarian corridor in the Sea of Azov will operate around the clock to allow ships to exit the port of Mariupol,

Meanwhile, in the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that a maritime humanitarian corridor will operate during working hours "to leave the ports of Kherson, Mykolaiv, Chornomorsk, Ochakiv, Odesa, and Yuzhne in the southwestern direction from the territorial sea of Ukraine."

The Russian ministry also accused Ukrainian authorities of not taking steps to solve the issue of blocked ships.  

On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov restated that Ukraine must de-mine the coastal waters for grain ships to pass and ensured Russia will facilitate their passage and won't use the de-mined sea corridors to attack Ukraine. 

Ukraine has also accused the Russians of placing mines in the Black Sea.

CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed reporting to this post.

Ukraine has appealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations secretary-general to “liberate” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the head of the nuclear watchdog told CNN on Tuesday.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson that “the Ukraine government has effectively invited, indeed, appealed, to me and to the UN secretary-general to deploy efforts to liberate the nuclear power plant.”

The director-general told CNN that inspections have not taken place for “a long time now” and “there is a lot of nuclear material there that needs to be inspected.”

Asked about whether a visit would legitimize Russia’s control of the plant, Grossi said, “It is absolutely incorrect. When I go there, I will be going there under the same agreement that Ukraine passed with the IAEA, not the Russian Federation. Ukraine!”

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator accused the IAEA head of legitimizing Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and of “lying” in claiming that Ukraine requested he travel to the plant. 

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen conceded on Tuesday that inflation is at “unacceptable levels,” but also sought to underscore it is not a problem exclusive to the United States.

“Putin’s war in Ukraine is having impacts on energy and food prices globally,” Yellen told lawmakers. “We are not the only country experiencing inflation. You can see that in virtually every developed country around the world.” 

Speaking during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Yellen pointed to the Biden administration’s record-setting release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

“Energy and gasoline prices, while very high, they would be higher without that,” Yellen said of the emergency oil release. 

She also emphasized that the United States is not immune to global energy shocks. 

She added that it is critical that the United States becomes “more dependent on the wind and the sun that are not subject to geopolitical influences.” 

The military situation in Severodonetsk “is consistently difficult,” according to the head of Severodonetsk’s city military administration.

“Our armed forces have consolidated their positions, holding the borders in the city that they have occupied,” Oleksandr Striuk said on national television.

“The fighting does not subside. The orcs are throwing more and more forces; lots of artillery and equipment are concentrated here, assaulting the city. The orcs are trying to advance, we stop them.”

Some background: The battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces for Severodonetsk has intensified over the last week.

Russian artillery, aircraft and helicopters have been occupying the area in an attempt to gain control of the eastern Ukrainian city, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Two people were injured after Russian forces shelled a mining college in Lysychansk, which sits on strategic high ground across the Siverskyi Donets River from Severodonetsk, according to Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk Region Military Administration.

Hayday said Russia was using “sabotage and reconnaissance groups” in the village of Bilohorivka, just west of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. That town also sits on high ground next to the Siverskyi Donets River, and was the site of a massive Ukrainian rout of a Russian assault last month.

From CNN's Yulia Kesaieva and Olga Voitovych contributed reporting to this post.

Russia's Ministry of Defense claimed on Tuesday that it had opened a land corridor to Russian-occupied Crimea, allowing civilians and goods to pass through the eastern Ukrainian territory now under its control.

Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said in a conference call on Tuesday that the military, working with Russian Railways, had restored 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) of train tracks and opened roads to allow "full-fledged traffic" between Russia, eastern Ukraine's Donbas region and Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russian forces from Ukraine in 2014. The supply of water through the North Crimean Canal -- a lifeline for Crimea -- had also resumed, Shoigu said.

According to an official readout of the call, the defense minister said that the land corridor allowed Russia to begin delivering goods to Mariupol, Berdiansk and Kherson, southeastern Ukrainian port cities that have been seized by Russia since it launched its invasion in late February. He claimed that the Mariupol and Berdiansk ports were operating normally and were ready to ship grain, amid international condemnation over Russia's months-long blockade of key ports that has left millions of tons of grain languishing in Ukraine.

Earlier Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov restated that Ukraine must de-mine the coastal waters for grain ships to pass and ensured Russia will facilitate their passage and won't use the de-mined sea corridors to attack Ukraine.

“President Putin… said that Ukraine should de-mine the approaches to the ports, which will allow the ships, after being checked by our military to ensure that the ships do not import weapons, to enter the port, load with grain and then, if necessary, even with our help, proceed to the international waters,” Peskov told reporters on a regular conference call.

Some background: The minister's comments come as global leaders have condemned a months-long blockade by Russian forces at key ports in Ukraine -- including Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and Odesa on the Black Sea -- which has left more than 20 million tons of grain stuck inside the country. In a United Nations Security Council speech Monday, European Council President Charles Michel accused the Kremlin of "using food supplies as a stealth missile against developing countries" by holding hostage millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and blockading Ukraine's ports.

CNN's Sana Noor Haq, Eliza Mackintosh, Maegan Vazquez and Sam Fossum contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that he was “very happy” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had won a confidence vote on Monday, as he is “a true friend of Ukraine.”

“I am glad that we have not lost a very important ally,” Zelensky told the Financial Times in a broadcast interview. “This is great news.”

“I cannot comment on the internal situation. I do not know all the details. So I beg pardon to Mister Johnson about this. I think that he is much better informed about the details than I am.”

But “Boris is very concrete in supporting Ukraine,” Zelensky said.

Johnson met with Zelensky in Kyiv in April.

Russia will be unable to sustain its military capabilities due to tough Western sanctions, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday.

Western countries have hit Russia with a swathe of sanctions since its invasion of the Ukraine, with Scholz asserting that the "very effective, very-far reaching" injunctions would set the Russian economy back "by decades."

"It [Russia] will not be able to participate in the progress of the world, in economic and technical progress. That is becoming clearer every day, and it is a significant detriment,“ the Chancellor said at a press conference during his visit to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for a meeting with the heads of the Baltic states.

Scholz added that even if Russia abused imports of civilian goods for military purposes, Moscow will also not be able to retain its military capabilities the same way due to the sanctions.

In his first visit to a NATO country that borders Russia, the Chancellor also joined leaders from Estonia and Latvia in promising to strengthen NATO's eastern flank by pledging to bolster Germany's military support to Lithuania.

“As allies in NATO, we are committed to each other and will defend every inch of NATO territory in the event of an attack,“ Scholz added, speaking alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krisjanis Karins.

Read more of our coverage on Russian sanctions here:

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that he “simply cannot see the preconditions for ending the war.”

In a broadcast interview with the Financial Times, Zelensky​ said that while “any war should be ended at the negotiating table,” the position for “victory must be achieved on the battlefield.”

He conceded that “restoring the borders that we controlled before 24th of February” — the date of the massive Russian invasion — could be considered a “serious temporary victory.” But he insisted that it was a “war for independence.”

“Independence in my opinion, and in the opinion of most of our people, is regaining all of our territories, restoring all of our territorial integrity and inviolable sovereignty of Ukraine,” Zelensky said.  

He reserved particularly harsh criticism for French President Emmanuel Macron over recent remarks he made that “we are not going to humiliate Russia."

“Some people want to be leaders. In order to be a leader, you do not need to consider yourself one, but to be behave as a leader,” Zelensky said. “How can we achieve a ceasefire in the territory of Ukraine without listening to the position of country, and without listening to position of the leader of this country? This is very, very surprising.”

In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 28, the leaders of France and Germany “renewed their demand for a ceasefire” and called on Putin to have a direct exchange with Zelensky. 

In an interview published Saturday, the French President said, "We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means. I am convinced that it is France's role to be a mediating power."

“We are not going to humiliate anyone,” Zelensky said. “We are going to respond in kind.”

Zelensky said that Macron, as a leader of the Normandy Format of negotiations that existed before Russia’s expanded Feb. 24 invasion, “has a profound understanding of all the details, of all the details of all the arrangements made with the Russian Federation, and with Russia’s failure to comply with these accords.” 

He said that he was prepared for negotiations with Russia, but that the only person capable of discussing an end to the war was Putin himself.

Zelensky also said Russia's blockade of ports, which is preventing grain exports, “is a threat of global magnitude.”

“There is just one side to this threat; this is the Russian Federation. There is no dialogue here. This is a very concrete, tangible threat to Asia, Africa, and certain countries in Europe,” he said.

“We understand that the ensuing consequences might be famine and migration that is going to affect Europe. So the consequences might be very severe," he said. "And everyone knows for a fact that we are not going to let Russian ships to Ukrainian ports, because they attack us on a daily basis, and everyone knows that Ukraine is ready to export everything that we have. We are ready for a normal civilized conditions, but on safe terms.” 

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the United Kingdom will not back down in its support for Ukraine and that more sanctions on Russia are "in the pipeline," according to a readout of Monday's cabinet meeting.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also reiterated that the UK will remain at the forefront of supporting Ukraine. 

"He said it was vital that President Zelensky was not pressured into accepting a bad peace, noting that bad peace deals do not last," according to the cabinet readout. "He said the world must avoid any outcome where Putin’s unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off."