Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 133 of the invasion

The governor of Donetsk has urged 350,000 civilians to evacuate as Russian troops escalate their offensive in the region. “The destiny of the whole country will be decided by the Donetsk region,” Pavlo Kyrylenko told reporters. “Once there are less people, we will be able to concentrate more on our enemy and perform our main tasks.”

Ukrainian forces have taken up new defensive lines in Donetsk, where they still control major cities, and plan to launch counter-offensives in the south of the country. The Luhansk governor, Serhiy Haidai, said the weeks-long battle for Lysychansk had drawn in Russian troops that could have been fighting on other fronts, and had given Ukraine’s forces time to build fortifications in the Donetsk region to make it “harder for the Russians there”.

Ukraine has asked Turkey to investigate three additional Russian ships that it alleges transported stolen grain. A 13 June letter seen by Reuters revealed that the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office asked Turkey’s ministry of justice to investigate and provide evidence on three ships that it believes to have allegedly transported stolen grain from occupied Ukrainian territories such as Kherson.

The head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky, has said the region plans to sell Ukraine’s grain to the Middle East. The main countries involved in the deal were Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of stealing grain, a charge that Moscow has denied.

Russia is planning to launch a railway link between Rostov region and the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk it occupies in eastern Ukraine, Russian state media reports. Building transport links has also been a priority for the Russian occupiers between Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and the areas of Kherson which it occupies.

The 30 Nato member countries have signed accession protocols for Finland and Sweden, sending the membership bids of the two Nordic countries to allied parliaments for approval. Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, urged allies to swiftly ratify and assured the two countries of the alliance’s support in the meantime. Canada became the first country to formally ratify Finland and Sweden’s accession.

The UN has documented 270 cases of “arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance” of civilians in parts of Ukraine held by Russian and Russian-backed forces, according to the UN’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet. In a speech at the same session at the UN’s human rights council, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzhaparova accused Russia of kidnappings on a “massive” scale.

Latvia will reinstate compulsory military service, its defence minister, Artis Pabriks, announced on Tuesday following growing tension with neighbouring Russia amid Moscow’s war in Ukraine.