Britain’s defence ministry says the rapid fall of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region suggests better coordination between Moscow’s forces.

Here are the latest updates:

The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament has asked a senior lawmaker to look into scrapping a treaty that establishes the country’s maritime border with NATO member Norway.

Responding to comments in parliament accusing Norway of blocking food deliveries destined for Russian-populated settlements on the Svalbard archipelago, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin asked the head of the chamber’s international affairs committee to look into “denouncing” the treaty.

The treaty, which was signed in 2010, aimed to put an end to disputes between Russia and Norway in the Barents Sea, the part of the Arctic Ocean adjoining the northern coasts of Norway and Russia.

Ukraine’s grain, 10 percent of the global supply, is stopped at Ukraine’s ports. The EU’s chief of foreign affairs is calling it a war crime by Russia but Russia says Ukraine is to blame.

What is causing the stoppage? The Take podcast hears from farmers harvesting the grain and the people trying to feed the world about what happened to Ukrainian grain and what can be done about it.

Russian forces are pounding Sloviansk with “massive” shelling, its mayor has said, as the eastern Ukrainian city becomes Moscow’s next target in its campaign in the Donbas region.

“Sloviansk! Massive shelling of the city. The centre, the north. Everyone, take shelter,” Vadim Lyakh wrote on Facebook.

According to Ukrainian claims, Russian forces have used phosphorus bombs on several occasions in different areas of the country.

Most recently, on Friday, Ukraine’s army accused Russia of dropping munitions on Snake Island after Moscow withdrew its troops from the Black Sea outpost.

Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian official, said they were used in Mariupol in May, a city now fully under Russian control.

The United Nations’ food agency has said it received $17m from Japan to address grain storage problems in Ukraine and increase its exports as global food prices remain near record levels amid war in the country.

The funds would help Ukraine, the world’s fourth largest grains exporter, store produce from the current July-August harvest in plastic sleeves and modular storage containers, FAO aid.

“Ukraine’s farmers are feeding themselves and millions more people around the world,” Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO’s emergencies and resilience office, said.

“Ensuring they can continue production, safely store and access alternative markets is vital to strengthen food security within Ukraine and ensure other import-dependent countries have sufficient supply of grain at a manageable cost,” he added.

Russia has claimed some of the weapons the West sent to Ukraine are ending up on the black market across the Middle East.

Speaking in televised remarks, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Ukraine had received more than 28,000 tonnes of military cargo so far.

“According to information at our disposal, some of the foreign weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine are spreading across the Middle Eastern region and are also ending up on the black market,” Shoigu said, without providing any details to back up his claim.

Forces of the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics are moving towards the Donetsk region, TASS has reported.

Russian state news agency cited Donetsk People’s Republic leader Denis Pushilin as the source of the information.

Though Russia took the final Ukrainian strongholds in Luhansk region last week, Kyiv still controls around 45 percent of the neighbouring Donetsk region.

NATO allies have signed off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals — and possible political trouble in Turkey.

“This is truly a historic moment for Finland, for Sweden and for NATO,” the head of the alliance, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, said.

NATO accession must be formally approved by all 30 member states, which gives each a blocking right.

The mayor of a city in the path of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas region has warned residents to evacuate ahead of an expected assault.

“It’s important to evacuate as many people as possible,” Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Lyakh said, adding that shelling damaged 40 houses on Monday.

South of the city, Russian forces were trying to push toward two more towns and shelling areas near Kramatorsk, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said.

Russian forces also shelled several Donetsk towns and villages around Sloviansk in the past day but were repelled as they tried to advance toward a town about 20 kilometres to the city’s north.

A Russian-flagged cargo ship at the centre of a fight over grain between Kyiv and Moscow has remained anchored off Turkey’s Black Sea coast four days after its unexpected arrival.

Ukraine alleges that the Zhibek Zholy had set off from its Kremlin-occupied port of Berdyansk after picking up illegally seized wheat.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar, told Al Jazeera that Kyiv had presented evidence to authorities in Ankara and that an investigation was underway.

Moscow concedes that the 7,000-tonne vessel was sailing under the Russian flag but denies any wrongdoing.

Russian lawmakers have given the first stamp of approval to two bills enabling the government to oblige businesses to supply goods to the military and request their employees to work overtime.

Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told parliament the moves were driven by the need to support the military at a time when Russia’s economy was under “colossal sanctions pressure” from the West, more than four months into what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine.

“The load on the defence industry has increased significantly. In order to guarantee the supply of weapons and ammunition, it is necessary to optimise the work of the military-industrial complex and enterprises that are part of cooperation chains,” he said.

Ukraine’s Maryna Viazovska has paid tribute to those suffering in her war-torn country as she became the second woman to be awarded the Fields medal, known as the Nobel prize for mathematics.

Viazovska, a 37-year-old Kyiv-born maths professor, received the prestigious award alongside three other winners at a ceremony in Helsinki.

The International Congress of Mathematicians, where the prize is awarded, was initially scheduled to be held in Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg and initiated by President Vladimir Putin.

Finland has seized nearly a 1,000 freight cars belonging to Russian companies as a result of European Union sanctions, according to Finnish state-owned rail operator VR and a letter from Russia’s rail monopoly seen by the Reuters news agency.

VR’s spokeswoman Taina Kuitunen confirmed by email that there were “around 800 units of sanctioned [freight] cars in Finland at the moment” and the company sought to return the non-seized ones to Russia as soon as possible.

Representatives from more than 40 countries and international organisations have signed the Lugano Declaration at a two-day conference in Switzerland, outlining a series of principles to steer Ukraine’s recovery.

Signatories including the United States, Britain, France and Japan condemned Russia’s military aggression “in the strongest terms” and urged Moscow to withdraw its troops without delay.

The principles include partnership between Ukraine and its international supporters and a focus on domestic reforms.

“Efficient and transparent governance by Ukraine and effective and nimble coordination between donors and with the government are critical for the recovery,” Alfred Kammer, the director of the International Monetary Fund’s European department, told the conference.

Russian-imposed authorities in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, which is partly under Russian control, say an agreement has been reached to sell grain abroad, mainly to the Middle East.

The countries involved are mainly Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-installed administration of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of stealing Ukrainian grain while Moscow denies this.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on Ukraine’s allies to crack down on Russian trade. “After all, what Russia really exports to the world today is death, crisis, and lies,” he said on Twitter.

Russia’s export-oriented economy relies heavily on maritime transportation provided by foreign fleets. I urge partners: restrict Russia’s access to their services and deplete Putin’s war machine. After all, what Russia really exports to the world today is death, crisis, and lies.

The Kremlin says no decision has been made on whether to switch sales of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to roubles, its official currency.

Speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that no presidential orders were currently planned on the proposal, which would see certain countries pay for LNG in roubles.

Russia’s Gazprom could propose expanding its roubles-for-gas scheme for pipeline gas to include LNG, the Interfax news agency quoted a senior manager as saying on Monday.

Allies of Ukraine meeting in Switzerland are due to adopt a declaration spelling out the principles and priorities of rebuilding the war-shattered country, estimated to cost at least $750bn.

Leaders from dozens of countries, international organisations and businesses have been meeting in the southern Swiss city of Lugano under tight security since Monday, discussing the best path forward for reconstruction, even as Russia’s war continues to rage in Ukraine.

“Reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local task of a single nation,” Zelenskyy said via video message. “It is a common task of the whole democratic world.”

The UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine said humanitarian agencies would support Ukraine “with any possible mean.”

Russia's sensless war in #Ukraine has caused immense suffering to millions in the country & devastating impact on its economy.#URC2022 brings together🇺🇦government and international community in #Lugano to shape reconstruction priorities & ensure international support coordination pic.twitter.com/gkJTB9Tqbv

An official from Russia’s powerful FSB security services has taken over the government of the Moscow-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine, Kremlin-installed authorities have said.

Sergei Yeliseyev, until now the deputy head of government in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, “became head of the government in the Kherson region”, Vladimir Saldo, who heads the Russian occupational administration, said.

“Ukraine is forever in the past for the Kherson region. Russia is here forever,” the Moscow-installed authorities said on instant messaging service Telegram.

Russia has said it is investigating the torture of Russian soldiers held prisoner in Ukraine and recently released as part of a prisoner swap with Kyiv in late June.

The Russian committee said Moscow’s soldiers told investigators about “the violence they had suffered”.

According to its statement, one of the soldiers said Ukrainian medics treated him without anaesthetic and that he was “beaten, tortured with electricity in captivity”.

The Russian Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement that it was “verifying facts of inhuman treatment of Russia soldier prisoners in Ukraine”.

IKEA will open for business for a final time in Russia, with customers permitted to buy goods in an online-only fire sale, before the Swedish furniture company winds down its operations.

“From July 5 for a few weeks you can buy IKEA goods only on ikea.ru,” IKEA said on its Russian website. “Goods will be on sale for as long as they are in stock.”

IKEA said last month it would sell factories, close offices and reduce its 15,000-strong workforce in the country as it did not expect to resume sales in the foreseeable future. Its owner Ingka Group said in June it was open to returning to Russia one day but that the right conditions were not in place at present.

The amount of Russian gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and deliveries through Ukraine have decreased while eastbound gas flows via the Yamal pipeline to Poland from Germany have stopped, operator data showed.

Russian gas producer Gazprom said last month capacity through the pipeline would be cut to only 40 percent of capacity due to the delayed return of equipment being serviced by Germany’s Siemens Energy in Canada.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline will undergo regular annual maintenance from July 11 to July 21, when flows usually fall to zero, raising concern over how promptly they will resume afterwards.

Ukrainian forces are taking up new defensive lines in Donetsk, where they still control main cities, after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in neighbouring Luhansk province.

Putin told his troops to “absolutely rest and recover their military preparedness” ahead of a renewed offensive on the industrial region.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, said the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk have been shelled overnight. “They are now also the main line of assault for the enemy,” he said of the towns. “There is no safe place without shelling in Donetsk region.”

Russia has demanded that Ukraine hand Luhansk and Donetsk – known together as the Donbas – to pro-Moscow separatists.

The 30 NATO allies are set to sign off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance’s capitals for legislative approvals.

The 30 ambassadors and permanent representatives are to formally approve the decision taken at last week’s NATO summit, when the alliance invited the Nordic countries to join the military club.

The move will further increase Russia’s strategic isolation in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Despite the agreement in the alliance, parliamentary approval from member state Turkey could still pose problems for their final inclusion as members.

The governor of the now Russian-occupied Luhansk region says Russian forces are continuing to shell populated areas.

“In the recently occupied territories, the Russians establish their own rules; tell nonsense about the opening of schools from September 1, [and] the rapid restoration of communications,” Haidai wrote on Telegram.

“This is all a lie, the same thing happened in Mariupol – everyone saw how water ran through the destroyed houses. The only thing the Rashists are capable of is terrorising the local population,” he added, using the popular term for “Russians” in Ukraine.

He said Russian forces had started looking for “activists” and “military families” to collaborate with them against Ukraine.

Belarus says it is freezing foreign shareholdings in 190 Belarusian companies, including the software engineering company EPAM Systems and Lukoil Belarus, in response to Western sanctions for its support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights violations.

A decree published on the official legislative portal said shareholders from countries that “commit unfriendly actions against Belarusian legal entities and/or individuals are prohibited from disposing of their shares”.

At least 345 children have died in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s invasion and 644 have been wounded, the prosecutor general’s office has reported.

Most child casualties occurred in the Donetsk region (345), followed by the regions of Kharkiv (185), Kyiv (116), Chernihiv (68), Luhansk (61), Mykolaiv (53), Kherson (52) and Zaporizhia (31), the prosecutor general said.

The office said figures were not final as work was still under way to establish them in places of active hostilities, temporarily occupied areas and territories “liberated” by Ukraine.

Major Asian buyers of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) say they have not yet received a request to pay for supplies in Russian roubles after a senior manager at gas producer Gazprom floated a proposal to expand the payment scheme.

The rouble payment proposal comes just days after Russia moved to seize operations of the Sakhalin-2 LNG plant in retaliation for Western sanctions, raising supply concerns for top buyers such as Japan and South Korea. Kirill Polous, a deputy department head of Russian gas producer, said Gazprom has proposed expanding its rouble-for-gas scheme to include LNG, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday.

Spokespeople at Japan’s biggest LNG importer JERA and South Korea’s state-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) said they have yet to receive a request to pay for LNG supplies in roubles.

Russia’s capture of the Luhansk region was relatively quick and showed better coordination than in its earlier offensives, the United Kingdom’s defence ministry has said.

“Unlike in previous phases of the war, Russia has probably achieved reasonably effective co-ordination between at least two groupings of forces, the Central Grouping likely commanded by General-Colonel Alexandr Lapin and the Southern Grouping probably under the recently appointed General Sergei Surovikin,” the ministry said.

In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the area “in good order” as they had been stationed at an outward “bulge” in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which allowed Russian troops to more easily attack from three sides.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 5 July 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/NVYkvuvi87

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/9YeKlckkjI

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 5, 2022

Phan Thị Kim Phuc, the girl in the famous 1972 Vietnam napalm attack photo, has escorted 236 refugees from Ukraine on a flight from Warsaw to Canada.

Phuc’s iconic Associated Press photo in which she runs with her napalm-scalded body exposed, was etched on the private non-governmental organisation plane that flew the refugees to the city of Regina, the capital of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, on Monday.

Kim, 59, a Canadian citizen, said she wants her story and work for refugees to be a message of peace. With her husband, Bui Huy Toan, she travelled from Toronto to board the humanitarian flight.

The refugees, mostly women and children from across Ukraine, are among thousands of Ukrainians for whom Canada has provided humanitarian visas in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

Russian missiles struck the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday morning, the mayor said as air raid sirens were activated across the city.

“In the morning, the occupiers fired rockets at Mykolaiv. Rescuers, medics, emergency crews and utility workers are already working on the ground. I will let you know more information later,” Oleksandr Senkevich said on Telegram.

Social media users also reported the strikes with one saying: “There is a column of thick black smoke over the city. The blow was strong!”

Missiles struck Mykolaiv several times over the last few days. On June 30, authorities said a strike on a residential building killed six people and wounded at least another six.

Moscow’s capture of the Luhansk region is “the last victory for Russia on Ukrainian territory,” an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s president’s office has said.

“These were medium-sized cities. And this took from 4th April until 4th July — that’s 90 days. So many losses…,” Oleksiy Arestovych said in an online post.

Arestovych said besides the battle for Donetsk, Ukraine was hoping to launch counteroffensives in the south of the country.

“Taking the cities in the east meant that 60 percent of Russian forces are now concentrated in the east and it is difficult for them to be redirected to the south,” he said. “And there are no more forces that can be brought in from Russia. They paid a big price for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will fly to Hanoi on Tuesday for a two-day visit to Vietnam before heading to a G20 meeting later this week in Indonesia, the Vietnamese government has said.

The visit at the invitation of Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son comes as the two nations mark the 10th anniversary of their “comprehensive strategic partnership”, the government said in a statement.

Russia is Vietnam’s biggest arms supplier and its companies are involved in several major energy projects in the country. The two nations have close ties dating back to the Soviet era and Vietnam has not so far condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In April, Vietnam voted against a resolution to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over the war.

Dozens of mainly elderly people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk queued up for hours on Monday to receive milk, bread and other groceries from World Central Kitchen.

Many are fearful that Russian forces will try to seize all of the Donetsk region after capturing Luhansk last week, the Reuters news agency reports. Bakhmut, Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk lie southwest of Lysychansk and are the main urban areas holding out against Russian forces in Donetsk.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko told Reuters that some residents were packing up to leave after three barrages of missiles hit the town over the weekend. He said the attacks did not kill anyone but one landed in a suburban area and injured one woman.

More than two-thirds of the city’s population has left since the war began, leaving just more than 60,000 people, he said. But many said they did not have any choice rather than stay as they could not afford to rent apartments and support their families away from their homes.

The Russian-installed head of the occupied city of Enerhodar, home to the Zaporizhzhia power plant, says the city plans to provide electricity supplies to the annexed territory of Crimea once damage to the plant is restored, Russia’s state news agency TASS reports.

“We are ready to supply Crimea – according to approximate calculations – about 25% of the energy produced by the plant. But they are very slowly restoring the towers blown up in 2015 near Chonhar (village),” Yevgeny Balitsky told TASS adding that the towers were blown up by “Ukrainian nationalists”.

“And let’s face it: in eight years everything is already there (in Crimea). Everything is fine without us, there is no urgency for Crimea, although energy from nuclear power plants will be cheaper. But for us, there is both urgency and a need,” Balitsky said.

The Ukrainian flag has been delivered by helicopter to Snake Island in the Black Sea after Russian forces withdrew from the strategic outpost last week, and it will be raised as soon as Ukrainian troops arrive, Ukraine’s military has said.

Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, had initially said the flag had been raised on the craggy outcropping in the Black Sea.

“The flag has been delivered to the island by helicopter,” Ukrainian media quoted Humeniuk as telling CNN television. “It will await the arrival of troops and will then be hoisted.”

Homeniuk said her original remarks to reporters should be viewed “metaphorically”. No troops had landed on the island and “No one is taking any risks for the sake of a media photo”.

The United Kingdom is proposing a new law that will require social media companies to proactively tackle disinformation posted by foreign states such as Russia, the government has said.

The law would tackle fake accounts on platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Twitter that were set up on behalf of foreign states to influence elections or court proceedings, the government said.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said on Monday the invasion of Ukraine has shown how Russia uses social media to spread lies about its actions.

“We cannot allow foreign states or their puppets to use the internet to conduct hostile online warfare unimpeded,” she said. “That’s why we are strengthening our new internet safety protections to make sure social media firms identify and root out state-backed disinformation.”

Zelenskyy’s office has detailed the toll on Ukrainian sport during the Russian invasion, now in a fifth month.

A total of 89 athletes and coaches have died “as a result of hostilities,” 13 more have been captured by the Russians, and “more than a hundred thousand Ukrainian athletes do not have the opportunity of training,” Zelenskyy has said.

Zelenskyy has thanked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for supporting a ban on Russian teams and athletes competing in most Olympic sports, ahead of a court hearing Tuesday to challenge the ruling in international football.

Zelenskyy met in Kyiv on Sunday with IOC President Thomas Bach and praised “his unwavering position” on sports sanctions against Russia and its ally Belarus, according to a readout of the visit provided by his presidential office.

The IOC advised sports leaders on February 28 to act and football bodies FIFA and UEFA made a joint ruling later that day. It is the subject of an appeal Tuesday by the Russian football federation at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the Olympic home city of Lausanne, Switzerland.

The IOC also said it has now tripled its fund for Ukrainian sport to $7.5m since the war started.

🇺🇦 IOC President visits Ukraine to meet athletes and hold talks with President @ZelenskyyUa.

With a view to @Paris2024 and @milanocortina26, he announced that the IOC aid fund for Ukrainian athletes will be tripled to USD 7.5 million.

Learn more here 👉https://t.co/3DOD03Lvvo pic.twitter.com/IeCgCVZU84

Putin has likely directed his troops to take an “operational pause” after they captured Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.

After congratulating his troops on taking the Luhansk region, Putin said the forces participating in the recent gains should “absolutely rest and recover their military preparedness”.

“Putin‘s public comment was likely meant to signal his concern for the welfare of his troops in the face of periodic complaints in Russia about the treatment of Russian soldiers. His comment was also likely accurate – Russian troops that fought through Severodonetsk and Lysychansk very likely do need a significant period in which to rest and refit before resuming large-scale offensive operations,” the ISW said.

“It is not clear, however, that the Russian military will accept the risks of a long enough operational pause to allow these likely exhausted forces to regain their strength,” it added.

#Putin celebrated the #Russian seizure of #Lysychansk and the #Luhansk Oblast border and appeared to direct the Russian military to conduct an operational pause.

Read the full report from @TheStudyofWar and @criticalthreats: https://t.co/YBDpvpJt9m pic.twitter.com/xTHrsdJ1Nc

The Kremlin says Putin did not congratulate his American counterpart, Joe Biden, on the US’s Independence Day because of Washington’s “unfriendly” actions towards Moscow.

“Congratulations this year can hardly be considered appropriate,” Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. “The United States’ unfriendly policies are the reason.”

The Swedish prime minister has given Zelenskyy a letter written in 1711 by King Charles – previously kept in her country’s national archives –  in which the king instructs the Swedish ambassador in Constantinople to recognise the Zaporizhzhian Sich as an independent state.

The Zaporizhzhian Sich was a semi-autonomous quasi-state of the Cossacks, a predominantly eastern Slavic group originating in the steppes of Ukraine, that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries. It was centred around the region spanning the lower Dnieper River, where Ukraine’s current Zaporizhia region is located.

Zelenskyy showed the letter to journalists and read out a fragment he thought relevant, according to a statement from his office: “… to implement as soon as possible the article about the will of Ukraine and all Cossacks that all Ukraine and the Zaporizhzhia Army under the current commander Pylyp Orlyk regain the ancient freedom, possession of their land and its former borders, so that from now on this people will become an independent state and never again be subject to the obedience or protection of the king.”

Ukraine is holding talks with Turkey and the United Nations to secure guarantees for grain exports from Ukrainian ports, Zelenskyy has said.

“Talks are in fact going on now with Turkey and the UN [and] our representatives who are responsible for the security of the grain that leaves our ports,” Zelenskyy told a news conference alongside the Swedish prime minister.

“This is a very important thing that someone guarantees the security of ships for this or that country – apart from Russia, which we do not trust. We therefore need security for those ships which will come here to load foodstuffs.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was working “directly” with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the issue and that the organisation was “playing a leading role, not as a moderator”.

Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, has acknowledged his entire province was now effectively in Russian hands but told the Reuters news agency: “We need to win the war, not the battle for Lysychansk”.

He added, “It hurts a lot, but it’s not losing the war.”

Haidai said Ukrainian forces that retreated from Lysychansk were now holding the line between Bakhmut and Sloviansk, preparing to fend off a further Russian advance.

Russia captured the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, bringing an end to one of the biggest battles in Europe in generations and completing its conquest of Luhansk province, one of two regions it has demanded Ukraine cede to separatists in the Donbas region.

Ukraine could have withdrawn from Luhansk weeks ago but chose to keep fighting to exhaust the invasion force. It hopes the ferocious battle will leave the Russians too depleted to hold gains elsewhere.

Ukraine’s armed forces were undeterred in their efforts to “break” Russia’s will to pursue its ongoing war, Zelenskyy has said, after Putin hailed his military’s victory in the gruelling battle for Luhansk.

“There have been no significant changes on the battlefield in the past 24 hours,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine respond, push back and destroy the offensive potential of the occupiers day after day. We need to break them. It is a difficult task. It requires time and superhuman efforts. But we have no alternative.”

Earlier on Monday, Putin congratulated Russian forces on “victories in the Luhansk direction”, after his troops captured the town of Lysychansk, Ukraine’s last stronghold in the region.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has met Ukraine’s president in Kyiv, with the two parties signing a joint statement on defence and energy cooperation.

“This is the first such document in the history of bilateral relations. The joint statement sets out key issues for both our states. This applies, in particular, to defence cooperation, sectoral cooperation in the fields of nuclear energy, energy efficiency, and financial support for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.

He also thanked Sweden for its humanitarian support for Ukraine.

“One hundred thousand Ukrainian citizens are in Sweden, and Sweden supports them. We will remember your sincere attention to the citizens of Ukraine in this difficult time of the Russian war,” he said.

Read all the updates from July 4 here.