Strikes hit Kyiv; Biden says G-7 will ban Russian gold imports

OUTSIDE LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian Airborne unit was relieved to be pulling back from the front Sunday morning, riding a column of armored personnel carriers away from the embattled city of Severodonetsk, which had already fallen to the Russians, and Lysychansk, which was on the brink.

“Nothing happened to us to when we were at the front,” the unit commander said. “It was while we were retreating that we got hit.”

They were hit, and hit badly.

As the convoy moved into the farm village of Verkhniokamianske, with many of the soldiers riding outside the vehicles, the first blast struck right by them. It was a cluster bomb, they would later surmise, something that tore through the contingent of men clinging to that side of one truck.

Several men were wounded, with blood pouring from limbs and, in one case, a soldier’s head. But there was no time to treat them while the convoy remained in the crosshairs of Russian artillery. The uninjured applied tourniquets where they could, dragged the hurt back onto the vehicles and raced out of the village, across rutted farm lanes to a line of trees across a golden wheat field about a kilometer away.

It was just one of the many chaotic scenes that keep unfolding as Ukrainians give up ground to Russia’s relentless push to control the eastern Donbas region.

SCHLOSS ELMAU, Germany — As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts his first major international summit this weekend, he is a leader with something to prove.

His first six months in office have come during perhaps the most tumultuous period in European history since World War II. And with it has come criticism that he is simply not up to the job.

Scholz has been lampooned as taking a dithering, confused stance as the war has unfolded in Ukraine, whose western border lies just 500 miles from the German capital. And he is dogged by accusations that he is dragging his feet on deliveries of heavy weapons to the Ukrainians.

As the meeting among Group of Seven leaders in the Bavarian Alps this weekend brings closer attention to Germany’s leadership role — or lack of it — Scholz and his party faithful have been attempting to turn around the country’s public relations disaster.

Guinan-Bank reported from Berlin.

Russia fired dozens of missiles across Ukraine over the weekend, including a deadly strike in the capital, Kyiv, Sunday, Ukrainian officials said.

Here are some updates from across the country:

Severodonetsk: Russian forces have captured the strategically important city after Ukrainian troops announced their withdrawal, which marks one of Russia’s biggest wins since it launched its offensive in the Donbas region nearly three months ago.

Lysychansk: Russian-backed troops are closing in on this city on the Siverskyi Donets River opposite Severodonetsk, and they hit the city with an airstrike Sunday, according to officials. The city’s capture would give Russia almost complete control of the eastern Luhansk region. Ukrainian forces have been digging trenches around Lysychansk over the past week to seal the city to everyone but military and humanitarian rescue missions.

Kyiv: Local officials reported several explosions in Ukraine’s capital early Sunday as Russia bombarded the country with missile strikes for a second day. At least one person was reported killed, and several were injured, disrupting an uneasy calm that had settled over the city since Russia withdrew its forces from the area in April.

Lviv region: A military base near the western Ukrainian town of Yavoriv was hit by four Russian missiles fired from the Black Sea on Saturday, according to its regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy. Although it is a long way from the front lines, the Lviv area has been attacked a number of times throughout the conflict as Moscow attempts to disrupt supply lines for fuel and other essential supplies.

Black Sea: Russian warships are focused on blocking civilian shipping in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, Ukraine’s armed forces said in an operational update.

Siobhán O’Grady contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke directly to Belarusians in his nightly address Sunday amid warnings from Ukraine that Russia is seeking to draw Belarus more directly into the war.

“The Kremlin has already decided everything for you — your lives are worth nothing to them,” Zelensky said. “But you are not slaves or cannon fodder. You do not have to die. And you can prevent anyone from deciding for you what awaits you next.”

He said Russia is attempting to “sow hatred” between Ukraine and Belarus “even more actively” than in the early stages of the war.

“A lot now depends on the ordinary people of Belarus,” he said. “Your lives belong only to you, not to someone in the Kremlin.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko are close allies, and Russia launched part of its early invasion from Belarus. That partnership appears to have deepened in recent days as Saturday marked the first time Russian airstrikes were fired from Belarusian airspace, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

On Sunday evening, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russian “sabotage and reconnaissance groups” are staging in Belarus for actions in Ukraine. It followed a Sunday morning warning of the ongoing threat of missile attacks from Belarus’s territory and airspace.

Putin met with Lukashenko on Saturday and committed to sending nuclear-capable missile systems to Belarus and helping to upgrade Belarusian aircraft to be able to carry nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to two former Soviet states in Central Asia this week, according to state television, marking what would be his first publicly known visits abroad since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine more than four months ago.

Pavel Zarubin, Kremlin correspondent for the Rossiya 1 television station, said Putin plans to visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan before returning to Moscow to meet with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Reuters reported.

Putin will meet with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon in Dushanbe before traveling to the Turkmen capital of Ashkhabad to join a meeting of Caspian leaders, including from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Zarubin said.

Since the Ukraine invasion, Putin has grown increasingly isolated on the world stage; he has been denounced by foreign leaders and been slapped with travel and economic sanctions.

His last known visit abroad was several weeks before the formal start of the war, when he traveled to China in early February at the invitation of President Xi Jinping.

The Group of Seven leaders were moving toward a consensus on a price cap on Russian oil imports, said one person with knowledge of the Sunday discussion who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the private talks.

To incentivize other countries’ participation, the leaders discussed ways to make it difficult to insure or ship Russian oil that doesn’t comply with the cap. French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly was particularly keen to stress that a price cap also cover gas.

Price caps on Russian natural gas flowing through pipelines to Europe are considered easier to enforce because the infrastructure ensures it can’t be sold elsewhere.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi raised concerns about the potential political ramifications of rising energy prices.

“The energy crisis must not produce a return of populism,” he said, according to the person with knowledge of the talks, adding that the G-7 has the tools to safeguard against that.

“Putting a ceiling on the price of fossil fuels imported from Russia has a geopolitical objective as well as an economic and social one,” Draghi said, according to the person. “We need to reduce our funding to Russia. And we must eliminate one of the main causes of inflation.”

The United States also has been pushing for an agreement on a price cap on Russian oil imports, a European official and a U.S. official said. The aim is to put a ceiling on the amount that nations pay for Russian oil, a move intended to hurt Moscow’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine and to alleviate inflation hitting Americans at the pumps.

A similar price cap on imports of Russian gas also is being discussed, officials said.

Russia’s economy is predicted to slow between 8 and 15 percent next year amid new sanctions by the United States and other Group of Seven members, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday.

In the four months since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has faced mounting economic pressure from sanctions by Ukraine’s Western allies. Several North American and European countries have banned Russian oil and energy imports; Russian banks have been blocked from accessing the SWIFT international payment system, effectively cutting off Russia from global banking; and international companies have pulled out of the country.

On Sunday, G-7 members announced that they would ban imports of Russian gold, denying President Vladimir Putin the revenue he needs to fund the war against Ukraine. Penalties for the Kremlin could amount to tens of billions of dollars, President Biden tweeted Sunday morning.

Blinken, speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said the sanctions are having a “dramatic” effect.

“Well, first, let’s take gold, the thing that we’re just announcing. That is the second-most-lucrative export that Russia has after energy. It’s about $19 billion a year. And most of that is within the G-7 countries,” he said.

Blinken added that Russia cannot capitalize on higher oil prices because of export controls, denying it a way to modernize its defense sector, technology and energy exploration. Those sectors, he said, will continue to decline.

“Already, we’re seeing predictions that the Russian economy will shrink by 8 to 15 percent next year,” Blinken said. “The ruble is being propped up artificially, at great expense.”

MITTENWALD, Germany — French officials on Sunday denied the existence of tensions between President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over Ukraine, after the two met at the Group of Seven summit in southern Germany.

In a statement, Johnson’s Downing Street office said he “stressed” to Macron that “any attempt to settle the [Ukrainian] conflict now will only cause enduring instability” and allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to “manipulate both sovereign countries and international markets in perpetuity.”

The remarks appeared to be criticism of earlier comments from Macron, who had said in mid-June that the Ukrainian president and his officials will need to negotiate with Russia at some point.

Johnson’s comments, made before Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders traveled to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, earlier this month, raised concerns among Ukrainian officials that France and Germany may push for talks with Russia in the near future, as the economic toll of the war mounts.

French officials have rejected those concerns and clarified that it is up to Ukraine to determine when to resume talks with Russia, which stalled in April.

A spokesperson for the French presidency said Sunday that Macron and Johnson “had a discussion on Ukraine in which the president strongly reaffirmed his determination to support Ukraine.”

France has delivered or pledged almost one-fourth of its existing stocks of Caesar artillery weapons systems to Ukraine. Thanks largely to its relatively low dependence on Russian fossil fuels, France has become an early champion of a European Union embargo on imports of Russian oil.

But both Macron and Scholz, the host of this week’s G-7 summit, have spoken to Putin several times on the phone since the invasion, drawing criticism in Eastern Europe.

“France and Germany are quite aligned in their thinking on Russia and continue to be. I think both understand and have understood for a while that they need to support Ukraine,” said Joseph de Weck, author of a book on the Macron presidency. “But both have the same sort of reflex to also think: One should have to think about a way out of the conflict at some point.”