Ukraine-Russia war – live: Fears Kyiv has only 30 days left for offensive as aid workers killed in attack

Kyiv could have as little as 30 days left for its counter-offensive against Moscow, fears the head of the US military.

General Mark Milley said Ukraine only has around 30 to 45 days left before poor weather conditions hinder its offensive, telling the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg it will become “very difficult to manoeuvre” once the rains come.

Two foreign aid workers were reportedly killed in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Russian shelling hit a van carrying a team of four working with a Ukrainian NGO.

The four volunteers from the Road to Relief NGO, which helps evacuate wounded people from front-line areas, were trapped inside the van as it flipped over and caught fire after being struck by shells near the town of Chasiv Yar, the organization said on its Instagram page.

Road to Relief said Canadian Anthony Ihnat died in the attack, while German medical volunteer Ruben Mawick and Swedish volunteer Johan Mathias Thyr were seriously injured.

The organisation added that it could not trace the whereabouts of the van’s fourth passenger, Emma Igual, a Spanish national who was the organization’s director. Hours later, Spain’s acting foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares told Spanish media that authorities in Madrid had received “verbal confirmation” of the 32-year-old Igual’s death.

The volunteers were on their way to assess the needs of civilians on the outskirts of Bakhmut, Road to Relief said, in reference to the eastern town that saw the war’s longest and bloodiest battle before falling to Moscow in May. Ukrainian forces have held on to Bakhmut’s western suburbs and are pushing a counteroffensive in the area.

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukrainian troops had made advances on the southern front and made movements near Bakhmut in the east.

“Over the past seven days we have made an advance in the Tavria (southern) sector,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

“There is movement in the Bakhmut sector. Yes, there is movement.”

Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground on other fronts in the east — Avdiivka and Maryinka near the focus of Russia’s main attacks, and Lyman and Kupiansk, also subject to Russian attempts to advance further north.

Near Avdiivka, the head of the local military administration said Ukrainian troops took advantage of Russian forces focusing on one sector to advance and capture part of the village of Opytne south of the city.

“In my opinion, this is very significant,” Vitaliy Barabash told national television. “To be frank, the enemy overlooked this southern direction a bit.”

Zelensky and other officials have said the counter offensive requires time, dismissing criticism in the Western media that it is proceeding too slowly because of tactical errors.

In an interview with The Economist published on Sunday, Zelensky said making steady progress was essential to maintaining morale.

He suggested a big breakthrough could lie ahead.

The G20 summit did not end in the usual harmonious manner this Sunday as some members question the and omission of Russia and ‘careful’ language used in the communiqué.

Earlier drafts of the declaration reportedly featured stronger language when it comes to Russia, but a senior European Union official who was part of the negotiations told reporters here at the summit venue on Sunday that it would have spelled the end of the G20 as an organisation if they had not agreed to the watered-down version.

The official said: “Ukraine was the most contentious issue. Extremely different positions were on the table to find the consensus, but it was India’s presidency and we believe in consensus so we had to accept that.”

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General Andrey Mordvichev spoke out in a TV interview with Russia state TV warning Ukraine is just the beginning to the rest of Eastern Europe.

He also told the presente he expects the war to last a very long time.

As reported in Newsweek, Mordvichev said: “I think there’s still plenty of time to spend. It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer.”

The interviewer then asked if Ukraine was merely a stepping stone.

He responded: “Yes, absolutely. It is only the beginning.”

Anthony Blinken defended the United State’s decision to agree with the summit’s declaration amid Ukrainian complaints the statment doesn’t do enough to condemn Russia.

During an interview on ABC’s This Week he said:“I was in the room when all the leaders spoke today with President Biden and it was very clear from everything that they said that not only do they want to see this war end, but they want to see it end on just and durable terms and it was also very clear that the consequences of Russia’s aggression are being felt throughout the G20 countries and throughout the developing world.”

“I think it’s very important that the G20 spoke as one,” Blinken added.

Ukrainian foreign ministry Oleg Nikolnko hit out at the statement, saying the language used did not go far enough to condemn Russia.

Blinken routinely pledges his support for Ukraine on social media.

Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov spoke at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv last night.

Ukranian and international policy makers gathered to dicuss the war’s progression.

As reported in The Guardian, Budanov said:

A British man who fought in Ukraine was found dead in a body of water with his hands tied behind his back, his family have revealed.

Jordan Chadwick, 31, who travelled to Ukraine in early October 2022, was fighting in the International Legion.

Mr Chadwick, known as Joe, was from Burnley in Lancashire. He served as a Scots Guard in the British Army from 2011 to 2015.

His mother, Brenda Chadwick, told the BBC her family was “devastated” by her son’s death.

She said: “Although we are extremely proud of his unwavering courage and resilience, his death has been devastating.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry hit out at G20’s joint declaration for omitting the mention of Russia and put forward his own corrected version.

The G20 member country’s reached an agreement on Saturday but there was a notable difference in language regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict in comparison with last year’s document.

There were disagreements between European countries who were keen to use strong language to condemn Moscow’s invasion yet Russia and China wouldn’t accept any mention of war.

Russian authorities have reported multiple attempts to sabotage voting in local elections taking place in occupied areas of Ukraine.

Votes are taking place this weekend in 79 regions of Russia, with ballots for governors, regional legislatures, city and municipal councils, as well as in the four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed illegally last year – the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia provinces – and on the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.

Kyiv and the West have said balloting in the occupied areas of Ukraine is a violation of international law.

Russian electoral officials on Sunday reported attempts to sabotage voting in the occupied regions, where guerrilla forces loyal to Kyiv had previously killed pro-Moscow officials, blown up bridges and helped the Ukrainian military by identifying key targets.

A drone strike in the early hours of Sunday destroyed one polling station in the Zaporizhzhia province, deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev told reporters. He said no staff were at the station at the time of the attack.

A Russian-appointed official in the neighbouring Kherson region said that a live grenade was discovered on Saturday near a polling station there. Marina Zakharova said the grenade was hidden in bushes outside the station, and that voting had to be halted while emergency services disposed of it.

Local residents and Ukrainian activists have alleged that Russian poll workers make house calls accompanied by armed soldiers in both provinces, detaining those who refuse to vote and pressuring them into writing “explanatory statements” that could be used as grounds for a criminal case.