Russian – Ukraine war update – President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine declared a “historic” combined customs control with Poland, describing it as “the beginning of our integration into the European Union’s single customs space.” It would “substantially speed up border procedures” and “eliminate the majority of the corruption threats,” according to Zelensky. It comes after France’s European affairs minister predicted that Ukraine’s EU membership application would take at least “15 or 20 years to complete.”
According to the UN refugee agency, more than 100 million people have been forced to flee conflict, violence, and persecution around the world, a record number exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine. The “stark” figure, according to UNHCR, is “sobering and disturbing in equal measure” and should serve as a “wake-up call.” According to the report, the war in Ukraine has displaced 8 million people within the country, with more than 6 million refugees fleeing the country.
On Sunday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will “redouble efforts” to help Ukraine with “critical food and humanitarian relief.” According to a statement, Johnson discussed the “despicable” blockade of Odesa, Ukraine’s main port city, and said the UK would try to “guarantee that (Ukraine) is able to export to the rest of the world.”
According to the Ukrainian military, a Russian missile attack on Malyn, in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv, killed at least one person on Sunday. Russian forces fired “naval-based cruise missiles” from the southeast toward infrastructure facilities in Zhytomyr, according to Ukraine’s Air Command Center. According to the center, its air defense troops shot down four Russian cruise missiles, three of which were shot down by aircraft and one by an anti-aircraft missile.