Russia has appointed a new Ukraine war commander, a US official said Sunday.

Russia has turned to General Alexander Dvornikov, 60, one of Russia’s most experienced military officers and — according to US officials — a general who has a record of brutality against civilians in Syria.

The senior official who identified the new commander spoke on condition of anonymity but the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said “no appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said on Sunday that 1,222 bodies have been found in the region around the capital Kyiv.

The prime minister was gifted a symbolic ceramic cockerel as he walked through the streets of Kyiv on his surprise visit to the war-torn capital.

A woman approached Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky, handing them each a ceramic jug in the shape of a cockerel.

“I’m from London,” the prime minister said, to which the woman smiled and said: “I know, I’m from Kharviv.”

Read more here:

Around 600 pro-Russian protesters in a 350-car motorcade set off on a demonstration in Hanover in the north of Germany on Sunday, where there was also a counter-demonstration of around 700 people supporting Ukraine in the city centre, local police said.

The group was flying Russian and also a few German flags and was protesting against discrimination in Germany towards Russians following the Ukraine invasion.

Police said that fences had been put up to separate the pro-Russian protesters from the counter-demonstration and they added that the protests had been peaceful so far.

Around 235,000 Russian citizens live in Germany, according to government statistics from late 2020. About 135,000 Ukrainians lived in Germany before Russia’s invasion, based on the statistics, but around an additional 300,000 have arrived since the invasion.

Russian forces fired rockets into Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipro regions on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said.

They have completely destroyed an airport and have potentially left casualties.

Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said emergency workers were combing through an infrastructure facility that was hit in the town of Zvonetsky.

He added that details on casualties would be given later.

“Overnight high-precision missiles destroyed the base and headquarters of the nationalist Dnepr battalion in Zvonetsky, which also recently received reinforcements from foreign mercenaries,” Russia’s Defence Ministry said.

Mr Reznichenko said on Telegram that there had also been an attack on the airport in Dnipro city.

“The airport itself was destroyed, as well as nearby infrastructure. And the rockets fly and fly,” Mr Reznichenko said.

Britain could start targeting Russian troops and generals suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine with sanctions, the policing minister has said.

Kit Malthouse said the UK was determined to do all it could to help bring to justice those responsible for the “truly awful crimes” which had taken place during the invasion.

“While that is ongoing we can take action domestically around sanctions we are able to put on individuals, including combatants, leading generals and others involved in it, to signal our recognition of their part in this dreadful, dreadful assault upon a free democratic country,” he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme.

Read more here:

On the 24th of February 2022, Putin announced he was invading Ukraine, under the guise of a ‘Special Military Operation’.

The conflict has killed over 15,000 people and caused the largest refugee crisis seen in Europe since World War II.

The Independent’s International Correspondent Bel Trew has been on the ground in Ukraine:

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced just four days into Russia’s war in Ukraine that he would open an investigation into alleged war crimes “as rapidly as possible”.

“I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine,” he said in a statement on the decision.

US president Joe Biden has since branded Russian president Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”, drawing an angry repsonse from the Kremlin, although the accusation has seemingly been validated by reports that 20 civilians were left dead in the street in Bucha, some with their hands bound, as satellite imagery revealed the presence of a mass grave.

Joe Sommerlad has more:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he had held spoken on the phone with German chancellor Olaf Scholz about the possibility of additional sanctions on Russia, as well as fresh defence and financial support for his country.

The statement was made by him on Twitter.

In a separate statement, Mr Zelenskiy’s office said that the president had held a conference call with Ukrainian officials during which Kyiv’s proposals for a sixth package of European Union sanctions had been developed.