Europe
British PM Boris Johnson resigns
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation Thursday after droves of top government officials quit over the latest scandal to engulf him, marking an end to three tumultuous years in which he tried to brazen out one ethical lapse after another with a combination of charm, bluster and denial.
Months of defiance ended almost with a shrug as Johnson stood outside No. 10 Downing St. and conceded that his party wanted him gone.
“Them’s the breaks,” he said.
The brash, 58-year-old politician who took Britain out of the European Union and steered it through COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine was brought down by one scandal too many — this one involving his appointment of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
The messiest of prime ministers did not leave cleanly. Johnson stepped down immediately as Conservative Party leader but said he would remain as prime minister until the party chooses his successor. The timetable for that process will be announced next week. The last leadership contest took six weeks.
But many want him to go now, with some Conservative politicians expressing fear he could do mischief even as a caretaker prime minister.
“It’s very difficult to see how Boris Johnson, given the character that he is, is going to be able to govern for three months in quiet humility and contrition,” said George Freeman, who resigned as science minister on Thursday.
Among the possible candidates to succeed Johnson: former Health Secretary Sajid Javid, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
Read: Boris Johnson reached the top but was felled by his flaws
About 50 Cabinet secretaries, ministers and lower-level officials quit the government over the past few days because of the latest scandal, often castigating the prime minister as lacking integrity.
The mass resignations stalled the business of some parliamentary committees because there were no ministers available to speak on the government’s behalf.
Johnson clung to power for days, defiantly telling lawmakers on Wednesday that he had a “colossal mandate” from the voters and intended to get on with the business of governing.
But he was forced to concede defeat Thursday morning after one of his closest allies, newly appointed Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi, publicly told him to resign for the good of the country.
“In the last few days, I tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we’re delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate,” Johnson said. “I regret not to have been successful in those arguments, and of course it’s painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself.”
He said it is “clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister.”
Critics said the speech showed Johnson, to the end, refusing to take responsibility for or admit his mistakes.
Many Britons reacted to news of his resignation with relief and surprise, given his habit of digging in.
“It felt like he can just keep on going and keep on ignoring it, so I was bit surprised this morning when saw it on my phone,” Himmat Dalyway, an investment trader in his 20s, said outside an Underground station in London. “Are you still 100% sure that he is going?″
As Johnson gathered his cobbled-together Cabinet for a meeting after his resignation announcement, he promised not to rock the boat in his remaining weeks. He told members the government would not “seek to implement new policies or make major changes of direction.”
It was a humiliating defeat for Johnson, who not only pulled off Brexit but was also credited with rolling out one of the world’s most successful mass vaccination campaigns to combat COVID-19.
But the perpetually rumpled, shaggy-haired leader known for answering his critics with bombast and bluster was also dogged by allegations he behaved as if the rules did not apply to him.
He managed to remain in power despite accusations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament about government office parties that broke COVID-19 lockdown rules.
When allegations of Downing Street parties emerged, Johnson told lawmakers “there was no party” and no rules were broken. But when photos of the prime minister raising a glass in front of a group of people surfaced, critics, some of them inside the Conservative Party, said Johnson had lied to Parliament — traditionally a resigning matter.
Boris Johnson reached the top but was felled by his flaws
Boris Johnson wanted to be like his hero Winston Churchill: a larger-than-life character who led Britain through a time of crisis. He was felled by crises of his own making, as a trickle of ethics allegations became a flood that engulfed his government and turned his own party against him.
Johnson agreed to resign Thursday after the chorus of disapproval from within his own party became too much for him to withstand.
The move came after months of scandal that saw Johnson fined by police and criticized by an investigator’s report for allowing rule-breaking parties in his office while Britain was in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson urged his party and country to “move on” and focus on the U.K.’s struggling economy and the war in Ukraine. But two thumping special election defeats for Johnson’s Conservative Party and allegations of sexual misconduct against a senior party official sealed the fate of a politician whose ability to survive scandals was legendary.
Johnson’s career was always one of extremes. He took Britain out of the European Union and led the nation during a global health crisis that endangered his own life, but was toppled after flouting restrictions he imposed in response to COVID-19. Revelations of parties in Johnson’s Downing Street office while the country was in lockdown in 2020 and 2021 caused outrage and tested the patience of the Conservative Party for its election-winning but erratic leader.
An investigation by senior civil servant Sue Gray criticized “failures of leadership and judgment” in Johnson’s government for allowing multiple rule-breaking gatherings in 2020 and 2021. Dozens of people were issued police fines, including the prime minister, his wife Carrie Johnson and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak.
It was, seemingly, the final blow to the career of one of the most divisive politicians Britain has ever known. A sympathetic biographer, Andrew Gimson, called Johnson “the man who takes on the Establishment and wins.” But for former member of Parliament Rory Stewart, who ran unsuccessfully against Johnson for the Conservative leadership in 2019, he was “probably the best liar we’ve ever had as prime minister.”
Read: Embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson agrees to resign
Johnson’s selection as Conservative leader and prime minister in July 2019 capped a rollercoaster journey to the top. He had held major offices, including London mayor and U.K. foreign secretary, but also spent periods on the political sidelines after self-inflicted gaffes.
Many times, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was written off as a lightweight who lacked the seriousness needed in a leader. He sometimes colluded in that impression, fostering the image of a rumpled, Latin-spouting populist with a mop of blond hair who didn’t take himself too seriously. He once said he had as much chance of becoming prime minister as of finding Elvis on Mars.
First elected to Parliament in 2001, he moved for years between journalism and politics, becoming well known as a newspaper columnist and guest on TV comedy quiz shows.
He sometimes made offensive remarks — calling Papua New Guineans cannibals and comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letter boxes” — that caused furor and that he shrugged off as jokes.
His first big political post, as mayor of London between 2008 and 2016, suited his talents. He built a high global profile as cheerful ambassador for the city — an image exemplified when he got stuck on a zip line during the 2012 London Olympics, waving Union Jacks as he dangled in the air.
Critics blasted his backing for vanity projects including a little-used cable car and a never-built “garden bridge” over the River Thames, and warned he could not be trusted. As a young journalist, Johnson had been fired by The Times of London for making up a quote. He was once recorded promising to give a friend the address of a journalist that the friend wanted beaten up. He was sacked from a senior Conservative post for lying about an extramarital affair.
As Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, he specialized in exaggerated stories of EU waste and ridiculous red tape — tales that helped turn British opinion against the bloc, with far-reaching consequences.
Historian Max Hastings, Johnson’s former boss at the Telegraph, later called him “a man of remarkable gifts, flawed by an absence of conscience, principle or scruple.”
It was Brexit that gave Johnson his big chance. Johnson’s co-leadership of the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union helped the “leave” side secure a narrow victory in a 2016 referendum.
His bullish energy was essential to the victory. So, critics said, were the campaign’s lies — such as the false claim that Britain sent 350 million pounds a week to the EU, money that could instead be spent on the U.K.’s national health service.
Read: Britain’s Boris Johnson battles to stay as PM amid revolt
The Brexit vote was a triumph for Johnson, but it did not immediately make him prime minister. Theresa May won a Conservative Party leadership contest and took the top job.
Johnson had to watch and wait for three years as May struggled to secure a divorce deal acceptable to both the bloc and Britain’s Parliament. When she failed, Johnson’s promise to “Get Brexit done” won him the prime minister’s job. In December 2019 he secured the Conservative Party its biggest parliamentary majority since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
His first months in office were fraught. Lawmakers resisted his Brexit plans and he suspended Parliament — until the U.K. Supreme Court ruled the move illegal. Opponents said it was another example of Johnson’s rule-breaking and disregard for the law.
After several delays to the departure date, Johnson achieved his goal of leading Britain out of the EU on Jan. 31, 2020. Yet despite Johnson’s slogan, Brexit was far from “done,” with many issues still to be resolved, including the delicate status of Northern Ireland, an ongoing source of friction between Britain and the bloc.
And then the pandemic struck. Johnson initially appeared relaxed about the threat the new coronavirus posed to the U.K., and hesitated to impose restrictions on movement and business activity.
He changed course and imposed a lockdown in late March 2020, and days later came down with COVID-19 himself, spending several nights in intensive care in a London hospital. He later said it had been “touch and go” whether he would be put on a ventilator.
Johnson’s handling of the pandemic drew decidedly mixed reviews. By nature a laissez-faire politician, he bristled at having to impose restrictions, and early on spoke rashly of the pandemic being over within weeks.
The U.K. went on to have one of the highest coronavirus death tolls in Europe, and some of the longest lockdowns. But the government got one big thing right, investing early in vaccine development and purchases and delivering doses to the bulk of the population.
The vaccination success brought Johnson a poll boost, but his troubles were growing. He faced allegations over money from a Conservative donor that he’d used to refurbish his official apartment. And he suffered a huge backlash when the government tried to change parliamentary standards rules after a lawmaker was found guilty of illicit lobbying.
The final straw came when details emerged of parties held in Johnson’s Downing Street office and home while the country was in lockdown.
The details were sometimes comic — staff smuggling booze into Downing Street in a suitcase, a supporter’s claim that Johnson had been “ambushed with a cake” at a surprise birthday party. But the anger they sparked was real. Millions of Britons had followed the rules, unable to visit friends and family or even say goodbye to dying relatives in hospitals.
Hannah Bunting, a University of Exeter lecturer who has studied public trust in politicians, said that in the past, voters were “well aware of Johnson’s flaws and this didn’t dim his electoral popularity.”
The party claims changed that, because people could “compare their actions to his,” she said. “Most of us complied with government restrictions because we thought it was in everyone’s interests. We made sacrifices to ensure people were safe.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 gave Britain’s politicians and media more urgent things to focus on. It brought a reprieve from domestic woes for Johnson, who won international praise for his military, financial and moral support for Ukraine. He traveled to Kyiv twice to meet President Voldymyr Zelenskyy, a reliable and welcome ally.
But the special election defeats of June 2022 — one in a district that had voted Conservative for a century — drove home to Conservatives that anger at “partygate” had not gone away.
Soon after, Johnson was caught changing his story on the way he handled allegations of sexual misconduct by a senior member of his government. Ministers who had defended Johnson through thick and thin had finally had enough. They quit the government in droves, leaving Johnson no choice but to resign.
Johnson’s run of miraculous escapes had finally come to an end.
From Brexit to Partygate, a timeline of Johnson’s career
He was the mayor who basked in the glory of hosting the 2012 London Olympics, and the man who led the Conservatives to a thumping election victory on the back of his promise to “get Brexit done.”
But Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister was marred by his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and a steady stream of ethics allegations, from alcohol-fueled government parties that broke lockdown rules to how he handled a sexual misconduct scandal involving a senior party lawmaker.
Here is a timeline of events relating to Johnson’s political career:
2001-2008: Serves as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons representing the constituency of Henley.
2008-2016: Serves as London mayor, overseeing 2012 London Olympics.
2016: Co-leader of the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union, in opposition to then-Prime Minister David Cameron, a fellow Conservative. Cameron resigns after voters approve Brexit in a national referendum on June 23, 2016.
2016-2018: Serves as Foreign Secretary under Cameron’s successor, Prime Minister Theresa May. Johnson resigns in July 2018 in opposition to May’s strategy for a “soft” Brexit that would maintain close ties with the EU.
June 7, 2019: Theresa May resigns as Conservative Party leader over her failure to persuade Parliament to back the Brexit agreement she negotiated with the EU. The party is split between those who back May and hard-liners, led by Johnson, who are willing to risk a no-deal Brexit in order to wring concessions from the EU.
July 23, 2019: Johnson is elected Conservative Party leader in a vote by party members. He takes office as prime minister the next day, inheriting a minority government that relies on votes from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to pass legislation. Johnson insists Britain will leave the EU on Oct. 31, with or without a deal.
Aug. 28, 2019: Johnson announces he will shut down Parliament until mid-October, giving opponents less time to thwart a no-deal Brexit.
Read: Embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson agrees to resign
Sept. 3, 2019: Twenty-one rebel Conservative Party lawmakers support legislation requiring the government to seek an extension of Brexit negotiations if it can’t negotiate an agreement with the EU. The measure passes and the rebels are expelled from the party.
Sept. 5, 2019: Johnson asserts he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than ask the EU for another extension.
Sept. 24, 2019: U.K. Supreme Court rules government’s suspension of Parliament was unlawful.
Oct. 19, 2019: Johnson asks the EU to delay Brexit again. New deadline set for Jan. 31.
Nov. 6, 2019: Parliament is dissolved and early elections are set for mid-December as Johnson seeks a mandate for his Brexit strategy.
Dec. 12, 2019: Johnson wins an 80-seat majority in the general election, giving him the backing to push through Brexit legislation. The victory makes Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher.
Jan. 23, 2020: The Brexit deal becomes law after approval by U.K. Parliament. European Parliament approves the deal six days later.
March 23, 2020: Johnson places U.K. in first lockdown due to COVID-19.
April 5, 2020: Johnson hospitalized and later moved to intensive care with COVID-19. He is released from the hospital on April 12, thanking the nurses who sat with him through the night to make sure he kept breathing.
Nov. 3-4, 2021: Johnson’s government orders Conservative lawmakers to support a change in ethics rules to delay the suspension of Owen Paterson, a Johnson supporter who had been censured for breaching lobbying rules. The measure passes. A day later, facing an angry backlash from lawmakers of all parties, Johnson reverses course and allows lawmakers to vote on Paterson’s suspension. Paterson resigns.
Nov. 30, 2021: Allegations surface that government officials attended parties in government offices during November and December 2020 in violation of COVID-19 lockdown rules. The scandal grows to reports of more than a dozen parties. Johnson denies the allegations, but opposition leaders criticize the government for breaking the law as people across the country made sacrifices to combat the pandemic.
Dec. 8, 2021: Johnson authorizes investigation into the scandal, dubbed “Partygate.” Pressure builds for a leadership challenge, but fizzles.
Read: Britain’s Boris Johnson battles to stay as PM amid revolt
Feb. 3: Johnson’s longtime aide, Munira Mirza, quits Downing Street, followed by three other top aides.
March 23: The government announces a mid-year spending plan that’s criticized for doing too little to help people struggling with the soaring cost of living. Treasury chief Rishi Sunak refuses to delay a planned income tax increase or impose a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies benefiting from rising energy prices.
April 9: Johnson meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, pledging a new package of military and economic support. The move helps bolster Johnson and his supporters, who argue the government should not focus on domestic political squabbles.
April 12: Johnson is fined 50 pounds ($63) for attending one of the lockdown parties. Opposition parties characterize him as the first U.K. prime minister in history shown to have broken the law while in office. Johnson apologizes but insists he didn’t know he was breaking the rules.
May 22,: Findings of the “Partygate” investigation are published, detailing 16 gatherings at Johnson’s home and office and other government offices between May 2020 and April 2021. The report details excessive drinking among some of Johnson’s staff, at a time when millions of people were unable to see friends and family.
May 26: The government reverses course on its tax decision on oil and gas companies and announces plans for a 25% windfall profits levy.
June 6: Johnson narrowly wins a vote of no confidence, with Conservative lawmakers voting 211 to 148 to back him. But the scale of the revolt — some 41% voted against him — shakes his grip on power.
June 15: Christopher Geidt quits as ethics adviser to Johnson, accusing the Conservative government of planning to flout conduct rules.
June 24: Johnson’s Conservatives lose two former strongholds to opposition parties in special elections.
June 29: Parliament’s cross-party Privileges Committee issues a call for evidence for a probe into whether Johnson misled Parliament over lockdown parties.
June 30: Chris Pincher resigns as Conservative deputy chief whip amid allegations he assaulted two guests at a private members’ club in London. Previous sexual misconduct allegations emerge about Pincher. Questions swirl about whether Johnson knew about the claims when Pincher was given the job.
July 5: Johnson apologizes for his handling of the Pincher scandal and says he had forgotten about being told of the allegations. Two of Johnson’s most senior Cabinet ministers, Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid, quit the government.
July 6: Some three dozen junior ministers resign from the government, attacking Johnson’s leadership.
July 7: Johnson agrees to resign as Conservative Party leader and prime minister.
Embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson agrees to resign
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to resign, his office said Thursday, ending an unprecedented political crisis over his future that has paralyzed Britain's government.
An official in Johnson's Downing Street office confirmed the prime minister would announce his resignation later. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.
Johnson had rebuffed calls by his Cabinet to step down in the wake of ethics scandals. He gave in after more than 40 ministers quit his government and told him to go.
Read: UK's Johnson defiant even as opponents tell him time is up
It was not immediately clear whether Johnson would stay in office while the Conservative Party chooses a new leader, who will replace him as prime minister.
Minutes before the news broke, Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign just 36 hours after Johnson put him in the job, while another newly appointed Cabinet minister quit her post.
Zahawi said Johnson knew “the right thing to do” was to “go now.”
Zahawi was appointed late Tuesday to replace Rishi Sunak, who resigned saying he could no longer support Johnson after a series of ethics scandals.
Education Secretary Michelle Donelan, who was also appointed on Tuesday following the resignation of her predecessor, announced her resignation Thursday morning.
Johnson had rejected clamors for his resignation, digging in his heels even as dozens of officials quit and previously loyal allies urge him to go after yet another scandal engulfed his leadership.
A group of Johnson’s most trusted Cabinet ministers visited him at his office in Downing Street Wednesday, telling him to stand down after losing the trust of his party. But Johnson instead opted to fight for his political career and fired one of the Cabinet officials, Michael Gove, British media reported.
It is rare for a prime minister to cling on to office in the face of this much pressure from his Cabinet colleagues. The Guardian’s frontpage on Thursday called him “Desperate, deluded.”
“He’s breached the trust that was put in him. He needs to recognise that he no longer has the moral authority to lead. And for him, it’s over,” Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford told The Associated Press.
Johnson, 58, was known for his knack for wiggling out of tight spots. He remained in power despite allegations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament and was dishonest to the public about government office parties that broke pandemic lockdown rules.
But recent disclosures that Johnson knew about sexual misconduct allegations against Chris Pincher, a Conservative lawmaker, before he promoted the man to a senior position turned out to be the last straw.
Last week, Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip after complaints he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher — and shifting explanations from the government about what Johnson knew when he tapped him for a senior job enforcing party discipline.
Read: Britain’s Boris Johnson battles to stay as PM amid revolt
Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak resigned within minutes of each other Wednesday over the scandal. The two Cabinet heavyweights were responsible for tackling two of the biggest issues facing Britain — the cost-of-living crisis and COVID-19.
Javid captured the mood of many lawmakers when he said Johnson’s actions threaten to undermine the integrity of the Conservative Party and the British government.
“At some point we have to conclude that enough is enough,” he told fellow lawmakers Wednesday. “I believe that point is now.”
UK's Johnson defiant even as opponents tell him time is up
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rejected clamors for his resignation from his Cabinet and across the Conservative Party, digging in his heels Thursday even as dozens of officials quit and previously loyal allies urged him to go after yet another scandal engulfed his leadership.
A group of Johnson's most trusted Cabinet ministers visited him at his office in Downing Street Wednesday, telling him to stand down after losing the trust of his party. But Johnson instead opted to fight for his political career and fired one of the Cabinet officials, Michael Gove, British media reported.
It is rare for a prime minister to cling on to office in the face of this much pressure from his Cabinet colleagues. The Guardian's frontpage on Thursday called him “Desperate, deluded."
Read: Britain’s Boris Johnson battles to stay as PM amid revolt
As of early Thursday, four Cabinet ministers had quit — the latest was Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis who told Johnson in his resignation letter that "we are ... past the point of no return. I cannot sacrifice my personal integrity to defend things as they stand now.”
Some 40 junior government officials have also left amid a furor over Johnson's handling of sexual misconduct allegations against a senior official that was the latest in a long line of issues that have made Conservative lawmakers uncomfortable.
“He’s breached the trust that was put in him. He needs to recognise that he no longer has the moral authority to lead. And for him, it’s over,” Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford told The Associated Press.
Johnson cannot continue because his government has not even got ministers to attend to regular Parliament business after so many resigned, Blackford added.
Johnson's future remains extremely uncertain. So far, most Cabinet officials have remained in their positions but a mass walkout by the Cabinet could force his hand if that leaves him unable to run a functioning government.
If Johnson still refuses to resign, the Conservatives could oust him by potentially triggering a new no-confidence vote.
Johnson survived such a vote on Jun. 6 — though his authority took a beating because even then 41% of his lawmakers voted to get rid of him. Under current party rules, a year must pass before another formal leadership challenge can take place.
But an influential group of Conservative lawmakers known as the 1922 Committee has the power to rewrite the rules to allow a fresh confidence vote within a shorter timeframe. The committee could decide as early as Monday whether to do that.
Johnson, 58, is known for his knack for wiggling out of tight spots. He has remained in power despite allegations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament and was dishonest to the public about government office parties that broke pandemic lockdown rules.
Read: 2 key UK Cabinet ministers quit Boris Johnson’s government
But recent disclosures that Johnson knew about sexual misconduct allegations against Chris Pincher, a Conservative lawmaker, before he promoted the man to a senior position pushed the prime minister to the brink.
Last week, Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip after complaints he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher — and shifting explanations from the government about what Johnson knew when he tapped him for a senior job enforcing party discipline.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak resigned within minutes of each other Wednesday over the scandal. The two Cabinet heavyweights were responsible for tackling two of the biggest issues facing Britain — the cost-of-living crisis and COVID-19.
Javid captured the mood of many lawmakers when he said Johnson’s actions threaten to undermine the integrity of the Conservative Party and the British government.
“At some point we have to conclude that enough is enough,” he told fellow lawmakers Wednesday. “I believe that point is now.”
The resignations of some 40 junior ministers and ministerial aides followed on Tuesday and Wednesday. A third Cabinet official, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart, quit late Wednesday, saying “we have passed the point” where it’s possible to “turn the ship around," and Lewis left on Thursday morning.
Many of Johnson's fellow Conservatives were concerned that he no longer had the moral authority to govern at a time when difficult decisions are needed to address soaring food and energy prices, rising COVID-19 infections and the war in Ukraine. Others worry that he may now be a liability at the ballot box.
But Johnson brushed off the attacks, citing the mandate that voters gave him when he came to power in 2019.
“Frankly … the job of the prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he’s been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going,’’ Johnson told detractors in Parliament Wednesday. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
12 killed in Ukraine as Russia pounds rebel-claimed province
Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians in Ukraine over the past 24 hours and wounded 25 more, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday. Pro-Russia separatists said attacks by Ukrainian forces killed four civilians.
The Ukrainian presidential office said Russian forces targeted cities and villages in the country’s southeast, with most civilian casualties occurring in Donetsk province, where Russia ste pped up its offensive in recent days.
Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram post that two people died in the city of Avdiivka, which is located in the center of the province, and the Donetsk cities of Sloviansk, Krasnohorivka and Kurakhove each reported one civilian killed.
“Every crime will be punished,” he wrote.
Kyrylenko urged the province's more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee late Tuesday, saying that evacuating Donetsk was necessary to save lives and allow the Ukrainian army to put up a better defense against the Russian advance.
Donetsk is part of the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking industrial area where Ukraine’s most experienced soldiers are concentrated. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared the complete seizure of the region's other province, Luhansk, after Ukrainian troops withdrew from the last city under their country.
Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai denied Wednesday that the Russians had completely captured the province. Heavy fighting continued in villages around Lysychansk, the city Ukrainians soldiers withdrew from and which Russian troops took on Sunday, he said.
“The Russians have paid a high price, but the Luhansk region is not fully captured by the Russian army," Haidai said. “Some settlements have been overrun by each side several times already.”
He accused Russian forces of scorched earth tactics, “burning down and destroying everything on their way."
Up to 15,000 residents remain in Lysychansk and some 8,000 in the nearby city of Sievierodonetsk, which Russian and separatist fighters seized last month, Haidai said.
Read: Russian missiles kill at least 21 in Ukraine’s Odesa region
Pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukrainian forces and controlled much of the Donbas for eight years. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Putin recognized the independence of the two self-proclaimed separatist republics in the region.
Separatist authorities in Donetsk said Wednesday that four civilians were killed and another 14 wounded in Ukrainian shelling over the past 24 hours. News reports said shelling hit an ammunition depot on Tuesday, triggering massive explosions.
Since Russian forces failed to make inroads in capturing Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, Moscow has concentrated its offensive on seizing the remaining Ukrainian-held areas of the Donbas.
To the north of Donetsk, Russian forces also hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with missile strikes overnight, the Kharkiv regional governor said Wednesday on Telegram.
Three districts of the city were targeted, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. One person was killed and three, including a toddler, sustained injuries, according to the governor.
A missile struck a building where military registration takes place. A government building next door remained intact, and people just steps away glanced at the wreckage in passing.
Closer to the front line and in a more abandoned district of the city, first responders crunched through the debris of another overnight attack at the national teaching university in Kharkiv. Pages of dusty textbooks flapped in the breeze.
The attacks indicated the city, which is located close to the Russian border, is unlikely to get a reprieve as the war grinds on into its fifth month.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its air force killed up to 100 Ukrainian troops and destroyed four armored vehicles in Kkarkiv.
Read: Russian missiles kill at least 19 in Ukraine’s Odesa region
The ministry's chief spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said air-launched high precision missiles also destroyed two HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems the U.S. sent to Ukraine. He said ammunition warehouses also were destroyed in Donetsk province, while a Ukrainian air-defense radar and a camp housing foreign fighters were hit in the southern Ukraine's Mykolaiv region.
In other developments:
— European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the 27-nation European Union needs to make emergency plans to prepare for a complete cut-off of Russian gas in the wake of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. The EU has already imposed sanctions on Russia, including on some energy supplies, and is trying to find other sources. But von der Leyen said the bloc needed to be ready for shock disruptions coming from Moscow.
— European Union lawmakers voted to support a plan by the bloc's executive commission to include natural gas and nuclear power in its list of sustainable activities. Environmentalists accused the EU of “greenwashing." One argument for rejecting the proposal was that it could boost gas sales that benefit Russia. The European Commission said it had a letter from the Ukrainian government backing its stance.
— A court in Russia ordered a pipeline bringing oil from Kazakhstan to Europe halted for 30 days for what it said were environmental violations, Russian media reported. The ruling by a court in Russia’s southern city of Novorossiysk cited the results of a recent inspection of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told EU Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday that Kazakhstan “is ready to use its hydrocarbon potential in order to stabilize the situation on the world and European markets.”
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Murru and Cara Anna contributed from Kharkiv.
Follow AP's coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
2 key UK Cabinet ministers quit Boris Johnson’s government
Two of Britain’s most senior Cabinet ministers have quit, a move that could spell the end of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership after months of scandals.
Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigned within minutes of each other. Javid said “I can no longer continue in good conscience.”
Johnson has been hit by allegations he failed to come clean about a lawmaker who was appointed to a senior position despite claims of sexual misconduct.
Sunak said “the public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. ”
“I recognize this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”
A former top British civil servant said Tuesday that Boris Johnson’s office wasn’t telling the truth about sexual misconduct allegations against a senior member of the prime minister’s government.
Johnson has faced pressure to explain what he knew about previous misconduct allegations against lawmaker Chris Pincher, who resigned as deputy chief whip Thursday amid complaints that he groped two men at a private club.
The government’s explanation shifted repeatedly over the past five days. Ministers initially said Johnson was not aware of any allegations when he promoted Pincher to the post in February.
Also Read: Political foes revel in Boris Johnson’s woes in Parliament
On Monday, a spokesman said Johnson knew of sexual misconduct allegations that were “either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint.”
That account did not sit well with Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant at the U.K. Foreign Office from 2015 to 2020. In a highly unusual move, he said Tuesday that the prime minister’s office still wasn’t telling the truth.
McDonald said in a letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards that he received complaints about Pincher’s behavior in the summer of 2019, shortly after Pincher became a Foreign Office minister. An investigation upheld the complaint, and Pincher apologized for his actions, McDonald said.
McDonald disputed that Johnson was unaware of the allegations or that the complaints were dismissed because they had been resolved or not made formally.
“The original No. 10 line is not true, and the modification is still not accurate,” McDonald wrote, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. “Mr. Johnson was briefed in person about the initiation and outcome of the investigation.
“There was a ‘formal complaint.’ Allegations were ‘resolved’ only in the sense that the investigation was completed; Mr. Pincher was not exonerated. To characterize the allegations as ‘unsubstantiated’ is therefore wrong.”
Hours after McDonald’s comments came out, Johnson’s office changed its story again, saying the prime minister forgot he was told that Pincher was the subject of an official complaint.
The office confirmed Johnson was briefed on the complaint by Foreign Office officials in 2019, a “number of months” after it took place. His office said it took some time to establish the briefing took place.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis told lawmakers in the House of Commons that when Johnson was made aware of the issue in late 2019, he was told that the permanent secretary had taken the necessary action and so there was no question about Pincher remaining as a minister.
“Last week, when fresh allegations arose, the prime minister did not immediately recall the conversation in late 2019 about this incident,″ Ellis said. “As soon as he was reminded, the No. 10 press office corrected their public lines.”
The latest revelations are fueling discontent within Johnson’s Cabinet after ministers were forced to publicly deliver the prime minister’s denials, only to have the explanation shift the next day.
The Times of London on Tuesday published an analysis of the situation under the headline “Claim of lying puts Boris Johnson in peril.”
A month ago, Johnson survived a vote of no confidence in which more than 40% of Conservative Party lawmakers voted to remove him from office. The prime minister’s shifting responses to months of allegations about lockdown-breaking parties in government offices that ultimately resulted in 126 fines, including one levied against Johnson, fueled concerns about his leadership.
Two weeks later, Conservative candidates were badly beaten in two special elections to fill vacant seats in Parliament, adding to the discontent within Johnson’s party.
When Pincher resigned last week as deputy chief whip, a key position in enforcing party discipline, he told the prime minister that he “drank far too much” the previous night and had “embarrassed myself and other people.”
Johnson initially refused to suspend Pincher from the Conservative Party, but he relented after a formal complaint about the groping allegations was filed with parliamentary authorities.
Critics suggested Johnson was slow to react because he didn’t want to be in the position of forcing Pincher to resign his Parliament seat and setting up the Conservatives for another potential special election defeat.
Even before the Pincher scandal, suggestions were swirling that Johnson may soon face another no-confidence vote.
In the next few weeks, Conservative lawmakers will elect new members to the committee that sets parliamentary rules for the party. Several candidates have suggested they would support changing the rules to allow for another vote of no confidence. The existing rules require 12 months between such votes.
Senior Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale, a long-standing critic of Johnson, said he would support a change of the rules of the Conservative 1922 Committee.
“Mr. Johnson has for three days now been sending ministers — in one case a Cabinet minister — out to defend the indefensible, effectively to lie on his behalf. That cannot be allowed to continue,” Gale told the BBC. “This prime minister has trashed the reputation of a proud and honorable party for honesty and decency, and that is not acceptable.″
High cost of Russian gains in Ukraine may limit new advance
After more than four months of ferocious fighting, Russia claimed a key victory: full control over one of the two provinces in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
But Moscow’s seizure of the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk province came at a steep price. The critical question now is whether Russia can muster enough strength for a new offensive to complete its capture of the Donbas and make gains elsewhere in Ukraine.
“Yes, the Russians have seized the Luhansk region, but at what price?” asked Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst in Ukraine, noting that some Russian units involved in the battle lost up to a half their soldiers.
Read:Putin declares victory in eastern Ukraine region of Luhansk
Even President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Monday that Russian troops involved in action in Luhansk need to “take some rest and beef up their combat capability.”
That raises doubts about whether Moscow's forces and their separatist allies are ready to quickly thrust deeper into Donetsk, the other province that makes up the Donbas. Observers estimated in recent weeks that Russia controlled about half of Donetsk, and battle lines have changed little since then.
What happens in the Donbas could determine the course of the war. If Russia succeeds there, it could free up its forces to grab even more land and dictate the terms of any peace agreement. If Ukraine, on the other hand, manages to pin the Russians down for a protracted period, it could build up the resources for a counteroffensive.
Exhausting the Russians has long been part of the plan for the Ukrainians, who began the conflict outgunned — but hoped Western weapons could eventually tip the scales in their favor.
They are already effectively using heavy howitzers and advanced rocket systems sent by the U.S. and other Western allies, and more is on the way. But Ukrainian forces have said they remain badly outmatched.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said recently that Russian forces were firing 10 times more ammunition than the Ukrainian military.
After a failed attempt at a lightning advance on the capital of Kyiv in the opening weeks of the war, Russian forces withdrew from many parts of northern and central Ukraine and turned their attention to the Donbas, a region of mines and factories where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Since then, Russia has adopted a slow-and-steady approach that allowed it to seize several remaining Ukrainian strongholds in Luhansk over the course of recent weeks.
While Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that their troops have withdrawn from the city of Lysychansk, the last bulwark of their resistance, the presidential office said Tuesday the military was still defending small areas in Luhansk.
Zhdanov, the analyst, predicted that the Russians would likely rely on their edge in firepower to “apply the same scorched earth tactics and blast the entire cities away” in Donetsk. The same day that Russia claimed it had taken the last major city in Luhansk, new artillery attacks were reported in cities in Donetsk.
But Russia's approach is not without drawbacks. Moscow has not given a casualty count since it said some 1,300 troops were killed in the first month of fighting, but Western officials have said that was just a fraction of real losses. Since then, Western observers have noted that the number of Russian troops involved in combat in Ukraine has dwindled, reflecting both heavy attrition and the Kremlin’s failure to fill up the ranks.
Read:Russia claims control of pivotal eastern Ukrainian province
The limited manpower has forced the Russian commanders to avoid ambitious attempts to encircle large areas in the Donbas, opting for smaller maneuvers and relying on heavy artillery barrages to slowly force the Ukrainians to retreat.
The military has also relied heavily on separatists, who have conducted several rounds of mobilization, and Western officials and analysts have said Moscow has increasingly engaged private military contractors. It has also tried to encourage the Russian men who have done their tour of duty to sign up again, though it's is unclear how successful that has been.
While Putin so far has refrained from declaring a broad mobilization that might foment social discontent, recently proposed legislation suggested that Moscow was looking for other ways to replenish the ranks. The bill would have allowed young conscripts, who are drafted into the army for a year and barred from fighting, to immediately switch their status and sign contracts to become full professional soldiers. The draft was shelved amid strong criticism.
Some Western officials and analysts have argued that attrition is so heavy that it could force Moscow to suspend its offensive at some point later in the summer, but the Pentagon has cautioned that even though Russia has been churning through troops and supplies at rapid rates it still has abundant resources.
U.S. director of national intelligence Avril Haines said Putin appeared to accept the slow pace of the advance in the Donbas and now hoped to win by crushing Ukraine's most battle-hardened forces.
“We believe that Russia thinks that if they are able to crush really one of the most capable and well-equipped forces in the east of Ukraine ... that will lead to a slump basically in the Ukrainian resistance and that that may give them greater opportunities,” Haines said.
If Russia wins in the Donbas, it could build on its seizure of the southern Kherson region and part of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia to try to eventually cut Ukraine off from its Black Sea coast all the way to the Romanian border. If that succeeded, it would deal a crushing blow to the Ukrainian economy and also create a corridor to Moldova's separatist region of Transnistria that hosts a Russian military base.
But that is far from assured. Mykola Sunhurovsky of the Razumkov Center, a Kyiv-based think tank, predicted that growing supplies of heavy Western weapons, including HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, will help Ukraine turn the tide of the war.
“The supplies of weapons will allow Ukraine to start a counteroffensive in the south and fight for Kherson and other cities,” Sunhurovsky said.
But Ukraine has also faced massive personnel losses: up to 200 soldiers a day in recent weeks of ferocious fighting in the east, according to officials.
“Overall, local military balance in Donbas favors Russia, but long term trends still favor Ukraine,” wrote Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military and program director at the Virginia-based CNA think tank. “However, that estimate is conditional on sustained Western military assistance, and is not necessarily predictive of outcomes. This is likely to be a protracted war.”
Putin declares victory in eastern Ukraine region of Luhansk
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, one day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining bulwark of resistance in the province.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised meeting Monday that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk, which together with the neighboring Donetsk province makes up Ukraine's industrial heartland of Donbas.
Shoigu told Putin that “the operation” was completed on Sunday after Russian troops overran the city of Lysychansk, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.
Putin, in turn, said that the military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”
Putin’s declaration came as Russian forces tried to press their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian military confirmed that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk on Sunday. Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retreated from the city to avoid being surrounded.
Also read: Russia claims control of pivotal eastern Ukrainian province
“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai told the Associated Press, adding that Ukrainian troops could have held on for a few more weeks but would have potentially paid too high a price.
“We managed to do centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai said. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point withdrawal was organized well.”
The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were now focusing their efforts on pushing toward the line of Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, about half of which is controlled by Russia. The Russian army has also intensified its shelling of the key Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.
On Sunday, six people, including a 9-year-old girl, were killed in the Russian shelling of Sloviansk and another 19 people were wounded, according to local authorities. Kramatorsk also came under fire on Sunday.
An intelligence briefing Monday from the British Defense Ministry supported the Ukrainian military's assessment, noting that Russian forces will “now almost certainly” switch to capturing Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas has been “grinding and attritional,” and is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
While the Russian army has a massive advantage in firepower, military analysts say that it doesn't have any significant superiority in the number of troops. That means Moscow lacks resources for quick land gains and can only advance slowly, relying on heavy artillery and rocket barrages to soften Ukrainian defenses.
Putin has made capturing the entire Donbas a key goal in his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014 when they declared independence from Kyiv after the Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Since failing to take Kyiv and other areas in Ukraine's northeast early in the war, Russia has focused on Donbas, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-to-house combat that devastated cities in the region.
Also read: Russia's defense minister reports capture of Ukraine city
Russia's invasion has also devastated Ukraine's agricultural sector, disrupting supply chains of seed and fertilizer needed by Ukrainian farmers and blocking the export of grain, a key source of revenue for the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, called for immediate economic aid to help the country rebuild even as fighting continues.
“The restoration of Ukraine is not only about what needs to be done later after our victory, but also about what needs to be done right now. And we must do this together with our partners, with the entire democratic world,” he said.
“A significant part of the economy has been destroyed by hostilities and Russian strikes. Thousands of enterprises do not work. And this means a high need for jobs, to provide social benefits, despite the decrease in tax revenues,” Zelenskyy said.
In its Monday intelligence report, Britain's defense ministry pointed to the Russian blockade of the key Ukrainian port of Odesa, which has severely restricted grain exports. They predicted that Ukraine's agricultural exports would reach only 35% of the 2021 total this year as a result.
As Moscow pushed its offensive across Ukraine's east, areas in western Russia came under attack Sunday in a revival of sporadic apparent Ukrainian strikes across the border. The governor of the Belgorod region in Western Russia said fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed four people Sunday. In the Russian city of Kursk, two Ukrainian drones were shot down, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Denmark: Gunman acted alone, likely not terror-related
Danish police believe a shopping mall shooting that left three people dead and four others seriously wounded was not terror-related, and said Monday that the gunman acted alone and appears to have selected his victims at random.
Copenhagen chief police inspector Søren Thomassen said the victims — a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, both Danes, and a 47-year-old Russian man — were killed when the gunman opened fire on Sunday afternoon in the Field's shopping mall, one of Scandinavia's biggest.
Read:3 dead, 3 critically wounded in shooting at Denmark mall
Four other people were treated for gunshot wounds — two Danish and two Swedish citizens — and were in critical but stable condition, Thomassen said. Several other people received minor injuries as they fled the shopping mall, he added.
Thomassen said police had no indication that anyone helped the gunman, identified as a 22-year-old Dane, during the attack. He said while the motive was unclear, there was nothing suggesting terrorism, and that the suspect would be arraigned later Monday on preliminary charges of murder.
Read:Gunman fatally shoots 2, wounds 3 Texas cops, takes own life
Danish broadcaster TV2 published a grainy photo of the alleged gunman, a man wearing knee-length shorts, a vest or sleeveless shirt, and holding what appeared to be a rifle in his right hand.
“He seemed very violent and angry,” eyewitness Mahdi Al-Wazni told TV2. “He spoke to me and said it (the rifle) isn’t real as I was filming him. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.”
Images from the scene showed people running out of the mall in panic. After the shooting, a big contingent of heavily armed police officers patrolled the area, with several fire department vehicles also parked outside the mall.