Jul 2: Sunday Stories
Day 493: Kherson LuhanskSchools Sumy Zaporizhzhia Milley UAkidnappings Belarus Spain Roscosmos CanadaDay CN Zelensky Georgia A&P CPJNika UKDef ISW Sandu Lautman Fallon MacKay
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Russian shelling injures 2 children in Kherson. Russian shelling injured a 9-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy on July 1, oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported on July 1.
Russian forces shell 9 communities in Sumy Oblast, injuring 1. Russian forces shelled nine communities in Sumy Oblast on June 30, injuring a 17-year-old boy, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported on Telegram. At least 94 explosions were recorded.
In Melitopol, Zaporozhye region and Genichesk, Kherson region, occupied by Russian forces, new units of the Russian army are arriving, said the legitimate mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov.
“We do not record the departure of the invaders from Melitopol. On the contrary, we are recording that new units are arriving both to the temporarily occupied Melitopol and to Genichesk, ” Fedorov said on the air of the telethon (quote from Politics of the Country).
Map credit: Michael MacKay
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the evening report said that Russian troops are concentrating their main efforts in the Limansky, Bakhmutsky and Maryinsky directions - more than 30 military clashes took place there during the day.
In the Zaporozhye and Kherson directions, the report says, the main efforts of the enemy were aimed at preventing the advance of Ukrainian troops.
In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, around 50 ethnic Dagestanis of the Caspian Flotilla have refused to fight in the ranks of the Russian army and have destroyed or broken their weapons, reports General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook.
"In light of the successful military operations undertaken by Ukraine’s defence forces and [Russia’s] significant personnel losses, desertions in units of the Russian occupation forces are on the rise, with troops increasingly leaving their combat positions without permission."
ISW: Russian forces remain unlikely to cause an intentional 'accident' at Zaporizhzhia plant. The Russian forces would not be able to control the consequences of an intentional radiological incident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update on June 30.
Official: Terrorism at nuclear plant will be considered nuclear attack. A terrorist attack against a nuclear plant would be considered equivalent to using nuclear weapons against civilians, National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksii Danilov told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on June 30.
President Zelensky announced one of Russia's plans to blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP); they want to blow it up remotely after handing over the plant to Ukraine.
They are looking for the format and the moment (of blowing up the ZNPP – ed.). We know for sure that the moment was considered one of the plans for later, when the plant is handed over to Ukraine, to remotely blow it up for emission [of hazardous chemicals – ed.].
When we get to the station, the IAEA should check everything clearly and in detail and warn Russia that we know about your alleged plans, and they are dangerous for the world.
Overnight the Washington Post reported that CIA director Williams Burns recently travelled to Ukraine to meet with president Zelensky and Ukrainian intelligence officials. During the trip, the officials revealed a Ukrainian strategy to recapture territories occupied by the Russians as well as their endgame to open peace talks with Moscow, with a view to ending the war. The newspaper reports:
“…in private, military planners in Kyiv have relayed to Burns and others bullish confidence in their aim to retake substantial territory by the fall; move artillery and missile systems near the boundary line of Russian-controlled Crimea; push further into eastern Ukraine; and then open negotiations with Moscow for the first time since peace talks broke down in March of last year.”
Ukraine’s counteroffensive will be very difficult and achieving gains will take a long time and be “very, very bloody”, the top US military officer Mark Milley told the National Press Club in Washington. He said that the counteroffensive was “advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields ... 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2,000 meters a day, that kind of thing”.
War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives.
Milley added:
What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that.
Russian MP, Ukrainian collaborators abducted 48 orphans from Kherson. 48 Ukrainian orphans from the city of Kherson were illegally taken last year by Ukrainian collaborators and a deputy of the Russian State Duma, Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske reported on June 30.
The dating app Tinder has stopped working in Russia, just as its parent company, Match Group, said it would back in May. Users in Russia can no longer swipe on profiles, according to state media: any attempt to try is met with an error message and a request to try again later. Additionally, Tinder is no longer available in the App Store or the Google Play Store.
Luhansk Oblast Military Administration has reported that the Russian occupiers want to train schoolgirls to be nurses at schools in the occupied part of Luhansk Oblast. The military administration said that the subject "Defence of the Motherland" will be included in the curriculum at schools in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic, starting in September.
In addition, the Russian Ministry of Education is forming a new curriculum for school-age girls, which involves training them to become medical instructors. Not tailors or cooks, not designers or programmers, but nurses for military units.
Media outlets from “unfriendly countries” are due to be banned from Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a law allowing media from ‘unfriendly countries’ – those that have imposed sanctions on Belarus – to be banned, Pul Pervovo, a state outlet that reports on Lukashenko’s activities, said on Saturday.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, during his speech in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament – ed.], declared his support for the "expansion of Ukraine's political participation" in NATO and the creation of a Ukraine-NATO Council, reports European Pravda. Sanchez emphasised that the Western world will have to rethink the security framework to ensure that Ukraine can live without aggression and intimidation.
"We are approaching the NATO summit in Vilnius, which will be a continuation of the commitments we made last year in Madrid. Spain supports the expansion of Ukraine's political participation through the creation of a Ukraine-NATO Council, where it will no longer be an invitee, but a member, a full member," he declared.
Spain will be allocating $55M to help in the reconstruction of schools and for small business loans in Ukraine.
“It is extremely symbolic that this visit is taking place on the very first day of the Spanish Presidency of the EU. It is definitely impossible to imagine our common European home without Ukraine, without our courage and devotion to freedom and justice,” the President of Ukraine wrote in a telegram.
Zelensky imposes sanctions against 189 Russians and founder of Georgian Airways. President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 1 signed a decree imposing sanctions against 189 Russian nationals, two Belarusians, and Tamaz Gaiashvili, the founder of privately-owned Georgian Airways that is now flying to Russia.
Russia has invited Algeria and Egypt to participate in the creation of the Russian orbital station, said Yury Borisov, head of Roscosmos, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Rossiya 24 reports . He spoke about the dialogue with the heads of the national space agencies of African countries. “We talked about the creation of multi-satellite orbital constellations, about launch services, about manned space. I offered to participate in the Russian Orbital Station. And full-blooded. Not just the training of cosmonauts, but up to the construction of national modules, ”Borisov specified.
Theresa Fallon: China’s economic woes
“Foreign investors have been unnerved at Beijing stepping up security measures. This week, just two days after Li’s comments at the WEF meeting, the government passed a new foreign relations law that strengthens the legal basis for “countermeasures” against western threats to national and economic security. This follows crackdowns on foreign consultancies and expanded espionage and data security laws.
With the economic recovery weakening, however, many wonder if Beijing will soon be forced to choose whether to prioritise the economy over security — or whether China is entering a new phase in which the government will tolerate relatively low growth, while clamping down further to strengthen resilience to external threats.
Inside China, anxiety is running deep. “This is the first time in 40 years that the Chinese public are not sure if things are going to get better,” says one Chinese commentator on the economy, who did not want to be named.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ will honor four remarkable journalists with our 2023 International Press Freedom Awards: Ferdinand Ayité (@Ferdi_Ayi) – Togo Nika Gvaramia (@NikaGvaramia212) – Georgia Shahina K. K. (@Shahina_Nafeesa) – India Maria Teresa Montaño – Mexico
In the face of a stark decline in press freedom worldwide, these journalists have continued to report the news amid government crackdowns, kidnapping, exile, and the rising criminalization of their work, championing the importance of independent reporting at this critical juncture.