Jun 1 Buonasera Mag
Weapons for Ukraine, Children's Day, Denmark votes, Russian reaction, grain corridor
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…
>Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has conceded that Kyiv’s forces are currently suffering up to 100 fatalities and 500 wounded every day. Pres Zelensky added, “The situation is very difficult; we’re losing 60-100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters.”
>The head of the Severodonetsk administration says Ukrainian fighters now only hold around 20% of the city, but are putting up a strong defence of the areas in their control.
>On the brighter side:
>Ukraine's about to acquire its most powerful ground combat weapons yet. The US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) has a range of around 50 miles (80km). That’s enough to allow Ukraine to match Russia’s long-range artillery, which has wreaked such devastation in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
>But that’s not all:
>Britain’s PM Johnson spoke with Biden about the transfer of US-made M270 multiple launch rocket systems this morning, Politico reports, citing a person familiar with the matter.
>US President Joe Biden stressed the US would not seek to remove Vladimir Putin from power: "So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict," he wrote in a piece in the New York Times.
>US military hackers have “conducted a series of operations” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nakasone confirmed in an interview with Sky News.
>Russia’s FM Lavrov said the supply of US advanced rocket systems to Ukraine increases the risk of a “third country” being dragged into the conflict. Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said that Moscow viewed US military aid to Ukraine “extremely negatively” and that it would increase the risk of a direct confrontation.
>The Russian Defence Ministry has announced the start of military exercises of its so-called Strategic Missile Forces – in other words, its nuclear missile troops.
>Switzerland blocks shipment of armored vehicles to Ukraine. The Swiss government has rejected Denmark’s request to send 20 Piranha III infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported.
>German companies Uniper, RWE pay for Russian gas under Putin’s scheme: buyers are obliged to deposit euros or dollars into an account at Russia’s Gazprombank, which has to convert them into rubles and transfer the payment to Russian gas giant Gazprom.
>The Pope has called for blockades on grain exports to be lifted, saying wheat should not be used as a "weapon of war".
>Danes (69.1%) have voted to join the EU’s common defence policy, potentially becoming the last of the bloc’s members to sign up as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape Europe’s security landscape.
>Nato Secretary-General Stoltenberg has said he will convene a meeting in Brussels in the coming days with senior officials from Sweden, Finland and Turkey to discuss Turkey's opposition to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance.
>Portugal deploys 146 Marines to NATO's defence force in Lithuania.
>French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was killed by shrapnel on Monday while reporting on civilians being evacuated by bus from Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
>Macron not ruling out seventh package of EU sanctions against Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron said on May 31 that “nothing could be ruled out” in terms of additional sanctions in the coming weeks. He also expressed hope that an agreement with Russia could be reached on allowing grain exports from Ukraine.
>According to Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine is working on an international United Nations-led operation alongside partners to provide a safe corridor for exporting grain. Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports prevents the export of about 22 million tons of grain, according to Ukrainian officials.
>London: citizens come to show their desire of a Ukraine free of the Russian aggressor every single day.
Programming note:
EuroFile@6 is so pleased to welcolme Alex Finley to our spaces!
Alex is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. Before becoming a bureaucrat living large off the system, she was a journalist and you can find her work in Slate, Reductress,Funny or Die, POLITICO, inter alia.
The voice behind the viral Twitter feed #YachtWatch that tracks the movements of Russian oligarchs’ yachts, she has spoken to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CBC’s The National, Sirius XM’s Yahoo! Politics, The Cipher Brief, the Spy Museum’s SpyCast, and numerous other media outlets. She has penned three satires about the CIA: Victor in the Rubble, Victor in the Jungle, and Victor in Trouble (April 2022), which I am thoroughly enjoying and the reason I really wanted to talk with her.
Follow Alex on Twitter: @alexzfinley
We’re signing off…thanks for reading…
Mo & Scott