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.
Ukrainian Art History: Here is what happened to Ukrainian artist Polina Raiko's house in Oleshky after russians blew up the Kakhovka dam: only 30% of frescos are saved. But for how long the house can stand...The video was posted by Semen Khramtsov, artist from Kherson, the author of the video unknown.
Stories we’re following…
Suspilne reports on its news update that overnight June 16 “air defence forces destroyed two “Shahed” drones over the Mykolaiv region. The Russian army fired artillery at residential buildings in Novoberyslav in the Kherson region: a couple died, reported the regional and due to Russian shelling in Kherson oblast, two people were killed, two were injured, ten were injured in Donetsk oblast, and a resident of Orikhov was injured in Zaporizhzhia.
On the afternoon of 16 June, Russian invaders attacked residential areas of Kherson, hitting the premises of medical and educational institutions and damaging a high-rise building; six people were injured.
Latest up-date 23:19- Defense Ministry reports that Ukraine advances 2 kilometers in multiple directions. Ukraine's forces have advanced up to 2 kilometers in multiple directions but face heavy resistance, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said, summarizing the battlefield situation on June 16.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi has posted a video which claims to show Ukrainian forces taking out Russian positions near the town of Bakhmut, an area which was fiercely contested for months. In a short message on Telegram, the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces said:
The enemy is steadily losing equipment near Bakhmut, our soldiers are knocking the Russians out of their positions.
The centre of the fighting in Ukraine has switched to the road to Mariupol where the Ukrainian offensive is slowly pushing back Russian forces, with British Challenger tanks ready to join battle, a minister in Kyiv has said. Hanna Maliar, a deputy defence minister, said the most active fighting was no longer around Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region, but in the south and specifically in the direction of the two coastal cities of Berdiansk and Mariupol.
ISW: Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations in at least 3 directions. Ukrainian forces are continuing counteroffensive operations in at least three directions as of June 15, according to the Institute for the Study of War's latest update.
Ukraine has regained control of more than 100 sq km (38 sq miles) of territory in its counteroffensive, senior Ukrainian military commander Brig Gen Oleksii Hromov has claimed.The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said there was a “gradual but steady advance” but that Russian forces were putting up “powerful resistance” on the southern front.
Drone attack reported in Kursk.A large-scale fire broke out in the Russian city of Kursk just after 2 a.m. local time on June 16, Ukrainska Pravda news outlet reported citing Russian Telegram channels. The fire was allegedly caused by a drone attack on a nearby communication tower.
The UN nuclear watchdog chief has said the situation is “serious” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant but a number of measures have been taken to stabilise it. Rafael Grossi said after visiting Europe’s largest atomic power plant that inspectors would stay at the Russian-occupied facility but that signing a document on security on the site was “unrealistic” while the two sides were still fighting. Ensuring water for cooling the plant was a priority, he said, adding that the station could operate safely for “some time”.
Ukraine says 150 children have been illegally taken from the occupied Luhansk region to Russia. The National Resistance Centre of Ukraine said the children were taken from the Luhansk’s Starobilsk district on 8 June to two centres in the Prikuban district of Russia’s Karachay-Cherkess republic.
Russian troops who have destroyed German-made Leopard tanks and US-supplied armoured vehicles being used by Ukraine will receive bonus payments, the defence ministry said on Friday. The ministry said this was part of a wider reward scheme under which more than 10,000 Russian service personnel had received individual bonuses since the start of the war nearly 16 months ago. An enemy armoured vehicle was worth 50,000 roubles (£465/$596) and a tank 100,000 roubles (£930/$1192), it said.
Putin has said Russia’s economy may grow by up to 2% this year as it bounces back from last year’s contraction in the face of sweeping Western sanctions. Putin’s forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth, delivered at Russia’s flagship economic forum in St Petersburg, is similar to those of other Russian authorities, Reuters reports. The International Monetary Fund in April forecast Russian GDP at growth of 0.7%, up from 0.3% in a previous estimate, but lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3% from 2.1%.
Nato allies may be ready to remove some hurdles on Ukraine’s path to the military alliance, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday. “There are increasing signs that everyone will be able to agree on this,” he told reporters in Brussels when asked about reports that the US is open to permitting Kyiv to forgo a formal candidacy process required of some other nations in the past.
Biden allegedly supports simplified procedure for Ukraine's NATO accession.U.S. President Joe Biden has supported a proposal by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to announce that Ukraine does not need to implement a "membership action plan" (MAP) to join NATO, Axios reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Stoltenberg: NATO invite for Ukraine not to be discussed at Vilnius summit.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that an invitation for Ukraine to NATO will not be a topic of the upcoming Vilnius summit in July, in comments at a press conference in Brussels on June 16. The members will instead consider ways of bringing Ukraine closer to the Alliance, he said at a press conference after the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. This will include practical steps, such as bringing Ukraine's military up to NATO standards. It will also encompass setting up a new political consultative body, the NATO-Ukraine Council.
The Estonian government has approved the principles of using Russia's frozen assets to support Ukraine, Estonian news outlet ERR reports. Estonia is the first country to develop the legal tools to use frozen assets.
"The European Union is working on finding this legal option, but we have prepared a legal solution under which we can use the frozen assets of Russia as an aggressor country and use them as compensation for the needs of Ukraine's recovery," Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhkna said.
South African president presented Zelensky with a 10 pt peace plan on Friday.South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Ukraine on June 16 under the African Peace Mission for negotiations with President Zelensky. Along with the Senegal president, Macky Sall, Ramaphosa is heading a delegation including leaders from Zambia and the Comoros, and Egypt’s prime minister. South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa presented a ten-point peace plan of the African Peace Mission during the visit.
The South African president’s security team on Friday morning was stuck on a plane in Polandfor several hours, the BBC has reported. “It turns out that some of the delegation do not have the documents to leave the airport. Secondly, unofficially, the president’s additional bodyguards have weapons. They do not have the proper permits for them,” Radio Zet was quoted as saying.
How German politicians are campaigning for China's regime
Monique: I’ll leave this here for now and work on a translation asap. I suspect that while Chancellor Scholz is talking about Zeitenwende and support for Ukraine, along with Foreign Minister Baerbock and MoD Pistorius, German business is forging ahead with expanding its activities in China. Russia is hands off, so they may be turning more and more to China. Business is business, right?
US Air National Guardsman responsible for leaked Pentagon files indicted for 'mishandling secrets'. U.S. federal grand jury indicted Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira on June 15, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Teixeira, age 21, was arrested on April 13 in relation to a massive U.S. intelligence leak.
Sviat Hnizdovskyi: The statute of the war criminal Slobodan Milosevic was installed in Moscow. Marko Milosevic, his son, spoke at its unveiling, which was his first public appearance in more than 20 years. He left Serbia after the overthrow of his father’s regime in October 1999, and was granted political asylum in Russia.
Ulrich Speck on Germany’s new national security policy
The core concept of the new national security strategy is "free international order".
However, an order cannot be "free"—what is meant is probably "free international order" -- an order that enables and promotes freedom.
Much of this reads as a compromise between Scholz and Baerbock: "Today's (Scholz) Russia is for the foreseeable future (Scholz) the greatest threat (Baerbock) to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic region."
First sentence Scholz, second sentence Baerbock: "We live in an age of growing multipolarity. Some states are trying to reshape the existing international order according to their conception of systemic rivalry."
China -- first Baerbock, then Scholz: "We see that the elements of rivalry and competition have increased in recent years; at the same time, China remains a partner without whom many of the most pressing global challenges cannot be solved."
Much of the NSS reads like backward-looking self-assurance -- of how we became what we are.
Another Scholz-Baerbock compromise sentence: "Our international and security policy environment is becoming more multipolar and unstable and increasingly shaped by the existential threat of the climate crisis."
Some absurd scenes at the International Economic Forumin St Petersburg via Max Seddon & Fontanka News. Putin also asked for a minute of silence to honour his good friend Silvio Berlusconi. Putin was quite alone this year. Only the Algerian President Tebbun was present with him on stage. The leader of the Emirates, bin Zayed al-Nahyan, did not take the stage with Putin and left the forum citing commitments.
Also from the International Economic Forum: Max Seddon reports that “to show off a new luxury Russian-made Lada sedan, Sberbank's Herman Gref was invited for a test drive... and it wouldn't start. Later, finance minister Anton Siluanov got behind the wheel and it did start up.”
Another great Jewish Chronicle scoop this week: British ‘swarming drone’ research shared with Iran.
As @DavidRoseUK and @FelixPope_ reveal, Scientists at British universities are helping Iran develop “game-changing” swarming drone technology that could allow hundreds of Unmanned Arial Vehicles to be operated simultaneously using lasers.
Military experts believe the command-and-control system could enable Iran’s IRGC — which runs its military drone programme — to launch overwhelming suicide swarm attacks on Israel or Western allies, linking drones, aircraft, ships, missiles and underwater buoys.
Details of the work on the futuristic airborne communications networks is the latest research unearthed by a JC investigation into how Iran is exploiting links with British scientists to circumvent sanctions on technology with potential military uses.
Senior MPs and peers expressed deep concern over the findings, with a government spokesperson saying that Britain would “not accept collaborations which compromise our national security”.
The foreign secretary James Cleverly has pledged to investigate after the Jew Chronicle revealed that scientists at British universities have helped Iran develp technology that can be used in its drone programme.
Now three newly identified advanced research projects shows more UK specialists — this time based at universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and at King’s College, London — working with Iranian scientists on similar “dual use” technology.
Military experts described the work, which could allow the control of huge fleets of UAVs, as “highly dangerous”.
The academic papers under the spotlight — which do not overtly mention military or battlefield uses — each looked at linking numerous drones using lasers to create a sophisticated airborne mobile communications platform.
The network could allow hundreds of drones to “talk” to each other and ground controllers at lightning speeds.
On Wednesday, a delegation led by the JLC_uk met the Foreign Secretary to raise the JC’s findings. James Cleverly said he was taking the matter “extremely seriously” and was considering whether sanctions had been breached, but gave no sign that banning the IRGC was imminent.
David Davis MP wrote a fiery column in the Jewish Chronicle about it, arguing that “allowing Iran access to elite British institutions may one day haunt us.”
The Daily Mail: We are delighted to announce Boris Johnson as our new columnist Famed as one of the wittiest and most original writers in the business, Boris’s column will appear in the Daily Mail every Saturday and you’ll be able to get a preview on MailOnline and The Mail+ on Fridays.
