Day 480 Piatykhatky Zaporizhzhia Berdyansk Kherson Crimea Rykove Prigozhin SouthAfrica RUpoll NATO EU US Kakhova No10 A&P KakhovaDamNYT Giles Junisbai Nikolenko Sheremata NYT DailyMirror
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…
Reuters is reporting that Ukrainian forces have recapturedPiatykhatky on the Zaporizhzhia battle front, according to a Russian-installed official. Russian military blogger War Gonzo has also reportedthat Russian troops “have abandoned” the village of Piatykhatky on the Zaporizhzhia front. The writer suggests Ukraine has concentrated large reserves in the area, mostly infantry but also “heavy armoured vehicles” and wonders if Kyiv will activate its reserves for what would be likely a major attack in the area.
Ukrainian Defense forces continued advancing in three directions in Zaporizhzhya Oblast. There will be no deep breakthroughs by the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the coming week. The Defense Forces' command is determined to expand the frontline as much as possible and intensify combat operations in multiple sectors to disperse the enemy's reserves ahead of the main attack(s).
Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, Commander of the Tavriia Operational and Strategic Group of Forces, has stated that Russian losses in this area amounted to over four companiesin just 24 hours.
Russian attacks kill 5, injure 8, including children, across Ukraine on June 17. Russian attacks across Ukraine killed five civilians and injured eight more, including two children, over the past 24 hours, the regional authorities reported on June 18. Russia targeted nine out of 25 Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv oblasts.
Russian forces abduct nearly 300 children from Berdiansk district to the Russian republic of Chuvashia, the exiled mayor of occupied Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported on Telegram.
Russia reportedly transferring equipment, troops from Kherson Oblast to Zaporizhzhia front. Russia appears to be transferring equipment and troops from Kherson Oblast to the southeastern Zaporizhzhia front where a Ukrainian counteroffensive is underway, Ivan Fedorov, an exiled mayor of Melitopol, said on June 18. Russian troops are returning to previously flooded positionson the left bank of Kherson Oblast and intensifying shelling in this area.
The Russian military command switches to a strategy of gaining time, hoping to conduct another mobilization and significantly increase its operational capabilities.
Crimean partisan unit Atesh warns of another possible man-made disaster at the Crimean Titan plant, echoing an earlier warning from Ukrainian officials. Putin ordered the "chemical defense" troops to enter Kherson Oblast. Officially, this action aims to address the consequences of the "disruption" at the Kakhovka HPP. However, the Atesh military partisan movement has issued a statement stating that chemical troops are not typically involved in such activities. The statement suggests that the real motive behind deploying chemical troops could be to provoke incidents at the Crimean Titan plant.
Fire erupts at a military hospital under construction in Russia's Bryansk. Fire erupted at a construction site of a military hospital being built in the Russian city of Bryansk, roughly 150 kilometers north of Ukraine, Kremlin-run news agency TASS reported on June 18.
Ukrainian defence forces blow up a Russian ammunition depot in Rykove, Kherson region on June 18. Distance to the front ~110 km. Rykovo is located on the railroad between Crimea and Melitopil and is therefore an important logistical hub for Russians.
“Our armed forces dealt a good blow in the morning – and a very loud one – in the village of Rykove, Henichesk district, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region,” Bratchuk said in a morning video message on Sunday. “There was a very significant ammunition depot. It was destroyed.”
ISW: Prigozhin shows no interest in formally subordinating Wagner to the Russian Defense Ministry. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin sarcastically criticized the Russian Defense Ministry formalization efforts on June 17. He had previously portrayed himself as compliant with the order for volunteer formations to sign formal contracts by July 1.
After presentations from the Comoran, Senegalese and South African presidents, Putin challenged the assumptions of the 10-pt peace plan. He reiterated his position that Ukraine and its western allies started the conflict and said Russia had never refused talks with the Ukrainian side, but these had been blocked by Kyiv.
Podoliak: African leaders came to Ukraine to ask for suspension of Putin's arrest warrant. The African leaders' delegation that came to Kyiv on June 16 to present a peace plan was mostly interested in suspending Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's arrest warrant.
Stoltenberg says peace cannot mean freezing Russia’s war. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned against premature peace talks between Ukraine and Russia after South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Kyiv that “peace has to be achieved through diplomacy as soon as possible.”
The security team of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried to unload 12 containers of weapons in Poland, Polish media, Rzeczpospolita, reports. The media outlet notes that Ramaphosa arrived in Warsaw before travelling to Kyiv by train. He flew in a separate plane, and another plane carried 120 people, including journalists and presidential guards. This plane also carried military personnel with special forces. The Polish customs officers did not allow them to leave the plane and collect their luggage on the evening of Thursday, 15 June.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized', saying that Ukraine was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West.
According to a Levada Centre poll, 86% of Russians believe Russia shouldn't employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine under any circumstances; two-thirds of Russians believe that Putin isn't ready to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine; just a little over 56% of Russians think there's no justification for nuclear use. While Putin imposes his own agenda on the population, the poll numbers could be exploited by Ukraine and allies as a deterrent to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Realistically, there won’t be large protests in Russia, but the Kremlin does monitor sentiments.
Jens Stoltenberg was expected to be asked to remain as Nato secretary general for another year, a Reuters source said. Stoltenberg’s term has been prolonged three times and he is due to step down in September after nine years. The Norwegian had broad support and continued to be an effective leader, said the source, who requested anonymity.
The EU is speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine to support the country’s counter offensive against Russian forces, EU industry chief Thierry Breton has told the French daily Le Parisien.
“We are going to step up our efforts to deliver arms and ammunition- this is a war of high intensity in which they play a crucial role,” Breton said, pledging that 1 million high-caliber weapons must be provided within the next year. “We are preparing for the war to last several more months, or even longer,” he added.
U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has arrived in Beijing for a two-day visit. Before going to China, Blinken spoke with Japanese FM Hayashi Yoshimasaabout the DPRK’s “unlawful ballistic missile launches into the Sea of Japan and reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Japan. Blinken will be speaking to his counterpart in China about these events.
The USA and China talked about the results of the negotiations of top diplomats: they agreed on a visit to Washington.
"The Secretary of State emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication on the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperceptions and miscalculations. The Secretary of State raised a number of issues of concern and also spoke about the possibility of cooperation with China on joint transnational issues where our interests coincide ", the communique says.
Beijing's communiqué notes that Qin Gang expressed regret to Blinken that US-China relations are "at the worst level" ever, as it is not beneficial to both sides and the world. He noted that China seeks to build "stable, predictable and constructive" bilateral relations and hopes that Washington will demonstrate an "objective and rational" understanding of China and resolve all ambiguous situations calmly.
The Russian government has put three flags on the Golf of Finland: Russian imperial flag, the Soviet flag and Russia’s current flag.
Moments after a major dam in a Ukrainian war zone gave way, wild torrents cascaded over the jagged remains of the top. But the real problem most likely lay elsewhere, cloaked deep beneath the surface of the raging waters.
Deep inside the dam was an Achilles’ heel. And because the dam was built during Soviet times, Moscow had every page of the engineering drawings and knew where it was. The dam was built with an enormous concrete block at its base. A small passageway runs through it, reachable from the dam's machine room. It was in this passageway, the evidence suggests, that an explosive charge detonated and destroyed the dam.
At 2:35 a.m and 2:54 a.m. on June 6, seismic sensors in Ukraine and Romania detected the telltale signs of large explosions. Witnesses in the area heard large blasts between roughly 2:15 a.m. and 3 a.m. And just before the dam gave way, American intelligence satellites captured infrared heat signals that also indicated an explosion. [continue]
Keir Giles: Why ‘resets’ don’t work
Seeing this being retweeted today reminds me that “how not to deal with Russia” was not some obscure, arcane wisdom that was utterly unobtainable for European politicians before February 2022. We knew this stuff.
Resets don't work if you ignore the underlying deep differences in world view and strategic priorities between Russia and the West. Trying to patch up a fundamentally flawed relationship is no substitute for an honest conversation about what is wrong with it.
In fact, they make things worse. Each time (and it happens routinely) that Russia is forgiven for its appalling behaviour, it encourages the Kremlin to believe that it will be forgiven for even worse excesses in the future. And why wouldn't they.
There is even a recent and direct case study. France has played a key role in imposing ceasefires drafted in Moscow on the victims of Russian aggression. Or has Georgia, and the conclusions Russia drew from 2008, already faded from memory?
P.S. All of the above IS NOT NEWS; these are fundamental principles of dealing with Moscow, consistent over not decades but centuries, but repeatedly forgotten, or ignored, by Western leaders who think they can go against history. Quotes all from:
Azamat Junisbai: Rejecting Russian
contrast, the language of my own ancestors - Qazaq - was disparaged as hopelessly archaic. The opposite of worldly. Woefully inadequate for learning about the outside world and communicating with it. For these tasks, only “the great and mighty Russian language” would do.
When people from societies formerly colonized by Russia reject Russian in favor of English for communicating with the outside world, it’s a political act. A middle finger to the old colonial master. Failure to see this betrays ignorance about Russia as a ruthless colonial power.
And this is not some theoretical bullshit. I see the pattern in many Ukrainians: those who still consume news or even entertainment content in Russian — even if they’re Ukrainian speakers in their daily lives — are much more likely to internalize Russian propaganda narratives.
Daily Mirror on lockdown party at 10 Downing Street
The Daily Mirror published “the first ever Partygate video revealed as Tories drink, dance and laugh at Covid rules” on June 18. I listen to talk radio very often and the comments coming in from listeners in the UK about Partygate are negative to say the least. Some said that Partygate was a witch hunt aimed at bringing Johnson down. But for the most part people expressed their anger at the fact that while Brits were asked to comply with lockdown measures for the sake of others, and in doing so, many couldn’t attend the funerals of their loved ones, Tories in Downing Street were partying. At first, Johnson denied these parties had happened and then recanted when evidence emerged, culminating in this week’s findings in the Partygate report.
Boris Johnson lied thoroughout his career in office as mayor of London and as Prime Minister. He also lied when he was a journalist at the Telegraph, and that’s why he was fired from the newspaper. I put Johnson in the same category of populist leaders like Berlusconi and Trump: very popular with the electorate but profoundly dishonest, and who will say anything to stay in power. But governing a nation isn’t a popularity contest.
The video in question was probably released from Tory insiders to put a nail in the former prime minister’s political coffin.
Close allies of Rishi Sunak on Saturday night dismissed Boris Johnson in contemptuous terms as “just an ex-MP” of no particular importance, as the former prime minister’s political power base appeared to collapse at Westminster.
In a clear attempt to move on from the Johnson era after last week’s devastating privileges committee report on Partygate, Sunak supporters made it clear the prime minister now regarded Johnson as a political irrelevance who no longer posed a real threat.
