June 8: E-Stories
InUkraine CombatSitRep BehindLines Russia-China InEurope InOtherNews
Catching up…
For a general view of news from various geopolitical threatres, Scott’s EA Worldview is always superb.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told Fox News that had Ukraine been accepted into NATO back in 2008, today’s war might have been avoided. He added that only strength brings peace. "If you are weak, you invite aggression, that is why we support Ukraine as long as necessary."
Stories we’re following…
Russia launched the largest strike on Kharkiv to date, targeting Kyivskyi and Osnovianskyi districts — local administration reported on Saturday morning. Russia hit Kharkiv with 53 Shahed drones, two missiles, and four guided bombs (KABs), killing three people and injuring 17 others — Mayor of Kharkiv. A residential building was hit, killing 3 and injuring 17 civilians. A civilian enterprise was also struck, causing a large fire in four buildings — people may still be trapped under the rubble.
Attacks were also recorded on the Odesa and Ternopil regions. Rescuers in the western city of Lutsk, near the Polish border, meanwhile discovered a second fatality from strikes a day earlier, describing the victim as a woman in her 20s.
President Zelensky: "Putin is not a child fighting in a playground—he is a killer who came there to murder children," — President Zelensky said in response to Trump’s comparison of Russia’s war against Ukraine to “two kids fighting in a park.” He added that such a view shows a lack of understanding of the tragedy Ukrainians are living through.
Combat Situation
ISW: Russian forces recently advanced in Belgorod and Sumy oblasts & near Lyman and Velyka Novosilka.
Some categories of the population of the city of Sumy should consider evacuating to safer regions, — former speaker of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Seleznev. According to him, over the past week the Russian occupiers have been actively advancing in the Sumy direction. The situation for Sumy is already very difficult, as the enemy is actively shelling the city.
A new Ukrainian ballistic missile successfully passed tests in May, covering nearly 300 km and destroying a Russian command post, says military expert Valentin Badrak. The missile is now entering serial production, featuring a warhead weighing over 400 kg—significantly more powerful than comparable systems.
In Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, UAVs struck an industrial zone overnight. Official media report a hit on a bitumen plant, while eyewitnesses claim the target was the Lukoil oil refinery.
Ukraine shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet in Russia's Kursk Oblast on the morning of June 7, the Air Force reported. Russian FighterBomber confirmed the loss and added that the pilot was rescued.
Ukraine launched a cross-border incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024, marking the first large-scale invasion of Russian territory since World War II. Reinforced by North Korean troops, Russia launched a push to recapture the region in early March, with Ukraine being forced to pull back from much of the initially taken territory.
A lecture well worth your time on Cognitive Warfare by Psychologist Yvonne R. Masakowski, Ph.D., a retired Associate Professor in the College of Leadership & Ethics at the USNWC. She discusses the threat of psychological warfare in the 21st century and the disturbing possibilities that could shape how we think and act in the future.
NATO is well awarre of this new kind of threat: a war fought not with bombs and missiles, but with lies and manipulation.
Adversaries are attempting to undermine public trust in NATO by spreading disinformation and confrontational rhetoric online. This strategy, forms part of our adversaries approach to wage cognitive warfare on the Alliance, aiming to sow discord and weaken our ability to protect ourselves effectively.
To counter this threat, NATO's Allied Command Transformation is developing the Cognitive Warfare Concept. This is a collaborative effort, with direct contribution from over 20 NATO member nations, numerous NATO commands, academia, and industry experts, representing a significant step forward in understanding and preparing NATO to compete in this constantly evolving space.
Behind the Lines
WaPo: The Trump administration is reportedly pressuring the Senate to soften a proposed sanctions bill against Russia, according to The Wall Street Journal. The White House is urging Senator Lindsey Graham to scale back provisions targeting Russian officials and key economic sectors, amid efforts to reset relations with the Kremlin.
Trump reponded to Ukraine's recent strikes on Russian aviation, claiming they gave Russia a reason to escalate: “Ukraine gave them a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them.” He added, “When I saw it, I thought – now there will be a strike.”
Swedish police is investigating a series of around 30 unexplained sabotage attacks targeting telecommunications towers. Most of the incidents are linked to the E22 road on Sweden's east coast. The E22, also known as the European Road, is part of a road transport network that stretches for more than 3,300 miles, connecting the U.K. in the west to Russia in the east.
The attacks began over Easter weekend, but have not led to major disruptions. However, it "stands out and is more than usual," Roger Gustafsson, head of security at the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), told SVT.
Nothing was stolen in the attacks on masts, but cables were cut and fuses and other technical equipment destroyed, Sweden's national public broadcaster SVT Nyheter reported, citing investigators.
Swedish investigators have not publicly identified a suspect so far, but the attacks are part of a broader trend of sabotage against Swedish telecoms infrastructure, amid reports from NATO allies of a significant increase in Russian espionage related to the Ukraine war. Anti-5G activists have also been known to target telecoms masts for destruction in Europe, believing them to be harmful to human health.
Meanwhile in Russia & China…
Wagner PMC fighters are leaving Mali after three and a half years, as all regional capitals have returned to the control of the "legitimate authorities". They have been involved in military operations on the territory of the African state since 2021.
U.S. citizen Joseph Tater has left Russia after being confined to inpatient treatment at a psychiatric clinic in Moscow, the news agency TASS reported on June 6. In August 2024, Tater was jailed for disorderly conduct after being ejected from the lobby of a Radisson hotel. He was also investigated for the felony offense of assaulting a police officer. In March 2025, a judge released Tater with the condition that he not leave the country.
Russia's fourth-largest oil company by production volume and first in terms of cash on hand, Surgutneftegaz, finished the first quarter of 2025 in the red, according to its financial statements published on Friday. In January–March, Surgutneftegaz posted a net loss of 439.7 billion rubles against a profit of 268.5 billion rubles for the same period last year. The main reason for the company's losses was the strong ruble, BCS analysts write. The dollar exchange rate fell from above 100 rubles to 80 rubles in three months, which brought Surgutneftegaz about 700 billion rubles in losses due to the revaluation of foreign currency reserves on its accounts.
A CIA report on how the Soviets were using Western parts in their military production written in 1982. Much of the Soviet programme to steal Western tech in the US—Line X—was dismantled thanks to a brilliant operation. The Americans allow the Russians to continue stealing drafts and designs to reveal how Line X worked and to plant faulty draft plans.
Russian schools will abandon the Azbuka textbooks and on the first page will be an address from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The layout of the ABC book was presented at a meeting of the Russian Language Council under the President by the President's adviser Elena Yampolskaya. According to her, Putin's address to first-graders on September 1 will be read by teachers and parents. "But a little later, the child will reread your words himself. But this pride from the fact that the president of the country addressed him personally - it will, of course, remain and will make the beginning of school life, I am sure, even more solemn," Yampolskaya said.
One of the main victims of the collapse of the automobile market was Lada. Over five months, its sales fell, like the entire market, by 26%, but in May the decline accelerated sharply. According to the analytical agency Avtostat, 25,552 Ladas were sold in the month – 16% less than in April and 36% less than a year ago. Total sales of new cars in May were 28% lower than last year.
Kallas at EU-Moldova Association Council: Russia is likely to use ‘a web of cash, content and coercion’ to try to tilt future vote
The meeting was chaired by the Moldovan Prime Minister, Dorin Recean. The EU delegation was led by Kaja Kallas. The Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Marta Kos, also participated.
The sides discussed global and regional challenges and bilateral relations, focusing on Moldova’s EU accession process, political dialogue and reforms, cooperation and convergence in the field of foreign and security policy, and economic and sectoral cooperation, in particular in the energy sector, trade and trade-related matters.
They also discussed Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has repeatedly spilled over into Moldova, Kallas said after the Council.
“Russia has violated Moldovan airspace, used energy as a tool to blackmail you, and meddled with your democracy,” Kallas said. “Moldova’s upcoming parliamentary elections will be a prime target of Moscow’s hybrid war. Russia is likely to use a web of cash, content and coercion to try to tilt the vote. The Moldovan people have the right to choose their own future free from interference.”
That is why, Kallas added, the EU is extending the scope and scale of the EU’s Partnership Mission to boost Moldova’s resilience.
“We have a specialist team on the ground now supporting Moldova to address illicit financing around the elections. And we recently deployed a group of experts, a Hybrid Rapid Response Team to support Moldova against foreign interference. You can rely on the EU’s support to ensure the integrity of your elections,” EU High Representative said.
In Europe…
French automobile and defense companies will begin producing unmanned aerial vehicles on Ukrainian territory. This was announced by French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who called the initiative a "win-win partnership." According to the minister, this is a cooperation between one of the leading French automobile manufacturers (he preferred not to disclose its name) and a specialized small or medium-sized defense enterprise. "Through joint efforts, they will create production facilities in Ukraine, where the drones will be assembled ," the head of the defense department said (quoted by Le Monde ).
Bloomberg: The EU aims to finalize a defense and security pact with Canada this month, allowing Canadian firms to join a new fund designed to boost the EU's defense industry. The EU will also hold a summit with Japan in July when they’ll seek to beef up a security agreement.
The EU is diversifying its relationships as Trump has upended the European security order that’s maintained peace on the continent for more than 70 years. During his first term, Trump threatened to leave NATO and last year he said he’d let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to allies not spending enough on defense.
The defense agreement with Canada is expected to be one of the key deliverables of a summit both allies will hold in Brussels on June 23, intended to show the bloc’s alignment with like-minded nations in this turbulent period, the people said. The pact will follow the blueprint set by a similar defense accord reached with the United Kingdom in May.
Canada, a long-standing EU partner in security matters, is also participating in two other initiatives aimed at strengthening defense cooperation among willing member states, covering military mobility and the development of a network of logistics hubs in Europe.
Andrius Kubilius: We, Europeans, shall learn to stand on our own two feet in defence matters in Europe. With US shifting attention to the Indo-Pacific, we need a rational transatlantic division of responsibilities.
Baltic states issue statement backing Ukraine’s EU, NATO membership. They argued that Ukraine's NATO accession would “consolidate a just and lasting peace not only in Ukraine but also in all of Europe" and help uphold the rules-based international order globally.
Germany’s armed forces have three years to acquire the equipment to tackle a possible Russian attack on Nato territory, its head of military procurement said. “Everything necessary to be fully prepared to defend the country must be acquired by 2028,” Annette Lehnigk-Emden, head of the federal office for military procurement, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Trump offers Germany US gas deals, but no promises on Ukraine aid or Russia sanctions. When asked whether Trump would impose additional sanctions on Russia, the president dodged the question by boasting that he "ended Nord Stream 2" and hinting at future energy deals with Germany in a press conference with Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Russia is at war with Britain and US is no longer a reliable ally, UK adviser says.
“We’re in pretty big trouble,” Hill said, describing the UK’s geopolitical situation as caught between “the rock” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and “the hard place” of Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable US.
As part of that long-term effort, Russia was already “menacing the UK in various different ways,” she said, citing “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables.”
The conclusion, Hill said, was that “Russia is at war with us”. The foreign policy expert, a longtime Russia watcher, said she had first made a similar warning in 2015, in a revised version of a book she wrote about the Russian president with Clifford Gaddy, reflecting on the invasion and annexation of Crimea.
“We said Putin had declared war on the west,” she said. At the time, other experts disagreed, but Hill said events since had demonstrated “he obviously had, and we haven’t been paying attention to it”. The Russian leader, she argues, sees the fight in Ukraine as “part of a proxy war with the United States; that’s how he has persuaded China, North Korea and Iran to join in”.
Putin believed that Ukraine had already been decoupled from the US relationship, Hill said, because “Trump really wants to have a separate relationship with Putin to do arms control agreements and also business that will probably enrich their entourages further, though Putin doesn’t need any more enrichment”.
When it came to defence, however, she said the UK could not rely on the military umbrella of the US as during the cold war and in the generation that followed, at least “not in the way that we did before”. In her description, the UK “is having to manage its number one ally”, though the challenge is not to overreact because “you don’t want to have a rupture”.
Media reports suggest that president Zelensky will visit Austria on 16 June, and meet with Chancellor Christian Stocker. Although the visit has not yet been officially confirmed, the news has sparked outrage from the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), as reported by Austrian media outlet Heute.
Despite the lack of official confirmation, Herbert Kickl, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, has publicly criticised the visit as a "foreign policy blunder" that, in his view, "makes Austria a potential target in the event of escalation".
"This visit is yet another link in the chain of violations of neutrality and misleading neutrality policy in recent years," Kickl claimed. "As a neutral state, Austria should be a peacemaker and mediator, not a party to war."
POLITICO: EU to train with militaries, industry and NATO to better fend off large-scale cyberattacks.
The European Union will work more closely with national militaries and the NATO defense alliance to respond to large-scale cyberattacks, national ministers decided on Friday.
Ministers gathering in Luxembourg for a European Union meeting on telecom policy approved an update of the bloc's “cybersecurity blueprint” laying out Europe's response mechanisms to major cybersecurity incidents.
In other news…
Yahoo Finance: The Trump administration has reportedly been discreetly working with Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) to gather personal data of American citizens from various federal agencies, sparking concerns over privacy and potential misuse of personal data.
Trump’s March executive order for federal data sharing is being implemented through Palantir’s product, Foundry. Although Trump has not publicly discussed this initiative, this platform is already in use by several federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Social Security Administration, reported The New York Times on Friday.
Foundry’s capabilities in data organization and analysis could potentially enable the merging of information from various agencies, thereby creating detailed profiles of American citizens. The Trump administration has attempted to access extensive citizen data from government databases, including bank details, student debt, medical claims, and disability status.
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers and privacy advocates, fear that such data could be exploited for political purposes, such as policing immigrants and targeting critics.
The man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was flown back to the United States to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants, a stunning move by the Trump administration.
Four months after Donald Trump took office as US President, tourists have reduced their trips to the US (by 2.4%), but Russians have done the opposite. The number of arrivals from Russia is growing, Bloomberg notes. According to the US Department of Commerce , from January to April 2025, Russian citizens were issued 26,935 visas for travel to the United States, which is 10.1% more than in the same period in 2024. Of these, 3,345 were business visas (an increase of 15%), 21,469 were tourist visas (an increase of 11.2%), and 2,121 were student visas, which is 5.3% less than a year earlier.