May 31 Buonasera Mag
Severodonetsk, EU sanctions package, 80 war criminals, Putin's departure (wishful thinking), WTF, women at war
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.
Here are some of the stories we’re following…
>Russians have entered Severodonetsk but Ukraine is still defending its positions, the area's regional governor says.
>An airstrike has hit a chemical plant in Severodonetsk, Ukrainian officials wrote on Telegram late Tuesday afternoon.
>Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk region, said Russians hit “a tank with nitric acid at a chemical plant”, while urging residents not to come out of hiding due to toxic fumes.
>Zelensky urges EU to approve more sanctions, oil embargo on Russia. During a special meeting of the European Council on Monday, the president said the bloc should end all internal disputes, as they provide “incentives for Russia to carry on.”
>Ukraine is working on an international United Nations-led operation with naval partners to ensure a safe trade route for food exports, according to Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba who said Russia is playing “hunger games with the world by blocking Ukrainian food exports”.
>Ukraine to prosecute 80 suspected war criminals, said Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova. It was announced Tuesday as representatives of a group of countries investigating Russian war crimes and international criminal court prosecutor, Karim Khan, met at The Hague.
>Today, EU leaders have reached political agreement to ban 90% of oil imports from Russia by end of the year... they’re split over gas imports. So many EU countries are hugely reliant on Russian gas, and EU consumers are already suffering spiralling fuel costs.
>Brent crude rose above $123 a barrel on Tuesday, the highest it's been for two months. Prices for oil and gas have soared in recent months, fuelled - in part - by the Ukraine war. Brent crude has risen more than 70% over the past year. Russia currently supplies 27% of the EU's imported oil and 40% of its gas, and oil prices climbed again on news of the latest EU embargo.
>On Day 2 of the EUCO summit, the European Parliament strongly endorses Ukraine's EU membership: “There is zero ambiguity about the European Parliament’s position that it positively views the next step for Ukraine to become a candidate for the EU".
>Germany agrees to provide infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) to Greece, so Athens can send Soviet-style weapons to Ukraine.
>Italian PM Draghi: “I support Ukraine to become a Member of the European Union. I did it from the beginning”. “Candidate status has run up against the objection of almost all the major Member States of the EU, if not all, except Italy”.
>Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Turkey with a military delegation next week on 8 June. Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that the humanitarian corridor for vessels carrying food is among topics that will be discussed.
Luke Harding, ‘The west can change the outcome’: plea for heavy weapons on Ukraine frontline
A stack of deadly weapons line the corridor next to Roman Kostenko’s office in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. Giant tube-like Javelin missiles and a powerful-looking green cylinder. “That’s an NLAW anti-tank weapon supplied by Britain,” Kostenko – a member of Ukraine’s parliament and a special forces commander – explained. “We’ve used it.”
BBC In pictures: Life in Russian-occupied Mariupol
As you may well know, the city of Mariupol fell to opposition forces earlier this month. The news agency Reuters has today filed a set of pictures showing how residents have been adapting to life under Russian occupation.
Russian plans for Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson
In the run-up to the ‘big war’, Russian analysts were writing about how Ukraine would be carved up ‘when’ Russia would win the war. This tweet is just another of the mind games Russia plays with the West, seeding doubt and their narratives.
The Moscow Time, "He will not govern the state." Kremlin prepares for Putin's departure
Satisfied with Putin, probably almost none. Business and many members of the government are unhappy that the president started the war without thinking about the scale of the sanctions - one cannot live normally with such sanctions. The "hawks" are not satisfied with the pace of the "special operation".
Natia Seskuria, Trying to save Russia from humiliation is not the right way to end the war in Ukraine
Although the allies have provided continuous support for Ukraine, as Russia threatens more dangerous escalation, some of them may seek to shield Putin from humiliation and softly advocate for Russian interests to be accommodated. Those who are tempted to pursue such an approach keep forgetting that this is a tried and tested strategy — and one where the West will always lose.
Programming note
If you’re free, Livia Ponzio and I will be live on LiberiOltre’s YT channel with our Italian show: WTF. We are joined by Ilario Piagnerelli, correspondent in Ukraine for RAINews and Vadym Vetrov who has also been our guest on EuroFile@6. We’ll be catching up with the latest from Ukraine and how our guests see the war going in the next few months along with a lot of other issues.
Exams have almost concluded thankfully. I look forward to dedicating all my time to our modest newsletter.
We’re signing off…thanks for reading…
Mo & Scott