Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 06-12-2024

The update followed Tuesday’s announcement that Rheinmetall opened a joint workshop with Ukrainian defense firm Ukroboronprom inside the country.

Ukraine plans to start domestic production of the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) alongside German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall by the end of this year.

Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleksandr Kamyshin confirmed the update in a comment to Ukrinform during the Conference on the Restoration of Ukraine in Berlin on June 11-12.

Kyiv Post intel source confirmed that Ukrainian hackers were behind the large-scale disruption of Russian airports and state government resources Wednesday.

Ukrainian Military Intelligence (HUR) cyberattacks on Kremlin resources and Russian airports, caused, among other things, flight delays, an intelligence source told Kyiv Post Wednesday, June 12.

According to the source, cyberattacks were carried out on Russia’s Domodedovo Airport, Gagarin Airport in the city of Saratov, and the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk’s airport.

At least 21 people were wounded, including two children in the strike on President Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih.

A daytime Russian strike on President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, June 12, killed nine people and wounded nearly two dozen more.

“The death toll has risen to nine people. At least 21 people were wounded, including two children. Another four people are missing,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on social media.

APCO, which helped former Ministry of Finance advisors during debt restructuring in 2015, established a presence in Kyiv – with an office to be led by Sonya Soutus, who helped USAID in Ukraine.

To guide international investors and businesses into details of Ukraine’s markets, APCO, a global advisory and advocacy firm, is expanding its European operations with a presence in Kyiv – the company stated it in a press release. 

APCO CEO Brad Staples explained this move with “more demand from Ukrainian corporates to understand and engage with European markets and attract foreign investment.”

In the latest update, HUR asserted one of Russia’s most advanced fighters suffered “significant damage,” while the other suffered lighter damage and is likely repairable.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) confirmed Wednesday, June 12, that Friday’s drone strike on Russia’s Akhtubinsk airfield damaged two Russian Su-57 stealth fighters – the first confirmed hit on Russia’s prized multirole fighters – where one suffered “significant damage.”

“We can now say that one Su-57 suffered significant damage, and the other one suffered lighter damage and may be possible to restore,” said HUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov on television.

Russian officials said that all Ukrainian missiles missed or were shot down, and nothing on the ground was damaged, and no one hurt. Fact checks didn’t exactly back that up.

A US Air Force Global Hawk reconnaissance drone got unprecedentedly close to the latest round of Ukrainian missile strikes against targets in Crimea. The rare sortie placed one of the Pentagon’s most capable and expensive spy planes in airspace near Russian-occupied territory at the same time as Ukrainian forces hit targets there.

A Kyiv Post review of open-source flight tracking data found that the Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk, call sign FORTE12, arrived on station to airspace southwest of Russia’s main military base in the Crimean city of Sevastopol at least three hours before Ukrainian forces fired missiles at Russian military targets, and the aircraft loitered in the area for about seven hours before flying back to its base in Sigonella, Italy.

The European Union proposes sanctions against the Russian oil transportation company Sovcomflot, Bloomberg reports.

The European Union has a plan to impose further sanctions on Russia's largest shipping company, Sovcomflot, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, June 11.

Bloomberg reported viewing a document identifying Sovcomflot as a key carrier of Russian oil – this, despite Western sanctions in the wake of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

The US has lifted its long-standing ban on weapons supplies and training to Ukraine's Azov brigade, whose origins were mired in controversy over alleged links to far-right groups. A state department spokesman told the BBC a vetting process "found no evidence of gross violations of human rights" by the brigade. The Azov brigade, now a unit within Ukraine's National Guard, hailed the move, saying Russia's "lies... received a devastating blow". Moscow condemned the decision, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the US was "even prepared to flirt with neo-Nazis" to suppress Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made false claims about a "neo-Nazi regime" in Kyiv to try to justify first the annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backing of pro-Moscow fighters in the east in 2014, and then his full-scale invasion launched in 2022. - BBC

President Biden will arrive in Italy today for the G7 summit — an organization of leaders from some of the world's largest economies — to discuss pressing issues on the global stage. Notably, Pope Francis will become the first pope to participate in the summit when he takes part in a session dedicated to artificial intelligence - CNN

The words of Russia’s own propagandists need to be taken as statements of intent rather than rhetorical hyperbole. They also show how they need the West’s ambivalence to win.

Dear Friends, from time to time I will use this space to discuss a new book. My essay today serves as a foreword to Julia Davis’s new book on Russian television propagandists, In Their Own Words, which I heartily recommend to you.

Russian propaganda is in the shadow of America. Whereas America only covers Russia when there is something to cover, and usually not even then, Russian propaganda television starts every night from the premise that whatever has happened that day is America’s doing and America’s fault. This does not reflect reality – or a typical American’s experience of reality.

However, Hungary will neither contribute money, send people to Ukraine’s aid, nor permit Hungarian territory to be used to help Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, Orban said.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban agreed on Wednesday that Budapest would “not block” the defense alliance from contributing more to Ukraine’s fight against Russia's invasion.

Stoltenberg, who has been touring NATO members, is trying to hammer out a plan to be announced at a summit in Washington next month for NATO to play a bigger role in coordinating weapons deliveries and training for Kyiv’s forces.

Ukraine’s GDP will rise if hostilities “continue throughout 2024 and subsequently moderate,” while Russia’s growth is projected to fall.

The World Bank issued its forecast on growth in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries and Ukraine’s growth is anticipated to rise from 3.2 percent in 2024 to an average of 5.8 percent a year in 2025–26. 

The forecast’s key assumption is that active hostilities continue throughout 2024 and subsequently moderate – which may be a signal international financial institutions are starting to accept the war in Ukraine will be a prolonged one. 

Russian news site Mediazona, working with BBC Russia, reported that 20,000 Wagner troops died during last year’s assault on Bakhmut, almost 90 percent of which were convicts.

BBC Russia and Mediazona reported on Monday, June 10 that they had obtained a document detailing the “coffin payments” made to the families of Wagner fighters who had died during the 10-month battle for Bakhmut. It provided a complete list of the personal information of the 19,547 mercenaries who died.

Wagner’s troops bore the brunt of the attacks on the Ukrainian city with very few regular Russian army troops taking part in the assault. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Ukraine, much of the high death toll was a result of Russian commanders sending wave after wave into “meat grinder assaults.”

The New York Times reports that a second Patriot system will be transferred from Poland, where it currently protects American rotational forces, to Ukraine.

The United States will soon send a second battery of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system to Ukraine, the New York Times (NYT) reports, citing senior American officials.

According to the cited source, President Joe Biden approved this decision last week following high-level discussions on how best to support Ukraine’s air defence without compromising US military readiness.

There might be more Ukrainians living outside of the homeland for the first time in history than inside, Ukrainian World Congress President Paul Grod said.

At the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Tuesday, June 11 in Berlin, Ukrainian World Congress President Paul Grod said that the resources of the global Ukrainian community are crucial for Ukraine’s rapid post-war rebuild.

The UWC President spoke on a panel entitled “Stronger Together: Strengthening Resilience and Social Inclusion,” which also featured Oksana Zholnovych, Ukraine’s Minister of Social Policy.

France’s political establishment is exploring ways to halt the rise of the far right while the rest of Europe is on alert to see what is next for the bloc’s founding member and second-largest economy.

Europe is watching with bated breath the ongoing developments in Paris after the sweeping victory of far-right Rassemblement national (RN) in the EU elections, prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call for snap parliamentary elections on 30 June and 7 July.

The country’s political establishment is exploring ways to halt the rise of the far right while the rest of Europe is on alert to see what is next for the bloc’s founding member and second-largest economy.

Restrained demand before NBU key rate revision.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Finance routinely placed the desired volume of bonds and lowered rates on all three instruments. However, demand at the auction was significantly lower than in the previous two weeks, so the rate reduction was restrained.

The volume of demand for 12-month bills amounted to UAH5.4bn, while the cap was only UAH3bn. Interest rates in bids were in the range of 14.49‒15.0%, but the offer was exhausted at 14.75%. The Ministry sold almost UAH1.6bn of bonds under non-competitive bids and only UAH1.4bn under competitive bids, thereby increasing the rate reduction step. The cut-off rate decreased by 14bp to 14.75%, and the weighted average slid by 3bp to 14.71%.

According to reports from Russian Telegram channels, two of the three crew members were killed, and the commander of the Pantsir-S1 was seriously wounded.

Ukrainian forces reportedly blasted a Russian Pantsir-S1 missile system in the Luhansk region on Monday, June 10, according to Russian Telegram channels.

Reports on social media indicated that the Russian Pantsir was hit by an American HIMARS multiple-launch missile system transferred to Ukraine by the United States.

With 90 countries and organizations expected to attend the event, the agenda is likely to include only three of 10 points in President Zelensky’s peace plan.

Ninety countries and organizations, out of 160 that were invited, have confirmed they will attend the two-day Ukraine peace summit being hosted by Switzerland at the Bürgenstock resort, near Lake Lucerneon June 15-16, the Swiss President Viola Amherd and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis told reporters at a press briefing on Monday, June 10.

Amherd said half of the attendees were from Europe, with half of the participating states being represented by heads of state and half at the ministerial level. She said she is confident that more would respond positively to the invitation during the coming week. A full list will be published on Friday, June 14.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents left Russia after 2014, the year Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Of them, 44 percent fled after the full-scale invasion.

A group of exiled Kremlin critics on Tuesday urged EU countries to do more to welcome Russians fleeing Vladimir Putin's regime, arguing that a shortage of skilled workers would deal a blow to the country's war-time economy.

According to some estimates, up to one million people have fled Russia since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 but some of them have begun returning back, discouraged by the scarcity of available jobs and difficulties getting visas and long-term residence permits, in countries like Turkey but also in the European Union.

The Ukrainian Air Force successfully intercepted five out of six missiles and 24 drones during the Russian assault.

Russian forces launched yet another mass aerial attack against Ukraine on Wednesday morning, June 12, firing dozens of drones and missiles from at least three strategic bombers, targeting mainly Kyiv along with other regions of Ukraine.

The attack involved four X-101/X-555 cruise missiles launched from strategic aircraft in the Saratov region, one Iskander-M ballistic missile from Crimea, and an aerobatic X-47M2 Kinzhal missile from the Tambov region.

Propaganda assets like Tucker Carlson are useful in ways the KGB barely could have dreamed of during the Cold War.

Seven Months of stalling in the House of Representatives on the US aid package to Ukraine allowed Russia to make significant military gains that sent thousands of Ukrainians fleeing.

According to two Republicans, Rep. Ken Buck and Senator Mitt Romney, fierce resistance against the aid, by what has been dubbed the ‘Putin-wing,’ was instigated by former Fox news anchor Tucker Carlson, who now hosts his own show on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

G7 leaders hope to agree a deal on using the profits from the interest on 300 billion euros ($325 billion) of frozen Russian central bank assets to help Kyiv.

The White House said Tuesday that steps to aid Ukraine using frozen Russian assets will be announced during this week's G7 summit in Italy, as well as new sanctions and export controls on Moscow.

"We will announce new steps to unlock the value of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets to benefit Ukraine," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists.

Moscow said it had no interest in joining the meeting and so was not invited by hosts Switzerland, while Kyiv wants to get some concrete outcomes from the meeting to take forward to a second summit.

Ahead of the first summit on peace in Ukraine, Kyiv said Tuesday it wanted Russia to attend a second summit, to receive an internationally agreed roadmap towards ending the conflict.

Moscow said it had no interest in joining this weekend's meeting and so was not invited by hosts Switzerland, while Ukraine wants to get some concrete outcomes from the meeting to take forward to a second summit.

There are growing concerns that Russia is attempting to influence the outcome of the upcoming US elections, as it did in 2016. The lack of action to prevent Moscow’s plan has startled experts.

Do you ever get the vibe that there are a lot more pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian views being aired now on social media? More than an inkling, you may be picking up on a problem that seems to be worsening: Moscow, as part of a global strategy, is actively seeking to undermine Western democracies.

The upsurge of Russian disinformation, a mere 150 days before the US presidential elections does not surprise Ivana Stradner, a Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Kyiv Post contributor, who says that Russia is engaged in a “war over perception” and is seeking to influence what people in the West think. In turn, Western leaders should be anticipating and preparing for Moscow to “increase their information warfare efforts against the West, especially around elections in the US, the EU, the UK.”

Milbloggers have posted footage of Russian military engineers apparently driving a captured Ukrainian T-72AMT tank converted to be driven remotely. Commentators try to work out why.

The open source intelligence (OSINT) site Oryx says that Russia has captured at least six Ukrainian T-72AMT tanks, the Kyiv Armored Plant’s 2017 upgrade of the T-72 main battle tank (MBT).

Video footage posted on social media shows Russian forces experimenting with what appears to be a remotely controlled tank. Military commentary sites such as The Warzone and Army Recognition say it is a captured T-72AMT MBT.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukraine's Western allies continue to provide monetary and military assistance to Ukraine, including air defense systems.
• The Kremlin continues efforts to codify legal instruments and repressive measures intended to broadly censor foreigners and foreign organizations in Russia.
• A prominent Kremlin-awarded Russian milblogger channel announced that it opened a second "media school" in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, likely to support Kremlin efforts to expand its influence in the international information space, particularly in Central Asia.
• Danish authorities arrested a Danish-Russian dual citizen accused of having connections to Russian intelligence services, which is likely part of the Kremlin's continued efforts to re-intensify its hybrid campaign against Western countries.
• Kremlin newswire TASS reported on June 11 that the former Head of the Russian Ministry of Defense's (MoD) Military Academy, Grigory Molchanov, was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council.
• Russian forces recently advanced southeast of Kupyansk and northwest of Avdiivka.
• Russia may have suffered a damaged or destroyed military naval vessel in the Barents Sea.
• Belarusian officials continue to implicate themselves in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Belarus and their re-education in Belarusian programs.