Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 06-21-2024

German federal prosecutors said the men were arrested in Frankfurt on June 19 after allegedly “gathering information about a Ukrainian national” staying in the city.

Three men have been arrested in Germany, accused of acting on behalf of an unnamed foreign intelligence service. The men – named as “Robert A” from Ukraine, “Vardges I” from Armenia and Russian citizen “Arman S.”  were detained after being seen carrying out reconnaissance on a café in Frankfurt, allegedly targeting a Ukrainian national thought to be a customer.

European intelligence agencies warned at the beginning of May that Russia was planning violent acts of sabotage across Europe as part of a broader strategy to confront the West.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK’s Reform Party, said during a prime-time TV interview that the EU and NATO incited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with its eastward expansion.

Having demanded on Friday, June 14 that – as the new political leader of the UK’s Reform party – he should be included in the BBC’s planned series of leaders’ interviews in the run up to the UK’s July 4 General Election, Nigel Farage has caused a stir with his comments.

During an interview with the BBC’s Panorama program on Friday, June 21, in addition to the usual questions on tax and the National Health Service, the controversial politician was quizzed about his views on the causes of the war in Ukraine.

Speaking just days after securing a strategic partnership with Pyongyang, Putin warned that he would respond to Western countries “lowering the threshold” for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia

Speaking at a press conference in Hanoi on completion of his visits to North Korea and Vietnam, President Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv's Western partners of once again raising tensions by authorizing the use of their weapons against targets in Russia.

He said “They seem to think that at some point we will get scared. But at the same time, they also say they want to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield.”

A volunteer who brings drones to Ukrainian troops on the front lines gives a personal account of how the war has changed the men determined to keep fighting.

In March 2024, I returned to Ukraine, purchasing and delivering drones to soldiers on the front lines and reporting on drone warfare.

Unlike the late summer of 2023 when I still felt a sense of optimism from people amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive, I now saw the great pain and sorrow among many Ukrainian soldiers on the front line.

Ukraine came into this match reeling after losing 3-0 to Romania last time out but they dug deep here and equalized.

Roman Yaremchuk emerged from the bench to score the winning goal as Ukraine produced a stirring fightback to beat Slovakia 2-1 and kickstart their Euro 2024 campaign on Friday.

Slovakia knew victory in Duesseldorf would take them through to the knockout stage with a game to spare and they went ahead on 17 minutes thanks to Ivan Schranz, who netted the winner in the shock victory over Belgium in their opening game.

The activist's wife Natalia Sadykova said Friday that Sadykov remained in serious condition in hospital, and blamed Kazakhstan's president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for orchestrating the attack.

Ukraine said Friday it had identified two suspects in the attempted murder of a Kazakh opposition figure in Kyiv and that the perpetrators had escaped to neighboring Moldova.

Police in Ukraine's capital said this week that a prominent Kazakh anti-government activist, Aydos Sadykov, had been shot and seriously wounded outside his home.

Online social media footage shows what Russia claims was the first use of a three-ton bomb fitted with a UMPC guidance wing kit in an attack on the Kharkiv Region.

The pro-Kremlin milblogger FighterBomber posted footage on Thursday, June 20, which shows what appears to have been a strike from a Russian 3,000-kilogram (6,600-pound) FAB-3000 M54 “dumb” aircraft bombs turned into stand-off bomb using a so-called “universal planning and correction module” (UPMK).

The FAB-3000 is 3.3 meters (10.8 feet) long and a mid-point diameter of 1 meter (3.3 feet). It contains 1,200 kilograms (2,650 pounds) of high explosive, either straight TNT or a TNT/RDX/Aluminum mix. The bomb is fitted with three fuses which guarantees it will function at whatever angle it strikes the target.

A month of Ukrainian precision strikes against Russian air defenses, particularly in Crimea, has opened the door for waves of kamikaze drones to do their stuff.

In its most ambitious massed drone raid in months, swarms of Ukrainian kamikaze UAV struck Russian-controlled territory overnight. The heaviest blows targeted military bases and energy infrastructure in Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar Krai region as dozens more of Ukraine’s drones hit air defenses in Crimea or penetrated hundreds of kilometers into mainland Russia.

Russian air and sea defenses were unable to completely bring down the waves of incoming unmanned aircraft, with both official and social media reporting heavy fires, damage, and casualties at multiple locations.

“Concrete evidence” of Russia's involvement in the fire at the plant was passed on to Berlin by a foreign intelligence service.

Russian agents may have been involved in the fire at the Diehl Metall in Berlin in early May, Bild reports.

Evidence of Russian involvement in the fire was passed on to the German Cabinet of Ministers by a foreign intelligence service, Bild reports.

The Russian President speaking during a visit to Vietnam also said that “the negotiating conditions will change depending on the situation on the battlefield.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is ready to negotiate a settlement to the war as early as tomorrow, but that all interested parties need to study its peace proposals.

According to reports in the Russian news sites TASS and Ria Novosti, Putin said this at a press conference in Vietnam on Thursday, June 20.

EU ministers will start negotiations first with Ukraine and then with Moldova in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon.

EU countries on Friday formally approved launching accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova next week, a landmark event for the two countries at the start of their long path towards joining the bloc.

European Union ministers will start negotiations first with Ukraine and then with Moldova in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation said Ukrainian artificial intelligence developments have grown dramatically in 10 years and they are providing data to show how and how much.

Ukraine has the second highest number of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the Ministry of Digital Transformation reported, citing joint research with AI HOUSE, Ukraine’s largest AI community, and investment group Roosh.

AI encompasses a broad field of technologies that simulate and mimic human cognitive functions using machines, while ML is a branch of AI that focuses on the use of algorithms that allow machines to autonomously generate outputs by analyzing and learning from large sets of data.

Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder said that while there had been no change in policy, Kyiv’s use of weapons against Russian troops was not limited to near Kharkiv on the Russian side.

Ukraine can use US-supplied weapons to hit Russian forces that are firing on Ukrainian troops anywhere across the border into Russia and not just in Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Pentagon said on Thursday (20 June).

Last month, President Joe Biden quietly authorized Kyiv to launch US-supplied weapons at military targets inside Russia.

In recent months, Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russian territory, specifically targeting energy facilities.

The Ukrainian military and intelligence reported that they struck three Russian oil refineries and a training ground for the Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones with their own attack drones in the early morning hours of Friday, June 21.

The military's attack was conducted with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), a Kyiv Post intelligence source said.

Ukraine was hammered 3-0 by Romania and risks being eliminated if it also loses to Slovakia, which beat Belgium in its first Group E fixture.

Serhiy Rebrov said Thursday that his Ukraine side need to recover from the "cold shower" of their heavy opening Euro 2024 defeat against Romania as they prepare to face Slovakia.

Ukraine were hammered 3-0 by Romania and risk being eliminated if they also lose to Slovakia, who beat Belgium in their first Group E fixture, making Friday's match in Duesseldorf huge for Rebrov's team.

President Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to Ukraine's allies for increased air-defense systems to safeguard the nation's critical infrastructure.

The United States will expedite the shipment of air defence missiles to Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, June 20, following intense Russian bombardments that have resulted in widespread blackouts.

"We're going to reprioritize the deliveries of these exports so that those missiles rolling off the production line will now be provided to Ukraine," particularly Patriot and NASAMS missiles, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of kidnapping nearly 20,000 children from eastern and southern Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Ten Ukrainian children and their families have returned to areas controlled by Kyiv's forces after being under Russian occupation, according to a statement from Ukraine's rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, on Thursday.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of abducting nearly 20,000 children from eastern and southern Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. Many other children have been living under Russian control during this time.

On a trip to Vietnam following a state visit to Pyongyang where Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence pact, Putin also warned South Korea not to arm Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin said Thursday he does not rule out Russia sending arms to isolated North Korea in what Washington called an "incredibly concerning" statement that threatens instability on the divided Korean peninsula.

On a trip to Vietnam following a state visit to Pyongyang where Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence pact, Putin also warned South Korea not to arm Ukraine.

Accused by the International Criminal Court of abducting Ukrainian children, the Russian Duma has reproposed already debunked arguments accusing Ukraine of the same and worse.

The Russian news site Kommersant covered the presentation, given to Russia’s State Duma and Federation Council on Wednesday, of the final report of the parliamentary commission set up in 2022 to “investigate criminal acts against minors by the Kyiv regime.”

Accusations that Ukraine was illegally harvesting organs, firstly from wounded serviceman and then from abducted children, have long been promoted by pro-Kremlin propagandists.

Robert van Voren, a human rights advocate and the Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center, discusses his involvement in Ukraine's resistance to Russia's aggression.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a major information operation during his recent visit to North Korea and Vietnam on June 18 and 19 aimed at sabotaging efforts by Ukraine's partners to clearly define a common strategic objective and strategy to decisively defeat Russia’s illegal war of conquest in Ukraine.
• Putin implicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons if the West enables Ukraine to decisively defeat Russia in order to undermine the international community's cohering strategic vision of support for Ukraine.
• Putin’s nuclear threat is part of an ongoing Kremlin nuclear blackmail campaign aimed at dissuading Ukraine’s allies from decisively committing to defeating Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and is therefore highly unlikely to result in actual nuclear escalation.
• South Korea responded to the Russian-North Korean comprehensive strategic partnership agreement on June 20 and stated that it will reconsider its previous ban on sending lethal military assistance to Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin simultaneously attempted to downplay aspects of the Russia-North Korea agreement potentially in response to South Korea's concerns during a June 20 press conference in Vietnam.
• Putin also met with Vietnamese President Tô Lâm, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, and General Secretary of the Central Committee of Vietnam’s Community Party Nguyễn Phú Trọng during his visit and discussed bilateral relations and the Soviet Union's and Russia's support of Vietnam during the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Russian forces used the new FAB-3000 M-54 bomb with a unified planning and correction module (UMPC) to strike Ukrainian positions in Kharkiv Oblast for the first time, representing a new Russian capability with a high potential for destruction if Russian forces continue to be able to use such weapons uninhibited.
• The United States made a policy change to prioritize delivering Patriot air defense interceptors to Ukraine against the backdrop of the increasing threat of Russian guided glide bomb use in Ukraine.
• US policy still prohibits Ukrainian forces from striking military targets with US-provided weapons in the operational and deep rear of Russian territory.
• The Russian military's increased over-reliance on infantry-heavy frontal assault tactics has greatly degraded the distinctions between various Russian combat services on the battlefield in Ukraine, minimizing the operational efficacy of frontline troops.
• Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov used a working visit to the Eastern Military District in Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai to create the appearance of a strict but engaged defense minister.
• Ukrainian forces conducted drone strikes against at least two oil facilities in Russia on the night of June 19 to 20.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Chasiv Yar, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.
• Russian milbloggers complained that the Russian military command is failing to properly incentivize Russian servicemen to fight and explain the purpose of the Russian full-scale invasion to its troops.