Kyiv Post Morning Memo: Everything You Need to Know on Wednesday, June 14

Good morning, Kyiv Post readers. Here’s your Morning Memo for June 14 to get you up to speed on events in Ukraine:

• Top Headlines
• Military Situation Report (Day 476)
• President Zelensky’s Message of the Day

Top Headlines

Ukrainian forces took back the village of Urozhaine – in the boundary area of the Zaporizhzhia and western Donetsk regions, bringing the total number of liberated villages during the summer offensive to eight.

Ukrainian forces were reported as clearing local minefields and preparing to enter Novopil and Rivnopil. Blue asterisks below mark confirmed Ukrainian liberation.

In HIMARS strikes, Ukraine took out a Russian-occupation administrative center in Henichesk, located on the Sea of Azov, and reportedly eliminated the commander of the 35th Russian Army. Regular strikes were also reported at Russian-occupied Tokmak and Melitopol in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which is part of the strategic and occupied land corridor that Ukraine may be seeking to cut.

At least three people died a Russian missile strike on Odesa. The attack comes a day after missile strikes on Kryviy Rih, the hometown of Ukraine’s President Zelensky, that killed 11 people.

Russian shelling in the Sumy region killed seven workers of a local timber firm. Local authorities reported 21 artillery assaults using 101 shells over the day.

Ukraine’s senior military leader, Valery Zaluzhny, briefed his US counterpart, General Mark Milley that Ukraine’s forces have made “some gains,” are “advancing” and that “heavy fighting – both defensive and offensive – continues in Ukraine’s east and south.”

Other Topics of Interest

Ukraine’s New Mobilization Law Comes Into Force

The new law, which was adopted by the parliament in April, comes with a new set of restrictions and requirements for Ukrainian military-age males both domestically and abroad.

In comments on Ukraine’s summer offensive, Vladimir Putin said that “we have plans of a different nature depending on the situation that will arise when we consider it necessary to do something.” Speaking to ‘war reporters’ in Moscow, he also rhetorically questioned why Ukrainians “live at our expense in our historical territories… That’s the problem!"

The NATO Summit in Vilnius will strengthen support for Ukraine, President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg predicted following a meeting in Washington.

Britain announced a further air defense package for Ukraine with a value of $116 million including radar equipment and ammo. It also contributed $315 million to a joint European fund for military aid for Ukraine.

The leader of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met with President Volodymyr Zelensky before going to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The IAEA said it needed to check water levels after the destruction of the downstream Kakhovka dam. Speaking in Kyiv, Rafael Grossi said there was no immediate danger but that it was a “serious situation.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered Ukrainian officials to draft a UN General Assembly resolution to create a special international tribunal to prosecute Russian aggression against Ukraine.

France uncovered a major disinformation campaign by Russia, involving the posting of false news items hostile to Ukraine. The campaign used techniques such as posting fake articles on pages identical to legitimate sites of media organizations, but with different domain names -- for example, .ltd instead of .fr. Users were unknowingly led to the false news site by wrongly inputting the domain name. The technique is known as typosquatting.

Luxembourg’s parliament adopted a resolution recognizing the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. Similar steps have recently been taken by parliamentary assemblies in Belgium, Iceland, France, Slovenia and the UK.

Military Situation Report

The June 13 campaign assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) had the following key take-aways:

• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three directions and made further limited territorial gains. [Ed. – along TO518, in Zaporizhzhia, and near Bakhmut].
• Russian sources claimed that a Ukrainian missile strike killed Chief of Staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Military District) Major General Sergei Goryachev in the Zaporizhzhia Region.
• Russian forces conducted missile and drone strikes across Ukraine.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks on the Kreminna frontline but did not conduct offensive operations on the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Ukrainian forces continued to advance on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks, while Russian forces launched counterattacks in the vicinity of Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and are transferring additional forces from the left bank of the Kherson Region to reinforce the direction.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks near the administrative border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions [including attempts to re-take Makarivka – ed.].
• Vladimir Putin claimed that the Russian military has recruited 150,000 contract servicemembers as well as over 6,000 volunteers since January 2023.

The update at 06:00 on June 14 (Day 476) for the last 24 hours from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reflects a surge in military activities and reports:

• Russian missile and drone attacks consisting of 16 Kh-101/555 missiles (11 destroyed); four Shahed drones (one destroyed).
• 39 Russian air raids;
• 62 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) attacks;
• 28 defensive firefights;
• Russian air raids took place in locations in the following regions: Luhansk (one); Donetsk (nine); Zaporizhia (one), and Kharkiv (two);
• Russian artillery, rocket and mortar fire took place in locations in the following regions: Chernihiv (one); Kharkiv (20); Sumy (10); Luhansk (three); Donetsk (34); Zaporizhzhia (six), and; Kherson (11);
• Ukrainian air forces undertook 13 raids against Russian positions and equipment.
• At least 14 people died as a result of Russian missile, drone or artillery attacks across Sumy, Odesa, Donetsk and Kharkiv.

President Zelensky’s Message

“This deliberate Russian strike on an ordinary city [Kryvyi Rih – ed.] only once again proves the simple truth: we must, together with our partners, ensure physically such conditions so that Russian terror becomes impossible…

“When the Russian ability to hit our cities and villages is physically limited by our air defense, only then will the terrorist state understand that peace in Ukraine and Russia’s defeat are inevitable.” – Volodymyr Zelensky