Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 06-13-2024

In his latest Telegram rant Dmitry Medvedev calls on Russians to turn life in the West into a “permanent nightmare” and inflict maximum damage on them in response to new US sanctions.

The US announcement on Wednesday, June 12 of a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting China’s provision of semiconductors to Moscow and promises to inflict “secondary sanctions for foreign financial institutions that deal with Russia's war economy,” was met with the now customary rant from the Kremlin’s Security Council Deputy Chairman, Dmitry Medvedev.

He wrote that no doubt the latest imposition of US sanctions will soon be followed by those of Europe. He dismisses their impact by saying they have already imposed them in numbers “already measured in tens of thousands… [which] we have learned to live and develop with them.

The summit comes at a time when the Hamas-Israel conflict is raging, economic tensions are rising between China and the West, and many G7 countries are in political flux.

G7 leaders agreed at a summit in Italy Thursday on a new $50-billion loan for Ukraine using profits from frozen Russian assets as collateral, a US official said.

“We have political agreement at the highest levels for this deal,” a senior Biden administration official said on condition of anonymity.

No surprises as central bank lowers key policy rate from 13.5 percent to 13.0 percent – Ukraine’s higher demands on electricity and energy equipment imports stay within the base scenario.

Ukraine’s central bank remains calm about inflation and the gradual decline of domestic government bonds and deposits. Russian shellings of energy infrastructure caused a higher demand for electricity and energy equipment import, but it will not severely impact inflation.

Inflation in May rose only to 3.3 percent in annual terms due to a decrease in raw food prices, according to a press release from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). 

After the dam was blown up, locals lost their profitable berries, grape, and vegetable farms, but they are not giving up and keep looking for new sources of water.

On June 6, 2023, Russian forces blew up the dam that created the Kakhovka Reservoir, one of the largest in Europe. Built back in the 1950s, the huge reservoir had a volume of 18 cubic kilometers of water – almost the entire drainage of the Dnipro –which created this artificial lake. It not only provided electricity at the nearby Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, but also supplied water to several large channels that irrigated agriculture in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as well as in Crimea.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam resulted not only in floods that killed dozens of people and left tens of thousands homeless, but also dried up the once prosperous settlements on the banks.

Kyiv’s 3rd Assault Brigade may have established some sort of record for the number of Russian service personnel taken captive during a single battle.

A high-profile Ukrainian combat brigade confirmed earlier reports that it had captured dozens of Russian soldiers during fighting in the northern combat sector, with the release on Wednesday of images and video that showed 24 of the Kremlin’s fighters being taken prisoner.

A 28-minute YouTube video made public by Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade claimed the soldiers shown sitting in a school conference room had all been taken prisoner during combat operations around the north Ukrainian town Vovchansk.

The 175 million tonnes estimate was the equivalent to the annual emissions produced by 90 million cars, or the whole of the Netherlands in a year, it said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has directly caused or paved the way to the emission of 175 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, a joint report said on Thursday (13 June).

The report, published by Ukraine’s environment ministry and climate NGOs, said their estimate included both emissions that had been released and those that would be produced during repair work following the destruction caused by the February 2022 invasion.

Russians will still be able to trade in dollars and euros outside of the centralized Moscow Exchange – something which could limit liquidity and lead to higher volatility.

Russia's main stock exchange halted dollar and euro trades on Thursday after the United States hit Moscow with a new package of sanctions over its military offensive in Ukraine.

Washington announced Wednesday it was sanctioning Moscow Exchange, Russia's main stock market and clearing house for foreign currency transactions, a major new financial punishment.

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

Ukrainian children who were abducted and taken to Russia in the early months of the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion have been put up for adoption by authorities, in one case under a false Russian identity, a Financial Times investigation has found. Using image recognition tools and public records, as well as interviews with Ukrainian officials and the children’s relatives, the FT identified and located four Ukrainian children on the Russian government-linked adoption website usynovite.ru. The findings add to the mounting body of evidence that the International Criminal Court, Ukrainian government officials and legal experts say point to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia. One of the children is shown with a new Russian name and age that differs from their Ukrainian government-issued documents. Another child is shown using a Russian version of their Ukrainian name. There is no mention of the Ukrainian background of any of the children. The children were abducted from state care homes and separated from their guardians and relatives in towns across the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine that fell under the control of Russia’s invading army in 2022. They range in age from eight to 15-years-old. The children traced by the FT and whose identities were confirmed with their families by the Ukrainian authorities have ended up in the Tula region near Moscow and in the Orenburg region close to the Kazakh border. One of the children was taken to occupied Crimea. Seventeen additional matches identified by the FT on the adoption website were confirmed as Ukrainian children in a recent New York Times investigation, all of them from a children’s home in Kherson. - FT

A Russian ballistic missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih on June 12 killed at least eight people and injured at least 21, including children, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Klymenko announced the updated number of victims on Telegram after initially saying six had been killed. He added that four more people were missing. The attack, which came after a report that the United States will provide Ukraine with another Patriot missile system, damaged an administrative building and an apartment block, Ukraine's Southern Defense military command said on Telegram. Kryviy Rih, a major city in the Dnipropetrovsk region that is President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown, has been the target of Russian air attacks multiple times in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. - BBC

The loan would be secured against the future profits from interest on €300 billion ($325 billion) of Russian central bank assets frozen by Western allies.

G7 leaders were set to agree on a new $50-billion loan for Ukraine as they gathered Thursday for a summit in southern Italy, using the profits from frozen Russian assets.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will join US President Joe Biden and leaders from Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan for the talks at the luxury Borgo Egnazia resort in Puglia.

A recent presentation by the US military told how Ukraine is using Patriot and other air defense assets to destroy Russian aircraft thought to have been out of range – the “SAMbush.”

On Jan. 15, 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down a Russian Beriev A-50U (NATO: Mainstay) airborne early warning and control system (AEW&CS) aircraft over the Sea of Azov. The incident created much speculation as to how they had done it.

At first, it was thought to be a case of “friendly fire” – a Russian air defense unit misidentifying the A-50 as an enemy aircraft. Soon, however, the finger of suspicion was pointed at the US-supplied MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. But how? Even its 160-kilometer (100-mile) maximum range meant it would have had to be fired extremely close to Russian positions.

There were some peculiar aspects to the crash that suggest there was more to the incident than simply a technical malfunction during a training flight.

An analysis piece in the Ukrainian military issues website Defense Express (DE) on Thursday, June 13 points out some odd features surrounding the crash of a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber into a mountain near the village of Dzuarikau in the Alagirsky District of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, close to the border with Georgia on Tuesday, June 11.

The official announcement from Russia’s aerospace forces said that the aircraft suffered a technical malfunction during a routine training flight and crashed killing the two-man crew.

With one of its “newest innovations” in drone technology recently entered into service, Ukrainian special-ops forces damaged a Russian relay station worth millions.

For the first time during the Russo-Ukrainian war, Special Operations Forces (SSO) hit a Russian R-416GM digital radio relay station, the SSO reported on Telegram.

The mobile station is designed to enhance the efficiency of radio relay communication units in the field.

A report submitted to the ICC says Moscow used starvation as a deliberate tactic during the siege of Mariupol in 2022, leaving civilians without food, water, gas, and electricity for days.

Russia used a tactic of deliberate starvation during its attempts to capture the city of Mariupol in 2022, a new report submitted by Global Rights Compliance (GRC), a non-profit organization specializing in international law, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) says.

The strategy which denied food to the civilian inhabitants of Mariupol during the siege may amount to a war crime.

As Europe prepares for long conflict – frozen or not – it must commit to optimizing the Danube River transport corridor so the Black Sea stays open, writes Kaush Arha, Ben Hodges and George Scutaru.

Kaush Arha is the president of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum. LTG (retd.) Ben Hodges is the former commander of US Forces Europe. George Scutaru is a former national security advisor to the president of Romania.

The Ukraine war continues to accentuate the increased nexus of economic and security issues, with Russia’s blockade forcing Ukraine to divert its grain exports through Romania’s Danube and Black Sea ports.

Argentina is in talks with Paris to transfer to Ukraine five of its French fighter aircraft rendered inoperable due to maintenance issues stemming from post-Falkland War sanctions.

Argentine is considering sending its old French fighter aircraft to Ukraine.

Argentina’s Foreign Minister Diana Mondino discussed the possibility of transferring five Super Étendard aircraft with her French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, the United States’ National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and unnamed NATO officials on behalf of the President of Argentina Javier Milei, according to a report by Argentinian news site Infobae.

World leading G7 democracies eye Kremlin assets to fund fight against Russian invasion; NATO Secretary General gets Orban to sit out policy on Ukraine; US Global Hawk aids Ukraine by spying on Crimea.

G7 leaders will meet Thursday for the first day of their summit, hoping to seal a deal on using frozen Russian assets to help war-torn Ukraine, AFP reports.

President Volodymyr Zelensky will join US President Joe Biden and leaders from Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan in the southeastern Italian region of Puglia.

Ukraine is expected to be top of the agenda at the gathering in Puglia, where President Zelensky will join G7 leaders seeking to seal a deal on using frozen Russian assets.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will announce up to £242 million in fresh assistance for Ukraine at the G7 summit in Italy set to open on Thursday, his office said.

Ukraine is expected to be top of the agenda at the gathering in Puglia, where President Volodymyr Zelensky will join G7 leaders seeking to seal a deal on using frozen Russian assets to help his war-torn country.

Ukrainian recon-drone operator and UAV unit commander, call sign Diego Rodriguez, last year filmed his 1990s SEAT station wagon prepped for winter exclusively for Kyiv Post.

A Financial Times investigation has found Ukrainian children who were abducted from the occupied territories listed for adoption by Russian authorities, one under a false Russian identity.

The Financial Times (FT) in its report on June 12 said it had positively identified four Ukrainian children, each abducted from the occupied territories in early 2022, as listed for adoption in Russia.

The FT said it had used a combination of image recognition, publicly available records, along with statements from Ukrainian officials and children’s relatives, to identify and locate the four children on the adoption website usynovite.ru (adopt.ru) which is linked to the Russian government.

The Switchblade attack drone probably had to travel a distance of more than 30 kilometers from the front line to hit the launcher.

Ukrainian special forces destroyed a Russian Buk anti-aircraft missile system launcher using a Switchblade kamikaze drone, the “Return Alive” volunteer fund said in a June 11 Telegram post.

The foundation released a video showing a Buk-M2 – reportedly spotted by Special Operations Forces (SSO) with a Shark reconnaissance drone. The Shark tracked and pinned the strike on the launcher.