Ukraine Daily

Friday, 10 June 2022

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Russia’s war against Ukraine

A Ukrainian T-64B tank drives through a street during mortar shelling in Sievierodonetsk on May 18, 2022. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA)

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Zelensky: Russia has launched over 2,600 missiles against Ukraine since Feb. 24. Most of the missiles launched by Russia have been used against civilian targets such as various enterprises, railways, bridges, universities, and residential buildings, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his online speech during the TIME 100 Gala on June 8.

General Staff: Russian unit in Kharkiv region refuses to fight. Ukraine’s Armed Forces report early on June 10 that all members of Russia’s motorized infantry unit of the First Army Corps refused to fight after suffering heavy losses in Kharkiv Oblast. In Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces continue to fire at Ukrainian army positions along the contact line, launching missile and air strikes, including attacking civilian areas. Russian troops also achieved some gains near Komyshuvakha, a village near the town of Popasna in Luhansk Oblast, and the village of Roty in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine’s General Staff said. Russia is still storming Sievierodonetsk to gain full control of the city but has been unsuccessful.

Putin says Russia’s aim is to acquire new territories. Speaking at an exhibition devoted to Peter the Great, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed that the emperor’s Great Northern War against Sweden in 1700-1721 had been a return of historic Russian land, not a conquest of territory. “Apparently it is our fate too to return (territory) and strengthen ourselves,” he said in an apparent reference to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Kremlin’s proxies in Ukraine said earlier that the Russian-occupied parts of the Donbas and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, as well as Kherson Oblast, may be annexed by Russia.

Governor: Missile that hit Zhytomyr Oblast on June 9 ‘could have been launched from Belarus.’ According to Zhytomyr Oblast Governor Vitaliy Bunechko, the missile that hit a multi-story building in Novohrad-Volynskyi on the night of June 9 “could have been launched from a plane from the Belarus direction.” No casualties have been reported following the attack.

Ukraine imposes personal sanctions against Putin, other Russian officials. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on June 9 imposing personal sanctions against 35 Russian officials including Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, banning them from entering Ukraine, canceling Ukrainian visas, and blocking their assets, among other measures.

Ukraine’s GDP down 15.1% year-on-year in first quarter of 2022. The Ukrainian government estimates that the country’s GDP may fall by 30 to 50 percent in 2022 as a result of Russia’s war.

Joint Forces Operation: Ukrainian troops repel seven Russian attacks, destroy military equipment. On June 9, Ukraine’s Armed Forces destroyed 10 tanks, four armored vehicles, a military warehouse, as well as five Russian Orlan-10 drones in Donbas. The Russian military shelled over 20 settlements in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, destroying or damaging 60 infrastructure facilities, including 49 houses, a few factory buildings, a farm and a railway station. Two civilians were killed in the attack.

Official: Russian oligarch Fridman wants to obtain Ukrainian citizenship. Lviv-born Mikhail Fridman is seeking to move his assets to Ukraine, and this is good for the economy because it increases the flow of taxes, Oleksandr Novikov, the head of Ukraine’s National Agency for Corruption Prevention, told Forbes Ukraine. Obtaining Ukrainian citizenship is possible for Russian businessmen of Ukrainian origin, he added.

Governor: Russia uses kamikaze drones to drop bombs on villages in Sumy Oblast. Three kamikaze drones with ammunition attacked the town of Krasnopillya in the region, Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said on June 9. Russian forces also dropped a bomb from a quadcopter, he said. No one was injured, and one house was damaged, according to Zhyvytsky.

UN: At least 4.8 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded in Europe. According to the recent update by the UN’s refugee agency, at least 4.8 Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s war have been recorded in various countries across Europe, “including those who first crossed into the neighboring countries and later moved onward.” In total, some 7.3 million border crossings have been recorded from Ukraine since Feb. 24.

Institute for the Study of War: Russia makes marginal gains north of Sloviansk, likely to face difficulties assaulting the city. A Washington-based think tank said in its update on June 9 that Russian troops might experience difficulties assaulting the city as they are likely to face tactical challenges posed by crossing the Siverskyi Donets River. Russian soldiers will have to successfully cross the river to the north and east of Sloviansk (around Raihorodok) in order to push toward the city.

Media: 2,449 Azovstal defenders in Russian captivity. The Ukrainian soldiers are being kept at a pre-trial detention center in Olenivka, a Russian-occupied village in Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainska Pravda media outlet reported citing its anonymous sources in defense intelligence. According to Ukrainska Pravda, Ukraine’s agreement with Russia is that the Azovstal defenders must not be killed or tortured, should be kept separately, and be prepared for prisoners’ exchange.

Reznikov: Polish AHS Krab howitzers ready to be used on frontline. AHS Krab self-propelled gun-howitzer designed in Poland is the fifth type of 155-mm artillery that Ukraine has received from its allies, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov reported on June 9.

National Bank has crowdfunded over Hr 17 billion for Ukraine’s military needs. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, Hr 17.25 billion ($590 million) was already transferred towards the needs of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, police, and the National Guard. According to the NBU, over Hr 5.3 billion ($170 million) was donated from abroad.

Meduza: Russia seeks to annex occupied areas in Ukraine, merge them into one federal district. Three sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza, a news outlet based in Latvia, that the federal district would be created after so-called referendums on joining Russia are held in the occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.

Read our exclusive, on the ground stories

Renowned Ukrainian cartoonist Anatoliy Vasylenko dies at 83. Despite his declining health, Vasylenko was devoted to his craft to his last day. The Kyiv Independent pays a tribute to a renowned Ukrainian graphic artist and cartoonist with this story.

The human cost of Russia’s war

Official: 100-200 Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat every day. Mykhailo Podoliak, an aide to the president’s chief of staff, told BBC that one of the main reasons for the large number of casualties is a lack of parity between Ukrainian and Russian military capabilities. Such parity could be achieved if Ukraine received hundreds of powerful artillery systems from the West, he added.

Death toll in Russia’s June 8 shelling of Kharkiv rises to 3. As a result of the attack that took place at around 11 p.m., a cafe, grocery store, and school library in the Novobavarskyi neighborhood of Kharkiv caught fire, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported on June 9. Five people were injured.

Russian shelling kills civilians in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko reported on June 9 that the Kryvyi Rih district is now under constant fire from Russian forces. According to the governor, Zelenodolsk and Shyrokiv communities “suffer the most.” Six people were killed there while 179 houses, two schools, a kindergarten and a hospital were destroyed or damaged.

General Staff: Russia has lost 31,700 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on June 9 that Russia had also lost 1,398 tanks, 3,438 armored fighting vehicles, 2,421 vehicles and fuel tanks, 711 artillery pieces, 213 multiple launch rocket systems, 96 anti-aircraft systems, 178 helicopters, 212 airplanes, 562 drones, and 13 boats.

International response

Canada freezes and blocks over $310 million in Russian assets. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement on June 9 that they froze and blocked more than $310 million in Russian assets and transactions involving people sanctioned as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

US sends new batch of M777 howitzers to Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Defense published a picture of a 155-millimeter M777 howitzer being charged on a plane en route to Ukraine on June 9. The day before, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense announced that it had handed over 22 M109 self-propelled artillery units to Ukraine.

UK ambassador Melinda Simmons visits Bucha. During her trip to Bucha on June 9, Simmons visited one of the city’s mass graves, as well as spoke with residents and local authorities. “(Bucha) residents have been through hell,” she wrote on Twitter.

European Parliament groups’ leaders call on EU to grant candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova. In a statement published on June 7, the leaders of the Political Groups of the European Parliament “strongly” appealed to the EU leaders to grant the EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, as well as to “work towards” granting the same status to Georgia. “The EU must show courage, resolve, and vision in today’s context of a brutal war of aggression against our European neighbor Ukraine and a deteriorating international environment,” the statement says.

Minister: Three EU states oppose giving Ukraine EU candidate status. According to Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European integration, seven countries have suggested alternative options for Ukraine other than EU candidacy. She said that these countries are not in Eastern Europe or the Baltics. But the main opposition to Ukraine’s EU candidate status comes from three countries, she added without naming them.

Johnson says increasing cost of living in UK ‘should not be reason to abandon support for Ukraine.’ Although Russia’s war has driven up prices in the U.K., abandoning Ukraine would be “morally repugnant” and would “encourage” Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “(Putin) would be able to continue to twist the knife in the wound, the crocodile would simply come back for more and he would be able to claim that his aggression and his violence had paid off,” Johnson said as quoted by The Guardian.

Official: Zelensky to be invited to NATO summit in Madrid on June 28-29. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said that NATO is expected to make a decision on Ukraine at the summit.

The Independent: UK ministers demand release of Britons sentenced to death in Russian-occupied Donetsk. U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the June 9 ruling by the Russian-installed court in the occupied Donetsk that sentenced three foreign fighters who were defending Ukraine, including two U.K. citizens, to death. She said: “This is a sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.” Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative cabinet minister, urged Truss not to let Russia “get away with it.” Jenrick called for the Russian ambassador to be summoned to the Foreign Office for “this most egregious breach of the Geneva Convention.” “This disgusting Soviet-era style show trial is the latest reminder of the depravity of Putin’s regime,” he said.

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