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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Japan will place additional sanctions on Russia after the Group of Seven (G7) summit the country hosted last week agreed to step up measures to punish Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday.
WSJ: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted new criticism of former German chancellor Angela Merkel, whose policies in office, critics say, paved the way for Putin’s aggression.
AFP: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he plans to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin "in due course", holding out the prospect of resuming contact after a near-total breakdown in relations over the Ukraine war.
The Kyiv Independent: US President Joe Biden's administration has reiterated in conversations with Ukraine that it does not support attacks on Russian soil, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN Thursday.
ISW: The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus requires both significant military infrastructure and Russian command and control over elements of the Belarusian Armed Forces. The Kremlin likely intends to use these requirements to further subordinate the Belarusian security sphere under Russia.
UK Ministry of Defence: Over at least the last 20 years, Russia has experienced a proliferation of paramilitary groups out of its regular armed forces. However, this ‘paramilitarisation’ has dramatically accelerated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is particularly important in the Crimean Peninsula.
More News
Reuters: Lloyd's Register has told India's Gatik Ship Management, which has become a major carrier of Russian oil since the Ukraine war, that it will withdraw certification of 21 of its vessels by June 3, the maritime services company told Reuters.
Meduza: Russia’s Defense Ministry and Ukrainian sources have two different stories to tell about what happened to the Russian intelligence ship Ivan Khurs during yesterday’s naval drone attack.
Reuters: The United States plans to announce up to $300 million worth of military aid for Ukraine comprised mainly of ammunition, two official sources said on Thursday.
ITV News: British MPs have voted in favour of recognising a famine that engulfed Ukraine in the 1930s as a genocide against the country’s people. The House of Commons unanimously supported a motion to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide.
The Guardian: Britain is likely to keep Russian state assets immobilised for some time after the war in Ukraine ends, and certainly until Moscow has agreed to pay compensation for the damage it has inflicted, British officials have confirmed.
The Guardian: Dutch prosecutors have seized a plot of land near Amsterdam that belongs to Vladimir Putin’s former son-in-law, a joint investigation by the Guardian and two other media organisations can reveal. The plot of land in Duivendrecht is owned by Jorrit Faassen, a Dutch businessman who was married to Maria Vorontsova, the Russian president’s elder daughter.
The Moscow Times: Russia on Thursday summoned the envoys of Germany, Sweden and Denmark over Moscow's frustration with the lack of progress on probes into the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines.
The Insider: Thousands of Russian schoolchildren to be sent to military-patriotic camps for tactical and gun training.
Ukrainska Pravda: Pål Jonson, Minister of Defence of Sweden, has announced the training of several Ukrainian pilots on Swedish JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets in response to the Ukrainian side's request.
RFE/RL: Finland on May 24 said it would provide Ukraine with 109 million euros in additional military equipment to include anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition.
The European Council has adopted a regulation prolonging the EU's duty-free trade regime with Ukraine until June 2024. The regulation renews the "suspension of all customs duties, quotas, and trade defense measures on Ukrainian exports to the EU."
NY Times: Russia is increasing its use of Soviet-era bombs, some modified to glide long distances, U.S. and Ukrainian officials say. Despite some limitations, the weapons are proving harder for Ukraine to shoot down than the fastest, most modern missiles.
The Moscow Times: Russia will expel five Swedish diplomats in a tit-for-tat move, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced Thursday as tensions persisted over allegations of Russian spying and Stockholm’s bid to join NATO in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Reuters: Russia and Belarus signed a deal on Thursday to formalise the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles on Belarusian territory, a step Moscow said was driven by rising tensions with the West.
AFP: China's Ukraine envoy Li Hui is due to hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday, the Russian foreign ministry said.
FT: First conceived more than a decade ago, the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline has become more critical for Russia since it invaded Ukraine. But China has so far kept Moscow waiting on a deal.
Bloomberg: The EU is managing to replace shipments of diesel from Russia — by far the bloc’s top external supplier before a ban on seaborne imports started in February.
Bloomberg: The EU has frozen more than €200 billion in Russian central bank assets since Moscow invaded Ukraine, according to fresh data.
AP News: Damage that has gone unrepaired for months at a Russian-occupied dam in southern Ukraine is causing dangerously high water levels along a reservoir and could threaten the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.
Reuters: Russia's Wagner mercenary group has started withdrawing its forces from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and transferring its positions there to regular Russian troops, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video published on Thursday.
worth mentioning
Pro-Kremlin journalist fired after publishing frank interview with Prigozhin
Tajikistan summons Russia's envoy over student beatings
Russia calls off major air show amid security fears
Companies are finding it's not so simple to leave Russia. Others are quietly staying put
Ramaphosa rules out South Africa abandoning neutral stance on war in Ukraine
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