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Morning Headlines
AP News: Traffic on the key bridge connecting Crimea to Russia’s mainland has been halted amid reports of explosions. The health ministry in Russia's Krasnodar region, which lies at the eastern end of the bridge, said two people were killed in an unspecified accident on the bridge and their daughter was injured.
Reuters: A pact that has allowed the safe Black Sea export of grain from Ukraine for the past year will expire at the end of Monday if Russia does not agree to extend the agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia's invasion of its neighbor.
Yahoo News: President Xi Jinping has resisted crossing Washington’s red lines over arming Russia’s war machine in Ukraine. But that hasn’t stopped China edging closer to Moscow’s military in another way: direct engagement.
ISW: The apparent crisis in the Russian chain of command and the corresponding morale effects it may produce will likely degrade Russian capabilities to conduct tactical offensive operations that are critical to the Russian elastic defense in southern Ukraine.
UK Ministry of Defence: Russia is suffering from a worsening shortage of counter-battery radars, especially its modern ZOOPARK-1M. Only a handful of the originally deployed ZOOPARK fleet are likely to remain operational in Ukraine.
16.07.2023
Business Insider: Russia's economy has deteriorated since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Its current-account balance has crashed, the ruble is weakening, and it's status as an energy superpower has crumbled.
Reuters: Fighting in eastern Ukraine has "somewhat intensified" as Ukrainian and Russian forces clash in at least three areas on the eastern front, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Sunday.
The Kyiv Independent: Tamila Tasheva, President Volodymyr Zelensky's permanent representative for Crimea, told Newsweek on July 16 that Ukraine will have to deal with an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 Russian citizens who came illegally to Crimea after annexation.
CNN: The US will allow European countries to train Ukrainian soldiers on F-16 fighter jets, a top Biden administration official confirmed Sunday, a potential boon for Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russia’s air superiority.
Reuters: The Russian state has taken control of French yoghurt maker Danone's Russian subsidiary along with beer company Carlsberg's stake in a local brewer, according to a decree signed by Putin on Sunday. The decree said that foreign-owned stakes in Danone Russia and Baltika Breweries were being put under the "temporary management" of government property agency Rosimushchestvo.
AFP: Azerbaijan accused Russia on Sunday of failing to fulfil its obligations under a 2020 Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement to end fighting with Armenia for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Novaya-Europe: “Rather than try to break through with the infantry fighting vehicles and battle tanks that Western allies provided to aid Ukraine in this counteroffensive, units are moving forward, slowly, on foot,” WP reports citing Ukrainian military personnel.
Reuters: Putin said Russia had a "sufficient stockpile" of cluster bombs and reserved the right to use them if such munitions, the use of which he said he regarded as a crime, were deployed against Russian forces in Ukraine.
AFP: Redoubling support for war-stricken Ukraine is the "single best" way to aid the global economy, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday, along with boosting emerging economies and tackling debt distress.
Reuters: A Chinese naval flotilla set off on Sunday to join Russian naval and air forces in the Sea of Japan in an exercise aimed at "safeguarding the security of strategic waterways", according to China's defence ministry.
Bloomberg: China and Russia conducted six joint military exercises last year, the most in data going back two decades.
ISW: The reported dismissal of the commander of Russia's 106th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division may be a part of an ongoing purge of insubordinate commanders and may suggest that the corrosion of the Russian chain of command in Ukraine is accelerating.
15.07.2023
AFP: Azerbaijan and Armenia held a fresh round of EU-mediated peace talks Saturday, while Russia offered a summit in Moscow in an effort to reassert a lead role in the normalisation process.
Meduza: Mikhail Polyakov, who is reportedly a former FSB colonel and later head of a network of pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, has been arrested on charges of extortion. One source says that Polyakov was arrested for acting without Kremlin leadership’s approval.
AP News: Ukraine on Saturday criticized Bulgaria’s pro-Russian president over his remarks that Kyiv is to blame for Russia’s ongoing war and that supplying arms to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict.
CNN: Along the southern front — seen as perhaps Ukraine’s main strategic priority, with the aim of breaking Russia’s land bridge to Crimea by punching through to the Sea of Azov — reports continue to suggest Ukrainian and Russian forces involved in very heavy fighting.
AFP: South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged Saturday to "expand the scale" of his country's humanitarian and non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine, after a summit with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
BBC News: Ukraine's border guard service has confirmed that Wagner mercenaries have now arrived in Belarus from neighbouring Russia.
Reuters: Russia is investigating whether a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile crashed in its waters during a test launch on Wednesday, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko as saying.
NY Times: The United States will continue to declassify and release information to rally support for Ukraine and provide Kyiv with warnings about Moscow’s intentions, a senior Biden administration official said on Friday.
ISW: Putin further indicated he intends to maintain the Wagner Group as a cohesive fighting force rather than breaking it up but seeks to separate Wagner Financier Yevgeny Prigozhin from Wagner leadership and forces.
UK Ministry of Defence: Direct criticism from subordinates is likely to become an increasing problem for Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff General Gerasimov.
14.07.2023
CNN: Andriy Yermak told journalists in Kyiv he believed the Biden administration was “very close” to making a decision on approving the transfer of the missiles to Ukraine, though he stressed that a final decision had not yet been made.
Reuters: Top oilfield services firm SLB on Friday said it is halting shipments of products and technology into Russia from all its operations over an expansion of Western sanctions. SLB, the world's largest oil service and equipment provider, was one of the few providers to continue working the country's oil sector following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Telegraph: Elon Musk’s Starlink puts Ukrainian soldiers at “increased risk” from cyber-spies, a Ukraine security agency has said.
POLITICO: Nearly a dozen European countries that pledged this week to train Ukrainian pilots are still waiting on the U.S. to formally approve the program before instruction on American F-16 fighter jets can begin, according to U.S. and European officials involved in the discussions.
AFP: Ukraine acknowledged Friday its troops were not making speedy headway in their counteroffensive to recapture territory in the east and south of the country from Russian forces. "Today it's advancing not so quickly," the head of the presidency Andriy Yermak told reporters, conceding that battles were difficult.
Reuters: Europe's aluminium industry group has considered actively lobbying for European Union sanctions on Russian aluminium but would oppose specifically targeting the country's largest producer Rusal , according to a letter sent to members.
AFP: Ukraine will not even consider negotiations with Moscow until Russian troops leave its territory, the head of Ukraine's presidential office said on Friday.
Reuters: Foreign companies seeking to leave Russia face additional hurdles after Russia's finance ministry added new requirements involving corporate exits, including a two-year limit on options to buy shares back.
AFP: "Lavrov responded (to) me very aggressively and explained his point of view, saying everything is a 'West conspiracy' and the war will continue," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters after ASEAN Regional Forum talks.
Reuters: Belarus said on Friday that fighters from the Wagner mercenary group were instructing its soldiers at a military range southeast of Minsk, the first indication that at least part of a deal to end a mutiny in Russia may be being implemented.
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