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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Blinken and members of the U.S. Congress said in a series of television interviews that Saturday's turmoil in Russia has weakened Putin in ways that could aid Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces within its territory while benefiting Russia's neighbors, including Poland and the Baltic states.
Reuters: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his defence minister said they held a series of calls with Kyiv's allies on Sunday to discuss the "weakness" of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's next counteroffensive steps.
FT: Vladimir Putin is due to summon his security council for its weekly meeting in the next few days as the Kremlin attempts to claim its invasion of Ukraine will continue as planned. That effort will hinge on what the Russian president will decide to do about the pair of his generals who were the targets of the failed mutiny.
ISW: Russian sources speculated on the specifics of the deal mediated by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to end the Wagner Group’s June 23-24 armed rebellion, including the possible involvement of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff.
Reuters: The Australian government will provide a new A$110 million ($73.5 million) package to Ukraine including 70 military vehicles to defend against Russia's invasion, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday.
Reuters: Oil was slightly higher on Monday as an abortive weekend mutiny by Russian mercenaries raised questions about crude supply, while stocks lacked direction as investors waited for more clarity around the situation.
Reuters: The Russian rouble opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to an aborted mutiny by heavily armed mercenaries over the weekend.
Reuters: Japan has lodged a protest against Russia over the country's decision to declare Sept. 3 a day of victory over "militaristic Japan" - a move it said would fan mutual antagonism, the top government spokesperson said on Monday.
UK Ministry of Defence: As part of its broader counter-offensive, Ukraine has gained impetus in its assaults around Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast. In a multi-brigade operation, Ukrainian forces have made progress on both the northern and southern flanks of the town.
25.06.2023
The Telegraph: Russian intelligence services threatened to harm the families of Wagner leaders before Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Moscow, according to UK security sources.
The Daily Beast: In the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mini-mutiny, prominent Russian state TV propagandists were left grasping at straws—desperately trying to temper their outrage at what had happened in order to justify the Kremlin’s decision to allow the Wagner boss and his mercenaries to escape accountability.
AFP: Lithuania’s president warned Sunday that if Belarus is to host Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin then NATO will need to strengthen its eastern flank.
AFP: The abandoned march on Moscow "shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxillary forces", Macron told the Provence newspaper, saying "the situation is still developing" and he was "following the events hour by hour".
Reuters: Russian jets bombed villages and towns near the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib on Sunday, killing at least nine civilians and wounding dozens in a major flare-up of violence in the country's last opposition stronghold, witnesses and rescuers said.
NBC News: The crisis was unprecedented in Russia’s recent history and may forever tarnish the image of the country’s ‘strongman’ president, analysts told NBC News.
The Times: Despite a last-minute truce brokered by Lukashenko, and Prigozhin exiled to Belarus, the Russian president has suffered an unprecedented humiliation.
Sky News: Ukraine's leaders must guard against a possible attack led by Yevgeny Prigozhin launched at Kyiv from Belarus, General Lord Richard Dannatt tells Trevor Phillips on Sky News. "The fact that he's gone to Belarus is a matter of some concern," said the former British Army chief of general staff.
CNN: In the end, the uprising was short-lived. But for a brief and chaotic 36 hours, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power appeared to be under serious threat, as thousands of Wagner fighters led by warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin closed in on the country’s capital.
AP News: The rebellious mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow were gone Sunday, but the short-lived revolt has weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces are facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine.
ISW: The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense.
UK Ministry of Defence: Ukrainian forces are using the experiences from the first two weeks of the counter-offensive to refine tactics for assaulting the deep, well prepared Russian defences. Ukrainian units are making gradual but steady tactical progress in key areas.
24.06.2023
NPR: A mutiny by Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries appears to have ended with the leader recalling his troops, but the uprising may have done irreparable damage to the image of President Vladimir Putin at home and abroad, analysts say.
Bloomberg: Germany plans to expand deliveries of Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine this year, adding as many as 30 to about 50 that have been delivered or are in the pipeline, Welt am Sonntag quoted a German general as saying.
CNN: US intelligence officials believe that Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the private Wagner military group, had been planning a major challenge to Russia’s military leadership for quite some time, but it was unclear what the ultimate aim would be, three people familiar with the matter told CNN.
AP News: Under the deal announced Saturday by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Prigozhin will go to neighboring Belarus, which has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Charges against him of mounting an armed rebellion will be dropped.
Reuters: Heavily armed Russian mercenaries who advanced most of the way to Moscow began turning back on Saturday, de-escalating a major challenge to President Vladimir Putin's grip on power, in a move their leader said would avoid bloodshed.
Reuters: At least three people were killed in Kyiv early on Saturday after Russia unleashed its latest overnight air strikes on Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.
23.06.2023
Reuters: Russia accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of armed mutiny on Friday after he alleged, without providing evidence, that the military leadership had killed a huge number of his fighters in an air strike and vowed to punish them.
CNN: The United States ambassador to the United Nations on Friday called for an urgent investigation into Iranian-supplied drones used by Russia.
AP News: The U.S. on Friday imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence officers who supervised two officers who were recently indicted by the Justice Department for their involvement in the Kremlin’s attempts to influence a local election in the United States.
Reuters: European Union foreign ministers will approve a boost of 3.5 billion euros to a military aid fund used to bankroll weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, officials said on Friday.
AFP: A Russian-held bridge that connects southern Ukraine to the annexed Crimean peninsula has been badly damaged and is "unusable" at present, a Moscow-installed official said on Friday.
Reuters: Ukraine signalled on Friday that the main push in its counteroffensive against Russian forces was still to come, with some troops not yet deployed and the operation so far intended to "set up the battlefield."
The Moscow Times: Russian companies have been systematically looting industrial goods from factories in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.
NY Times: Previously unreported shipments of tens of thousands of kilograms of gunpowder between a state-owned Chinese company and a Russian munitions factory last year raise new questions about Beijing's role in Russia's war against Ukraine.
European Commission: The EU has added the “anti-circumvention tool” to the package which will allow Brussels to slap sanctions on third countries. In addition, 87 more businesses that directly support Russia’s defence-industrial complex are now blacklisted.
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