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Morning Headlines
Reuters: The Russian trial of detained U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich will start on June 26 and will be held behind closed doors, Russian propaganda agencies TASS and RIA reported on Monday, citing a Russian court.
The Guardian: Global spending on nuclear weapons is estimated to have increased by 13% to a record $91.4bn during 2023, according to calculations from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) pressure group.
Reuters: Putin will visit Hanoi this week, multiple officials said, highlighting Communist-ruled Vietnam's loyalty to Russia and triggering a U.S. rebuke. The visit follows Hanoi avoiding a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last weekend, while sending its deputy foreign minister to a BRICS meeting in Russia earlier last week.
ISW: The Kremlin and Kremlin affiliates continue efforts to use Russia's relationship with Republika Srpska (the Serbian political entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina) to destabilize the Balkans.
16.06.2024
The Telegraph: Nato is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance has said (archive).
European Council: Switzerland invited delegations from around the world to take part in the the high-level conference on peace in Ukraine on 15 and 16 June 2024 in Bürgenstock. 83 countries and organisations, including the European Council, supported the joint communiqué issued at the end of the summit.
The Guardian: Key regional powers including Brazil, India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia have failed to sign up to a joint communique issued at the end of a Ukraine peace conference.
Reuters: Western powers and their allies at a summit in Switzerland denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Sunday, but they failed to persuade major non-aligned states to join their final statement, and no country came forward to host a sequel.
POLITICO: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday the G7’s planned $50 billion loan to help Ukraine using frozen Russian assets is not theft, as Putin has branded it.
Canada will provide Ukraine with 52.4 million Canadian dollars ($38 million) in various aid, the Canadian government announced on June 16 amid the global peace summit in Switzerland.
POLITICO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and said that if he is reelected in November he would immediately "have that settled."
Norway said Sunday that it would provide 1.1 billion kroner ($103 million) to Ukraine to help repair its energy infrastructure and secure the country's electricity supply before next winter.
FT: Europe’s gas imports from Russia overtook supplies from the US for the first time in almost two years in May, despite the region’s efforts to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels since the full scale invasion of Ukraine (archive).
The Sunday Times: The cost of some weapons has risen fivefold since Russia started the war — and in some ways Zelensky’s allies are to blame (archive).
15.06.2024
The Kyiv Independent: EU members will not be for now directly involved in a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, as they will instead focus on developing the guarantee mechanism, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on June 15.
Satellite images obtained by The War Zone confirm that the Morosovsk Airfield in Russia, about 150 miles from the front lines, was hit by a Ukrainian attack. It's claimed that the operation was carried out via a mass drone attack.
AFP: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday slammed as "propaganda" Putin's demand that Ukraine effectively surrender before any peace talks.
The Kyiv Independent: Russian forces suffered around 4,000 troops killed or injured during their offensive in northern Kharkiv Oblast between May 10 and June 10, Ukraine's Khortytsia group of forces said.
France 24: The IOC approved 14 athletes from Russia and 11 Belarusians with neutral status to compete at the Paris Olympics in a first list from some sports published Saturday.
BBC News: US Vice-President Kamala Harris has pledged a $1.5bn package of aid to Ukraine, mostly for the country's energy sector. The funding, announced at a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, will help repair infrastructure damaged by Russian bombardments.
Euronews: Pro-Russian actors are purposefully barraging journalists with fake news in an effort to spread verification resources thin and amplify the reach of disinformation, according to a new study.
Reuters: Swedish fighter jets intercepted a Russian military aircraft after it briefly violated Sweden's airspace on Friday east of the Baltic island of Gotland, the Nordic country's armed forces said on Saturday.
POLITICO: EU ambassadors have agreed “in principle” on the negotiating frameworks for the accession negotiations of Ukraine and Moldova, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU announced late on Friday.
14.06.2024
AP News: The banning of Russian sliders, coaches and others from International Luge Federation events as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue indefinitely, the sport’s governing body said Friday.
RFE/RL: Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the first shipments procured under a Czech initiative to increase supplies of badly needed ammunition in Ukraine are now arriving and will continue to flow.
The Kyiv Independent: NATO allies have failed to agree so far on a long-term financial pledge for Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 14 after a two-day meeting of the alliance's defense ministers in Brussels.
Reuters: The European Union failed on Friday to agree a 14th package of sanctions against Russia, EU diplomats said, as Germany held out over the extent to which EU companies would be responsible for sanctions violations.
POLITICO: European allies are ramping up pressure on the Biden administration to further loosen restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia, arguing that the limits still in place hurt Kyiv’s ability to defend itself.
Reuters: Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are investigating alleged Russian cyberattacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure as possible war crimes, four sources familiar with the case have told Reuters.
France 24: G7 leaders meeting in Italy Friday hardened their tone against China, warning Beijing to stop sending weapons components to Russia and play by the rules on trade.
Reuters: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said India would send a "high-level" delegation to an international summit in Switzerland on Ukraine this weekend after meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Italy on Friday.
Militarnyi: Denmark will finance the purchase of Ukrainian-made weapons to equip the Armed Forces of Ukraine as part of military assistance.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's 68th Jaeger Brigade released a video on June 14 purporting to show its forces taking out an entire Russian tank company during fighting in the Pokrovsk direction in the east of the country.
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