WAR IN UKRAINE: June 30, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 129
NATO leaders today signed the memorandum of agreement which significantly bolsters the alliance’s presence and ability to respond - in synchronisation with declarations which identify Russia as a direct threat. The leaders also took steps strongly enhance the alliance’s rapid response capabilities. Ukraine, which needs $5bn-a-month to keep the war effort going, welcomes the additional support and warm words pledged at the NATO summit, however it still needs more weaponry as well as the ability to protect its skies against Russian missile.
My analysis: there’s little certainty whether any of the steps -- an enlarged alliance, new sanctions, declaring Russia a threat, more military aid and a more robust posture and rapid response capability -- will alter the battlefield momentum that currently appears to favor Russia.
Czech foreign minister tells BBC that if Ukraine falls any other state could be in Russian target. He says “Ukraine is capable but not alone” and that they aspire to democratic values and not Russian domination
Russia’s defense ministry says its forces have withdrawn from Snake Island, a highly contested island in the Black Sea that Russia occupied soon after its February invasion, the Washington Post reported. Moscow framed the move as an effort to create a humanitarian corridor for the export of agricultural products from Ukraine. Officials in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, however, said Russian troops had evacuated following missile and artillery strikes. Speaking of the Russian withdrawal from the island, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “In the end, it will prove impossible for Putin to hold down a country that will not accept his rule.”
Ukraine returns 144 soldiers, including 95 Azovstal defenders, from Russian captivity. Ukraine coordinated the biggest prisoner swap to date, freeing 144 soldiers, Ukraine's Defense Ministry announced on Telegram. Among them are 95 defenders of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, including 43 Azov fighters. Most of the freed soldiers are severely injured - Kyiv Independent
Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to capture most of Ukraine, US intelligence agencies believe. Moscow's troops have been so weakened by combat, however, that US officials assess they are only capable of making slow territorial gains. It means the war could last for a long time, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines says - BBC. “The consensus is that the war in Ukraine will go on for an extended period of time,” Haines said, acknowledging the US assessment of the situation is “grim.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says the "Iron Curtain" between Russia and Europe is "descending.” Suggesting a turn back of the clock to the Cold War, he said: "The iron curtain is descending, the process is underway; that the West be careful not to get caught with anything.” According to Lavrov, relations with the European Union “have not existed since 2014”.
Indonesia's President said he hoped to "build dialogue, stop war and build peace," when he meets Putin in Moscow Thursday, a day after he met with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kyiv.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, says that he fears the war will become a “frozen conflict” in which the underlying issues will not be resolved and in which Ukraine will be subject to ongoing, unpredictable attacks at any moment. “If the conflict itself would be frozen, if Russia would not withdraw its troops and Ukraine would not receive control of the occupied zones, I fear that this conflict will be very quickly reactivated, because Russia will collect new soldiers, new resources and will attack us again,” Shevchuk said. Read the full interview here
