We’ll be back with live updates on the war; However, for now, as always, we start the week by taking a few steps back and taking a review of the existing scenario of the conflict.
Contradictory demands on the front lines
Kharkiv remains a prime target after Russia opened a new front on the northeastern border.
This has been the subject of conflicting reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Ukraine had secured “control of the fighting,” while the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces were advancing.
The British Ministry of Defence said they had joined Russian advances in the northeast, allowing Ukraine to build on Moscow’s momentum.
He believes that Vladimir Putin’s attempt to create a buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia has failed and that further progress is unlikely in the coming week.
But this will hardly be convenient for those living under the constant risk of Russian shelling in the region.
An attack on a DIY store in the city of Kharkiv over the weekend killed at least 16 other people and wounded more than 40, and the search for more continues.
A 12-year-old woman was among the dead.
Help
The United States announced a new package of weapons and devices worth $275 million for Ukraine to repel the Russian attack on the Kharkiv region.
Ukrainian troops have been forced to exercise fire ammunition due to shortages.
The investigation shared with Sky News revealed the scale of the challenge Kyiv faces, with Russia generating artillery shells about three times faster than Ukraine’s Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost.
For the full year, Russian factories are expected to produce 3. 2 million more shells than European countries and the United States combined.
Peace Summit
Zelensky directly called on his U. S. and Chinese counterparts to sign up for his new summit for peace in Ukraine.
Speaking Friday from Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, he announced a “world peace summit,” co-hosted by Switzerland, to begin on June 15. He said 80 countries had already shown their participation.
Putin’s “freeze”
Vladimir Putin is in a position to end the war in Ukraine with a ceasefire that recognises existing battlefield lines, 4 Russian resources told Reuters news agency.
This narrative is widely perceived as a strategy to consolidate Ukrainian territory under Russian control, with little to no promise that Putin would not use it to launch some other attack on what remains of Ukraine. In the past, Russian propagandists advocated reducing Ukraine to the length of the Lviv region in the west.
Nuclear Exercises
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had begun a series of exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons in reaction to comments by senior Western officials about deeper involvement in the war.
According to the ministry’s statement, the first level of the new exercises included nuclear-capable Kinzhal and Iskander missiles in Russia’s southern regions.
Crimea
Ukraine claimed to have destroyed the last Russian war shipment armed with cruise missiles stationed on the occupied peninsula. It said a long-range strike destroyed the Russian Tsiklon mine-clearance shipment in Sevastopol.
Vladimir Putin arrived in Uzbekistan on Monday before starting formal negotiations.
The Russian president laid a wreath at Uzbekistan’s independence monument in the capital, Tashkent.
The two spoke Sunday in what the Kremlin described as talks.
This is President Putin’s third visit abroad since his inauguration for a fifth term in May.
For context: Now separated from Russia through Kazakhstan in Central Asia, Uzbekistan was once part of the Soviet Union.
However, the invasion of Ukraine would have accelerated the process of reducing Russian influence in the country.
In the two years since February 2022, Uzbekistan has also strengthened its relationship with the EU.
Fighting continues along the Kharkiv front line as Russian forces try to overwhelm the defenders.
In a statement issued Sunday afternoon, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said its troops were seeking to repel the attacks and had launched offensives in some places.
The General Staff said on social media: “The Russian aggressor must use its superiority in terms of manpower, apparatus and air support.
“Ukrainian infantrymen are fighting the enemy and, in some directions, they themselves are making effective attack movements to the stability of defense and repair positions. “
Twelve clashes were reported in the direction of Kharkiv, as well as near the villages of Lyptsi and Ternova.
“The situation is under control,” he said.
Ukrainians have rallied outside the U. S. embassy in Kyiv amid growing demands to remove restrictions on where Ukraine can use Western weapons.
Many NATO countries that supply military aid to Ukraine have been doing so lately on the condition that it be used to achieve targets in Russia.
The U. S. and Germany in particular have been strict on this issue, fearing an escalation with Moscow.
Other countries – the UK and Sweden, for example – have shown that Ukraine can use its weapons to hit targets across the border.
Today in Kyiv, activists expressed symptoms of “letting Ukraine respond to the fighting” and “removing restrictions. ”
The United States will participate in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace summit next month, an official said.
This comes after the Ukrainian president invited U. S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the event.
However, the U. S. official did not specify who would participate or at what level.
The summit, co-hosted by Switzerland, begins on June 15 and, according to President Zelensky, the countries have already shown their participation.
Against all odds, the Ukrainians say they have experts in making every turn count.
“Often with just one, two or three shells we can destroy a target,” said Lieutenant Kostiantin, commander of the 57th Brigade’s artillery battery.
Its troops represent a new Russian invasion in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine.
“We will have to continue to rein in the Russians. . . and make sure that every meter of land they take out at the right prices gives them a lot of lives. “
Check this out from our Defense and Security Editor, Deborah Haynes:
Crowds of people marched in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, to mark the country’s Independence Day and also to protest against the government’s questionable law on “foreign agents. “
Some see the law as a risk to press freedoms and civil liberties and some fear it could be modeled after legislation used by Vladimir Putin in neighboring Russia.
Thousands of people marched through the city on Sunday to the sound of the European anthem.
Many waved white and Georgian flags, others the blue and yellow of the EU or the stars and stripes of the United States.
An army parade was also held in the city centre as part of the celebrations, in the presence of the President and Prime Minister of Georgia.
The two are at odds over the draft law on “foreign agents,” after President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has posted on social media his congratulations to the Georgian people on their Independence Day.
“Our two nations know very well that freedom and independence are earned and not granted,” he said on X.
“I wish prosperity to the Georgian people, their statehood and their ties with all other free nations. I also hope that Georgia’s beautiful culture, identity and hospitality will multiply over the years. ”
The parents of a young Ukrainian woman who died after a Russian missile strike said goodbye to their daughter in emotional scenes during her funeral.
Five-year-old Zlata Rostochil was seriously injured in an attack last April and died last April.
Today, his mother Nadiia and father Vyacheslav knelt next to his body at the memorial rite in Odessa.
Other mourners stood solemnly beside them, holding candles.
Russian forces are making “every effort” to break through Ukrainian defenses, amid fighting on the front line near Kharkiv.
Kyiv’s armed forces said there were clashes with the enemy on Sunday.
“Ukrainian troops are taking measures to hold their positions and destroy the enemy’s offensive prospects,” the General Staff said in a message posted on social media.
He said there were no “primary shifts” in the direction of Kharkiv, but that Russian troops continue to launch offensives around the city of Vovchansk and the village of Lyptsi.
Is national service an idea?
Rishi Sunak spoke a lot this week about security in Europe and the desire to invest in defence, and then announced that he would return to national service.
Our military analyst Sean Bell analysed the announcement on Sky News previously. . .