This is the situation as it existed on Wednesday, June 13, 2023.
Battle:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi welcomed the “forward movement” of his troops near the long-besieged city of Bakhmut on the eastern and southern fronts of the war.
- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine was making progress on its counteroffensive against Russia and said NATO leaders would work to “maintain and increase support for Ukraine” at their meeting next month.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, told a group of military bloggers that Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed as Kiev’s losses “were 10 times greater than Russia’s”.
- Ukraine has also lost a significant number of its western-supplied military vehicles, Putin said at the meeting. The Russian Defense Ministry previously released a video allegedly showing German-made Leopard tanks and US-made Bradley combat vehicles being captured by Russian troops.
- According to Al Jazeera Defense Editor Alex Gatopoulos, in its counteroffensive Ukraine has “proved extremely adept at using feints, disinformation, and moving troops from one area to another to cover up its strategic objectives, thereby threatening Russian military planners to leave their next step in the dark.” .
- Major General Sergei Goryachev, a senior Russian officer, was killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on the Zaporizhia front on Monday, a Russian-backed official in Ukraine said.
- Ukraine said Russia launched a “massive missile attack” on the city of Kryvyi Rih overnight, killing at least 11 and injuring 28.
- Putin claimed it was Ukraine that attacked the Novaya Kakhovka Dam, allegedly with rockets, which caused the rupture last week. The dam was occupied by Russia and Ukraine blames Moscow for the disaster.
- Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said he was “not sure” his men would remain in Ukraine amid a bitter dispute with the Russian Defense Ministry over a new obligation for private armies to sign treaties.
- Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had arrested a group of former defense industry workers suspected of supplying Ukraine with sensitive military information and plotting sabotage attacks.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be stationed in his country in “a few days” and he would not hesitate to use them in case of aggression, according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency.
diplomacy
- International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said he would visit the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant on Wednesday to assess the impact of last week’s dam breach.
- France said it had uncovered a Russia-linked misinformation campaign that spoofed the Foreign Ministry’s website, targeted other government websites and usurped several French media outlets as part of broader efforts to denigrate Ukraine and its Western allies.
- The editor-in-chief of New Zealand’s public radio station apologized for publishing “Kremlin-friendly rubbish” after discovering changes had been made to more than a dozen news outlets about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Putin said Moscow has a “peace plan” for Ukraine and that Western countries must stop sending arms to Kiev.
weapons
- The US announced a new $325 million military aid package to Kiev, which includes munitions for air defense systems, ammunition and vehicles, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a release.
- Defense ministers from the Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led alliance of several European countries, announced a new $116 million package of air defense capabilities for Ukraine.
- German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the country was preparing to send more than 100 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine by the end of this year, Die Welt newspaper reported.
- Russia’s Putin told military bloggers that the country has increased production of key weapons but is lacking in “high-precision munitions and drones.”
- Britain’s MoD said Russia is likely to receive drones in “larger shipments by ship from Iran via the Caspian Sea” and is also working on domestic production, likely with Iranian support. Tehran has admitted to selling drones to Russia but said it took months for Moscow to launch its all-out invasion of Ukraine.
- Denmark will propose an August launch date to teach Ukrainian pilots how to fly F-16 fighter jets, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.