This is the situation as it stands on Thursday, June 1, 2023.
Fighting
- An Iraqi citizen fighting with Russia’s Wagner mercenary force was killed in Ukraine in early April, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin told the Reuters news agency.
- Separately, Prigozhin said he had asked prosecutors to investigate “crimes” committed by senior Russian defence officials before and during Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
- Russian shelling in the Vovchansk region in Ukraine’s Kharkiv killed a 60-year-old man, according to the region’s military administration.
- Three people, including two children, were killed in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s Kherson region, authorities said.
- Ukraine’s state border guard service said Russian troops blew up a road in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region at the junction of the borders of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
- Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, accused Ukraine of renewed shelling in the border region, injuring four people.
- Gladkov also said Russia would begin evacuating hundreds of children from the border region given the “worsening situation”.
- Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, accused Washington of encouraging Ukraine to launch cross-border “terrorist” attacks after Moscow came under a drone attack on Tuesday.
- White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said the administration of US President Joe Biden did not know who was responsible for the drone attack on the Russian capital.
- German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit told broadcaster Deutsche Welle that Ukraine had the right to attack Russian territory when it qualifies as “self-defence” but German weapons should not be used.
Diplomacy
- Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the European Union is looking to broaden sanctions against Russia to target people involved in the abduction of children from Ukraine.
- French President Emmanuel Macron called on the West to offer Ukraine “tangible and credible” security guarantees.
- Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said Sweden should become a member of NATO before the military alliance’s summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
- Germany ordered the closure of four out of five Russian consulates in the country in a move Moscow condemned as “ill-thought out”. It promised a response.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva discussed topics including the war in Ukraine in a phone call with Pope Francis, the Brazilian government said in a statement.
- Nearly 1,000 allied forces from Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States – as well as NATO applicant Sweden – joined approximately 6,500 Finnish soldiers for a series of military exercises in the Arctic.
- Dmitry Medvedev, a top Russian official and former president, said the UK was Moscow’s “eternal enemy” and warned UK officials aiding Ukraine militarily, saying any of them would be considered “a legitimate military target”.
Weaponry
- The US defence department announced an additional $300m aid package to help Ukraine “continue to defend its sovereign territory”.
- National Security spokesman Kirby said that while the US had no say in Ukraine’s military decisions, it had made it “clear” that the latest drawdown of equipment should not be used to strike Russian territory.
