This is the situation as it stands on Thursday, June 15, 2023.
Fighting
- Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said its soldiers gained a “partial” success in its counteroffensive amid “extremely fierce” battles with Russian forces.
- Russia said it repelled Ukrainian forces on three fronts including Zaporizhia in the previous 24 hours, and targeted Ukrainian arms warehouses.
- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it was in the early days of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and too soon to know whether it would be a “turning point in the war”.
- United Nations nuclear chief Rafael Grossi delayed a trip to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station for security reasons.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would “expel the Russian evil from our land” after six people were killed in overnight missile strikes in Odesa and the Donetsk region.
- There were conflicting reports over the fate of senior Chechen commander Adam Delimkhanov. The Russian Ministry of Defence television channel Zvezda reported he had been wounded in the fighting, while Ukrainian outlets said he might have been killed. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov later rejected the reports, saying Delimkhanov was “alive and well”.
- More than 20 soldiers from Ukraine’s Azov battalion who were taken prisoner in the fight for Mariupol went on trial in southern Russia. They are accused of involvement in a “terrorist” organisation and taking part in an action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
- The head of Russia’s Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, reiterated that his mercenaries would not sign contracts with the defence ministry, a day after President Vladimir Putin said the agreements were a requirement.
- Russia’s lower house of parliament gave its initial backing to allow suspected or convicted criminals to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
Diplomacy
- Germany announced its first-ever National Security Strategy (NSS) and called Russia the biggest threat to peace in the Euro-Atlantic area.
- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had visited 1,500 prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, often sharing desperately longed-for news with their families.
- A group of six African leaders are expected to travel to Poland on Thursday and on to Kyiv by train, as part of a continuing effort to persuade Ukraine and Russia into talks to end the war.
- Bulgaria accused the Russian ambassador to Sofia, Eleonora Mitrofanova, of spreading “propaganda and disinformation” after she claimed the country would deploy troops to Ukraine. Bulgaria has repeatedly denied such Russian claims.
Weapons
- Jim Risch, a senior Republican on the United States Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, said he was blocking a $735m arms sale to Hungary because of its refusal to approve Sweden’s bid to join NATO.
