28 June 2023
International agenda
The relocation of the Russian Wagner PMC's troops to Belarus comes at the same time as tactical nuclear weapons are deployed in that country, which affects the security situation, Polish President Andrzej Duda said at a press conference with the presidents of Ukraine and Lithuania, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Gitanas Nausėda. According to him, this prompts a NATO response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the early stages of planning a trip to Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk told The Jerusalem Post.
Croatia has recognised the 1932-33 Holodomor famine as genocide of the Ukrainian people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Kramatorsk attack
Last night, Russians fired Iskander missiles at Kramatorsk. Ten people died as a result of the hit to a cafe, and 60 people were injured with varying degrees of severity, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said.
The Security Service of Ukraine's counterintelligence detained an agent of the Russian special services who corrected the Russian missile strike on the Kramatorsk cafe on 27 June. He is a local resident who works for a gas company. He was to ascertain the presence of people at the café before reporting back to the Russians.
War
Ukraine's main military reserves, including those trained by NATO, have not yet been involved in the counter-offensive, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told The Financial Times. The liberation of a group of villages under Russian occupation in recent weeks "was not the main event" in Kyiv's planned attack.
Heavy fighting continues in the Lyman, Bakhmut and Maryinka sectors, where around 20 combat engagements took place during the day, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its evening update.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said that last week the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed more than 100 Russian troops clusters, 11 command posts, and seven weapons depots.
Today, servicemen of the anti-aircraft missile artillery division of the 10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade Edelweiss shot down a Russian Su-25 fighter using Igla MANPADS.
Russian propagandists have started spreading fakes about the capture of Vovchansk in Chuhuyiv District and the battle for the village of Ruska Lozova in Kharkiv District against the backdrop of the Wagner PMC events, but in reality, the situation on the frontline in the region is fully controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, Oleh Synyehubov, said.
He said in a separate report that three civilians were killed as a result of the Russian shelling of the Vovchansk community.
South
Over 60 bodies were recovered following search and repair works in the flooded areas controlled by Russian troops, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To conceal the real number of victims, the Russian military command decided to bury the dead in mass graves without taking DNA samples or placing any markers at the grave site.
By shelling Mykolayiv Region from the yet occupied Kinburn Spit, the Russians want to prevent the region from joining the so-called grain export deal and to distract the Ukrainian Defence Forces' attention, the spokesperson for the Operational Command South, Natalya Humenyuk, said.
Nuclear concerns
The Ukrainian parliament has issued an address to major international organisations, saying: "According to recent reports, the Russian Federation has placed explosives in the buildings and on the territory near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and has prepared a plan to detonate them. Accordingly, such unprecedented violations of the generally recognised principles and norms of international law and nuclear and radiation safety norms and standards must be condemned by Ukraine and the entire civilised world."
Human rights
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia has abducted 562 Ukrainians. Every fifth abductee is a woman. Most people have disappeared in Kherson Region, according to a research by the ZMINA Human Rights Centre.
Ukraine's doctrine
Speaking in parliament on the occasion of Constitution Day, President Zelenskyy proposed the main guidelines for the future Ukrainian doctrine for national discussion. "This doctrine should answer all the fundamental questions about Ukraine and our future - for ourselves, our neighbours, and everyone in the world. We need a new system, new rules, new opportunities," he said.
State managers
The government has appointed Herman Smetanin as the head of Ukrainian Defence Industry JSC (Ukroboronprom until 21 March). He was given three tasks: increasing the production of ammunition and equipment, effective anti-corruption policy, and transformation of the JSC.
The competition for the post of Head of the National Agency for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes (ARMA) was won by Olena Duma.