Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his uncompromising demands for Ukraine’s capitulation as a prerequisite for "peace" negotiations in Ukraine in an attempt to undermine the June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
🇺🇦🕊️ 92 countries and 8 organizations will come to the Peace Summit in Switzerland
❗️57 are represented at the highest level — by presidents or prime ministers. There will be foreign ministry delegations from other countries.
— MAKS 24 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) Jun 14, 2024 at 12:46 PM
The Kremlin will continue to feign interest in negotiations at critical moments in the war to influence Western decision-making on support for Ukraine and to continue efforts to extract preemptive concessions from the West. Russia is also attempting to sabotage the peace summit in Switzerland via cyberattacks. Swiss news agencies, citing the Swiss National Cyber Security Center's data, reported an increase in cyberattacks on June 13 against several Swiss government websites and organizations that will participate in the peace summit.[10] The Swiss National Cyber Security Center did not rule out the possibility of similar attacks during the peace summit. Swiss media reported on June 14 that a Russian hacker group claimed responsibility for distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks on Swiss internet infrastructure and threatened that there would be additional cyberattacks.[11]
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The Kremlin has repeatedly engaged in a large-scale reflexive control campaign that aims to influence Western decision-making.[22] Reflexive control is a key element in Russia's hybrid warfare toolkit and relies on shaping an adversary with targeted rhetoric and information operations in such a way that the adversary voluntarily takes actions that are advantageous to Russia.[23] Kremlin officials claimed that Russia was open to negotiations in December 2022, likely to delay the provision of Western tanks and other equipment essential for the continuation of Ukrainian mechanized counteroffensives.[24] Western reporting on Putin's alleged interest in negotiations in Winter 2023-2024 coincided with prolonged debates in the US about security assistance for Ukraine, and the Kremlin may have feigned interest in a ceasefire at this time to convince Western policymakers to pressure Ukraine to negotiate from a weakened position and agree to what would have very likely been a settlement that heavily favored Russia.[25] The Kremlin may again be feigning interest in negotiations in order to influence the ongoing Western debate about lifting restrictions on Ukraine's use of Western-provided weapons to strike military targets in Russia and convince Western policymakers that changes in these restrictions may lead to Russian unwillingness to negotiate in the future. The Kremlin may also be feigning interest in negotiations again to preemptively influence any future Western discussions about the provision of the additional aid that Ukrainian forces will need to contest the initiative and launch their own counteroffensive operations in the medium term. ISW continues to assess that the consistent provision of key Western systems will play a crucial role in Ukraine's ability to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct future counteroffensive operations.[26] US officials have recently stated that the resumption of US security assistance will help Ukrainian forces withstand Russian assaults throughout the rest of 2024 and that Ukrainian forces will look to conduct counteroffensive operations to recapture territory in 2025.[27]
A ceasefire does not preclude Russia from resuming its offensive campaign to destroy Ukrainian statehood, and Russia would use any ceasefire to prepare for future offensive operations within Ukraine. Russia’s military intervention in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 violated numerous Russian international commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Russia’s recognition of Ukraine as an independent state in 1991 and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia specifically committed not to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty or territorial integrity.[17] There is no reason to assess that the Kremlin will respect any new agreement obliging Russia to not violate Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity. A ceasefire would provide Russia with the opportunity to reconstitute degraded forces, divert manpower to large-scale expansion and reform efforts instead of ongoing fighting in Ukraine, and allow Russia to further mobilize its defense industrial base (DIB) without the constraints of immediate operational requirements in Ukraine.[18] Russia could use a ceasefire to prepare a force more suitable to pursue a subsequent series of offensive operations in pursuit of regime change, demilitarization, and conquest in Ukraine. A ceasefire would provide Ukraine opportunities of its own to address force generation and defense industrial capacity, to be sure, but the Kremlin may not unreasonably expect that a frozen frontline will make support for Ukraine less urgent and salient for the West and allow Russia to outpace Ukraine in preparing for a resumption of hostilities.
Russian forces launched a series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of June 13 to 14. Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk reported that Russian forces launched 10 Kh-101/555 cruise missiles from Saratov Oblast, three Iskander-M ballistic missiles from occupied Crimea and Krasnodar Krai, one Kh-47M2 Kinzhal aeroballistic missile from Tambov Oblast, and 17 Shahed-136/131 drones from Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai.[77] Oleshchuk reported that Ukrainian forces shot down seven Kh-101/555s and all 17 Shaheds over Khmelnytskyi, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad oblasts. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Major Ilya Yevlash stated that Russian forces are launching combined missile and drone strikes in various directions and that Russian missiles constantly change altitude.[78] Yevlash reported that several Russian cruise missiles flew west toward Kolomyya, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast before turning around and flying east toward Starokosyantyniv, Khmelnytskyi Oblast. Yevlash also reported that Russians launched three groups of Shahed drones, which merged into two groups before Ukrainian forces downed them. Unspecified Russian security officials claimed that Russian forces struck Kubalkyne airbase in Mykolaiv Oblast, Dolyntseve (Kryvyi Rih) airbase in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and a Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) command center in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, but ISW has not observed any evidence of these claims.[79]
Ukrainian forces shot down seven Kh-101/555s and all 17 Shaheds over Khmelnytskyi, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad oblasts.
- The Ukrainian military said its forces were fighting fierce battles near Chasiv Yar, a strategic hilltop settlement in Donetsk, and the situation was “tense”. A civilian was killed further south on the front line near Pokrovsk, while another man was killed by Russian fire in the southern Kherson region.
- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russia’s advance in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region was slowing and the front line was stabilising after some allies lifted restrictions on Kyiv’s use of donated weapons inside Russian territory.
- Group of Seven (G7) nations meeting in Italy agreed to provide financial support of $50bn to Ukraine by the end of the year, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said. The deal will be funded from profits on frozen Russian assets.
- Ukraine also signed a 10-year security agreement with Japan. “In 2024, Japan will provide Ukraine with $4.5 billion and will continue to support us throughout the agreement’s entire 10-year term,” Zelenskyy said on X. The deal, he added, envisages security and defence assistance, humanitarian aid, technical and financial cooperation.
- The United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR said in an annual report that about 750,000 people became newly displaced inside Ukraine last year as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion, with a total of 3.7 million internally displaced people registered by the end of 2023. The number of Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers increased by more than 275,000 to six million, it said.
- Human rights organisation Global Rights Compliance said in a report that Russian forces deliberately used starvation of civilians as a military tactic during the 85-day siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in 2022. The report found Russian forces “systematically attacked objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” such as food, water, energy and access to healthcare, and also cut off evacuation routes and blocked humanitarian aid from coming in.
- Russian prosecutors said they would send Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in March 2023, for trial, accusing the 32-year-old of collecting information for the US CIA about a Russian tank factory. Gershkovich, who is being held in custody, has denied wrongdoing. His employer said the charge was “false and baseless” and built on lies. Biden called his detention “totally illegal”. Prosecutors did not say when the trial would start.
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The judge in the trial of director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, two leading figures in Russian theatre, agreed to a prosecution request to close the trial to the public and the media over unspecified “threats” to witnesses. The two were arrested in May last year and accused of “justifying terrorism” over their production of an award-winning play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters. The women have pleaded not guilty and say the play was about preventing terrorism.
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German Moyzhes, a 39-year-old lawyer with dual Russian-German citizenship, was detained in Saint Petersburg with some Russian independent media reporting that he was suspected of treason. The German Federal Foreign Office told the Reuters news agency that its embassy in Moscow was in contact with Moyzhes’s family. There was no official word from Russia on the detention.
- Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, accompanied by a tug boat and a fuel ship, arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit seen as a show of force by Moscow amid rising tension over its invasion of Ukraine.
- Zelenskyy told a news conference in Italy that Chinese President Xi Jinping had given him his assurance in a phone call that China would not sell weapons to Russia. Speaking in English, Zelenskyy said Xi had told him that “he will not sell any weapon to Russia”. Zelenskyy did not say when the conversation took place. The last publicly known phone call between Zelenskyy and Xi was in April 2023.
- The Dutch Ministry of Defence said Kyiv’s allies will send Ukraine about 350 million euros ($376.74m) worth of 152mm shells.
- Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair said the country would start sending a total of about 2,000 surplus unarmed rockets to Ukraine as well as a selection of other weapons.
Ukrainian forces conducted a large series of drone strikes against Russia on the night of June 13 to 14. Geolocated imagery collected on June 14 shows damage from a Ukrainian drone strike against the Morozovsk Airbase in Rostov Oblast and indicates that Ukrainian forces struck an electrical substation and an aircraft hangar at the base.[40] Additional footage and photos show an explosion and smoke plume over the Morozovsk Airbase and Rostov-on-Don, and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that Russian air defenses destroyed 70 drones over Rostov Oblast and several drones over Voronezh and Kursk oblasts.[41] Voronezh Oblast Governor Aleksandr Gusev stated that debris from downed Ukrainian drones damaged fuel tanks at an oil depot in the oblast.[42]
- Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his uncompromising demands for Ukraine’s capitulation as a prerequisite for "peace" negotiations in Ukraine, including the recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied and Ukrainian-controlled territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, in an attempt to undermine the June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
- Putin proposed to establish an alternative Eurasian and world security system with support from People's Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping, likely to undermine NATO.
- The Kremlin has frequently timed the intensification of its information operations, including negotiations, to coincide with major policy debates in the West in order to influence Western decision-making.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued to rail against Western colonialism while ignoring Russia's imperial history and contemporary Russian imperialist aspirations to dominate Russia’s neighbors in eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
- Medvedev also promoted Kremlin information operations that aim to exploit Moldovan identity politics in order to disrupt Moldova's European Union (EU) accession by destabilizing Moldovan society.
- Medvedev also threatened Armenia on the eve of Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan's attendance at the June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
- An unnamed senior US Department of Defense official reportedly said that the Biden Administration has no imminent plans to lift restrictions prohibiting Ukrainian forces from striking military targets in Russia’s operational and deep rear areas in Russian territory with US-provided weapons.
- Ukrainian forces conducted a large series of drone strikes against Russia on the night of June 13 to 14.
- Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on June 14 that there are currently almost 700,000 Russian personnel in the "special military operation zone," which includes both occupied Ukraine and areas within Russia bordering Ukraine, during the meeting with participants of the "Time of Heroes" program.
Russian forces continued offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast on June 14, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in the area. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced up to 100 meters in an unspecified part of Vovchansk, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[43] Fighting continued attacking near Lyptsi; north of Lyptsi near Hlyboke; within Vovchansk, including near the Aggregate Plant; and east of Vovchansk near Tykhe on June 13 and 14.[44] Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his framing of Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv as part of an effort to create a "buffer zone" to protect Russian border areas from Ukrainian strikes while acknowledging that Russian forces have not pushed Ukrainian forces far enough from the international border to prevent long-range strikes on Russian territory.[45] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn stated on June 14 that Russian forces have suffered roughly 4,000 killed and wounded personnel in Kharkiv Oblast between May 10 and June 10.[46] Elements of the Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz “Aida” detachment are reportedly operating in Vovchansk.[47]
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