Russia Ukraine war: Russian missile systems hit in Crimea as Kyiv faces drone assault – latest

German energy company Uniper said Wednesday that a tribunal has awarded it more than 13 billion euros (nearly $14 billion) in damages for gas that Russia‘s Gazprom hasn’t supplied since 2022.

Uniper said the arbitration tribunal based in Stockholm also ruled on June 7 that it has the right to terminate long-term gas supply contracts with state-owned Gazprom Export, and it is now formally ending the relationship.

The German government nationalized Uniper at the end of 2022 after Russia cut gas supplies to the country. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the company bought about half of its gas from Russia, which started cutting deliveries to Germany in June 2022 and stopped supplying it with gas altogether later that summer.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed the country’s expanding relationship with Russia on Wednesday, as reports suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin will soon visit the country for his third meeting with Kim.

Military, economic and other cooperation between North Korea and Russia have sharply increased since Kim visited Russia last September for a meeting with Putin. The U.S., South Korea and their partners believe North Korea has supplied artillery, missiles and other conventional weapons to Russia to support its war in Ukraine in return for advanced military technologies and economic aid.

Hungary agreed on Wednesday not to veto NATO support for Ukraine but Prime Minister Viktor Orbán insisted that his government would provide neither funds nor military personnel for any joint assistance effort.

At a summit in Washington next month, U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts are expected to agree on a new system to provide more predictable, long-term security help and military training to Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces.

Ukraine’s Western allies are trying to bolster military support for Kyiv as Russian troops launch attacks along the more than 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, taking advantage of a lengthy delay in U.S. military aid.

Two Indian men recruited by the Russian army have been killed in Ukraine, India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Russian forces fired missiles and drones at the Kyiv region and five other areas of Ukraine in a nighttime attack, officials said Wednesday, ahead of several days of intense diplomatic activity around the war that is now in its third year.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 29 out of 30 air targets, including four cruise missiles, one Kinzhal ballistic missile, and 24 Shahed drones. Several people were injured, authorities said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the air force’s response, calling it a “daily achievement.” He has repeatedly appealed to Ukraine’s Western partners to provide more air defense systems, and the United States has agreed to send another Patriot missile system, two U.S. officials said late Tuesday.

The most senior Ukrainian official in charge of reconstruction has resigned, bitterly complaining that his position was deliberately undermined by the Zelensky government, writes Kim Sengupta – such instability could prove deeply damaging:

President Joe Biden headed to Italy on Wednesday for a summit of the world’s leading democracies with an urgency to get big things done, including turning frozen Russian assets into billions of dollars to help Ukraine as it fights off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

This year’s Group of Seven summit comes three years after Biden declared at his first such gathering that America was back as a global leader following the disruptions to Western alliances that occurred when Donald Trump was president. Now, there’s a chance this gathering could be the final G7 for Biden and other G7 leaders, depending on the results of elections this year.

Biden and his counterparts from Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan will use the summit to discuss challenges related to the spread of artificial intelligence, migration, the Russian military’s resurgence and China’s economic might, among other topics. Pope Francis, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are joining the gathering at the Borgo Egnazia resort in the Puglia region of southern Italy.

The summit, which opens Thursday, will play out after far-right parties across the continent racked up gains of surprising scale in just-concluded European Union elections. Those victories, coupled with upcoming elections in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, have rattled the global political establishment and added weightiness to this year’s summit.

Germany’s defence minister presented a proposal for a new voluntary military service to boost its depleted armed forces in the face of tensions with Russia and following opposition from within the government to a return to conscription.

The proposal is part of Germany’s shift towards a more robust foreign and defence policy, announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a “Zeitenwende” or “turn of era” in the days after Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorus said on Wednesday all men would be obliged to fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability for, and interest in, military service upon turning 18, while this would be optional for women.

It would then select a group for mustering before choosing the most suitable and motivated to undertake the six-month basic service – with an option to lengthen this by up to 17 months.

This new model aims to increase the number of young people undertaking voluntary military service per year by 5,000 to 15,000, the ministry said, boosting reserves so as to be able to quickly expand troop numbers in the event of war.

“The aim is to grow this number year by year to increase capacity,” Pistorius told reporters, adding the aim was to eventually achieve 200,000 more reservists.

The model is similar to the Swedish one, introduced in 2018, which aimed to enhance the status of military service through a degree of exclusivity.

The US treasury said it was targeting shell companies in Hong Kong for diverting semiconductors to Russia, taking steps that would affect nearly $100 million of high-priority items for Moscow including such chips.

“Today’ actions strike at their remaining avenues for international materials and equipment, including their reliance on critical supplies from third countries,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

“We are increasing the risk for financial institutions dealing with Russia’s war economy and eliminating paths for evasion, and diminishing Russia‘s ability to benefit from access to foreign technology, equipment, software, and IT services,” she said. “Every day, Russia continues to mortgage its future to sustain its unjust war of choice against Ukraine.”

The United States on Wednesday dramatically broadened sanctions on Russia, including by targeting China-based companies selling semiconductors to Moscow, as part of its effort to undercut the Russian military machine waging war on Ukraine.

Among the steps, the U.S. Treasury said it was raising “the risk of secondary sanctions for foreign financial institutions that deal with Russia‘s war economy,” effectively threatening them with losing access to the U.S. financial system.

It also said it was moving to restrict the Russian military industrial base’s ability to exploit certain U.S. software and information technology (IT) services and, with the State Department, targeting more than 300 individuals and entities in Russia and beyond, including in Asia, Europe and Africa.