On June 24, the Wagner Group attempted a mutiny, but Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said he would have no influence over Moscow’s operations in Ukraine. Shoigu made his first public remarks on the matter, saying that Russian forces had held their positions. He explained that the servicemen’s dedication to their oath and military duty was a major factor in the failure of these plots. The situation on the front line was difficult last week, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said military forces were “moving forward”. Ukraine Air Force says Russia launched 17 Iran-produced suicide drones overnight, Ukrainian military downed 13. Zelenskyy called for major upgrades to air defenses after drone strike Russian in Sumy, a city in the country. north, killed at least two people and injured 19.
According to the regional prosecutor’s office of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, three people were injured by Russian shelling in a village near Stanislav. Two of the injured were taken to hospital for treatment.
Victoria Amelina, a prominent Ukrainian writer and researcher on war crimes, was killed last week when a Russian missile hit a busy restaurant in the eastern town of Kramatorsk. According to Interfax, Russian FSB security forces claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-installed leader in Crimea. Russian election official Ella Panfilova has warned that municipal elections scheduled for September 6 could be postponed if the situation in Ukraine’s Kremlin-occupied areas continues to deteriorate. Including Crimea, which it acquired in 2014, Russia now controls less than 20% of Ukraine.
Some 700,000 children have “found refuge” in Russia, according to Grigory Karasin, chairman of the international committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament. In March, a UN commission found evidence of deportations and forced displacement of children in Ukraine. To sound out Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, The Hague is now home to the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA). It includes lawyers from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Ukraine. “From the sheer darkness and suffering we have seen across Ukraine, we have also seen light emerge in building new partnerships towards accountability,” said International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim AA Khan. . According to a report by Russian state news agency TASS, Russian Navy chief Nikolai Yevmenov met with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Beijing.
Despite a 24.9% increase in revenue in Russia last year, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has been listed as an “international war sponsor” by Ukraine’s National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAZK). Unilever responded by saying it strongly opposes the dispute and has stopped shipping products to and from Russia. Meanwhile, the company has provided “everyday food and hygiene products made in Russia to the people of the country”, and “leaving is not straightforward”, according to the statement. Alexey Navalny’s family have filed a class action lawsuit against the penal colony where he is being held because they were denied access to see him in prison. On the Twitter account run by his lawyers and friends, Navalny tweeted, “I’m a convict, and they keep reminding me that I’m ‘like everyone else’.” And yet, in the past 12 months, I’ve had exactly zero visitors. He went on to say, “Since that time, 11 months ago, there have been no long visits, no short visits and two phone calls.”
