live blog
President Zelensky has thanked Qatar for help in the release of abducted Ukrainian children. Several injuries were reported after an attack in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine. All developments in the live blog.
French President Emmanuel Macron has used drastic words to call on Europe to strengthen its defense. “There is a danger that our Europe could die,” warned the head of state in a keynote speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Europe is at a turning point and must do more to be able to compete with global rivals that are rapidly rearming.
The greatest threat to Europe’s security is the war in Ukraine: “The basic prerequisite for our security is that Russia does not win this war of aggression,” said Macron. He proposed the creation of a European military academy. In addition, Europe must strengthen the area of cybersecurity and promote the domestic arms industry.
According to government information, Poland provided military support worth the equivalent of around 8.4 billion euros to the neighboring country in the first two years since the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine. A total of 44 arms packages were handed over to Kiev, said Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski during a keynote speech in the Polish parliament. According to military experts, Poland gave Ukraine, among other things, 300 tanks and combat vehicles, 14 combat aircraft, helicopters, anti-aircraft systems and ammunition.
Sikorski also said that since the beginning of the war, Poland has spent 16 billion euros on humanitarian aid in Ukraine itself and on supporting Ukrainian war refugees in their own country.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, Belarusian leader Lukashenko said that several dozen tactical nuclear weapons from Russia had been stationed in Belarus. This happened as part of the agreement that he and Russian President Putin announced in 2023. Belarus said in June that it had begun delivering the weapons. It is the first time that Russia has deployed nuclear missiles in a foreign country since the Soviet era.
According to the latest figures, the EU states are not yet in a position to replace aid from the USA when it comes to military support for Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the EU and its member states have provided a total of 42 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war until the end of February 2024, while the USA has provided 43.1 billion euros.
Europe has “caught up” with the USA in recent months and is now “on par with the USA when it comes to military aid,” explained Christoph Trebesch, head of the IfW’s Ukraine Support Tracker. However, it was unable to “fill the large gap left by the United States, particularly in terms of ammunition.” The European defense sector has “only built up production capacity very slowly”.
Accordingly, around six billion euros in additional support was allocated to Ukraine from the EU in January and February 2024 – while an aid package totaling more than $60 billion was blocked in Congress in Washington.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says the time is ripe for peace talks in the war against Ukraine. The front is deadlocked and the conditions for starting peace talks are in place, Lukashenko is quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency Tass.
According to the close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, proposals that were discussed between Russian and Ukrainian representatives in Turkey in the first weeks of the war could serve as a starting point for negotiations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accuses Russia of wanting to prevent an international peace conference planned for June in Switzerland. When making this statement to Ukrainian diplomats and foreign ambassadors in Kiev, Zelensky cited intelligence information.
There is “concrete data that Russia not only wants to disrupt the peace summit, but also has a concrete plan: how to do it, how to reduce the number of participating countries, how to proceed to ensure that there is no peace for a longer period of time “said the president. He did not provide any further details.
Neutral Switzerland is planning a peace conference on Ukraine on June 15th and 16th near Lucerne. It takes place directly after the G7 summit of leading democratic industrialized countries in Italy. The conference with up to 80 states is intended to win over Russia-friendly powers such as India, South Africa and Brazil to Ukraine’s ideas for a peace solution. China in particular is being wooed to take part.
According to local authorities, six people were injured in a Russian air strike on the Cherkassy region of central Ukraine. In addition, important infrastructure facilities were damaged, regional governor Ihor Taburez said on the short message service Telegram. Some attack projectiles were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense. The emergency services are on site.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
The USA has supplied Ukraine with short-range ATACMS missiles with a longer range for use within Ukrainian territory. “I can confirm that the United States has delivered long-range ATACMS to Ukraine at the direct direction of the President,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
The rockets were part of an aid package from March and arrived in Ukraine “this month,” explained Patel. The delivery was not initially announced “in order to maintain Ukraine’s operational security at its request.”
The USA delivered ATACMS missiles to Ukraine for the first time last year – but only with a range of 165 kilometers. The variant with the longest range can hit targets up to 300 kilometers away. The Pentagon confirmed that the missiles now delivered were the longer-range variant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked Qatar for helping to release 16 Ukrainian children who were forcibly abducted to Russia. “Thanks to the mediation efforts of our friendly Qatar, they were released and reunited with their families,” Zelenskyj wrote on the X platform. The children and their relatives are currently in Qatar for medical, psychological and social recovery.
Russia is accused of abducting Ukrainian children into Russian territory. In this context, an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2023 against Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lwowa-Belowa.
Russia also confirmed the release of the Ukrainian children. In addition, according to the AFP news agency, the Russian children’s rights commissioner spoke of Russian children who had been brought back to Russia. Accordingly, the agreement with Ukraine stipulates that 29 children should be brought to Ukraine and 19 to Russia. The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, told the AFP news agency that he “could not confirm the information.” The information cannot currently be confirmed.
Ukraine stops issuing passports to able-bodied men. According to the USA, Ukraine has fired long-range ATACMS missiles at an airfield in Crimea for the first time. All developments from Wednesday to read.