Ukraine Project

Hamas is preserving its forces in Rafah rather than engaging the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), likely because Hamas does not believe Israel’s Rafah operation will be decisive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article in North Korean state-owned newspaper Rodong Sinmun praising Russian–North Korean cooperation on the eve of his visit to North Korea, likely to frame any future support that North Korea will lend to Russia as part of a common struggle against the West.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that NATO may take steps to enhance NATO's nuclear deterrence, eliciting varying responses from senior Kremlin officials.

The vast majority of the countries and international organizations that participated in the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16 signed a joint communique on June 16 reaffirming support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The communique also reaffirmed support for Ukrainian operation and control over the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to ensure the safety of nuclear energy and installations, "free full, and safe" commercial navigation in the Black Sea to ensure global food security, the exchange of all prisoners of war (POWs), and the return of all "deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children" and other unlawfully detained Ukrainian civilians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 14 information operation about Russia's supposed “willingness to negotiate” on extreme terms tantamount to Ukraine's capitulation is succeeding in confusing the purpose of the Ukrainian-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15. The purpose of the summit, according to the Ukrainian President's Office, was to facilitate a multilateral dialogue to achieve "fair peace ... based on the United Nations (UN) Charter and international law." Putin's information operation on June 14 sought to and partially succeeded in sabotaging the summit by refocusing the international conversation to Russia's absence at the summit, instead of allowing the summit's participants to proceed with the intended purpose of garnering international support for Ukraine and Ukraine's efforts to involve the broader international community in ending the war.

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.

Ukraine signed bilateral ten-year security agreements with the United States and Japan on June 13 as other partner states reaffirmed their long-term support for Ukraine within the Group of 7 (G7) and Ramstein formats. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on June 13 that he signed bilateral ten-year security agreements with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the ongoing G7 Summit. The US-Ukraine agreement provides for long-term cooperation in defense and security, economic recovery and reform, and the advancement of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration. The Japan-Ukraine agreement provides for Japan's $4.5 billion contribution to Ukraine in 2024 and continued ten-year long support in security and defense, humanitarian aid, technical and financial cooperation, reconstruction efforts, and sanction measures against Russia.

Ukrainian forces may be conducting an effort aimed at degrading Russian air defenses, which, if successful, could enable Ukraine to more effectively leverage manned fixed-wing airpower in the long run.

Ukraine's Western allies continue to provide monetary and military assistance to Ukraine, including air defense systems. The Estonian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on June 11 that Estonia will provide an undisclosed number of Mistral man-portable short-range air defense systems and missiles to Ukraine as part of a new military assistance package. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced during the Ukrainian Recovery Conference in Berlin on June 11 that the European Union (EU) will transfer roughly 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) worth of profits from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine in July, of which Ukraine will allocate 90 percent to defense spending and 10 percent to reconstruction.

Ukrainian forces conducted a strike against Russian air defense assets in occupied Crimea overnight on June 9 to 10, likely with ATACMS. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on June 10 that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian S-400 air defense battery near occupied Dzhankoi and two S-300 batteries near occupied Chornomorske and Yevpatoria.... ISW has not observed visual confirmation of the extent of damages from the Ukrainian strikes.