As the Ukrainians Retreat, Russian Artillery Strikes have Already Started to Hit the Outskirts of Slovyansk

Rosgvardiya Chechens Drive Thru Lisichansk

Russia/Ukraine War Update - July 3rd, 2022

 *** MILITARY SITUATION ***

-The Pentagon is now calling Ukrainian retreats "managed retrogrades"

-Russia claims it has taken full control of Lysychansk, the eastern Ukraine city that had become Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the Luhansk region. The defence ministry reportedly made the announcement on Sunday, after initially stating the area had been encircled.

-The Ukrainian army has rejected claims that Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces have surrounded the key eastern city of Lysychansk.

-An adviser to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has conceded Lysychansk could fall, as fighting intensified in the country’s last big bastion in the strategic eastern province of Luhansk.

-Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces destroyed five Ukrainian army command posts in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv region, according to Russian state media. Three weapons storage sites were also destroyed in the Zaporizhzhia region in south-east Ukraine, the ministry was quoted as saying.

-Ukraine’s army accused Russia of carrying out strikes using incendiary phosphorus munitions on Snake Island Friday, just a day after Moscow withdrew its forces from the strategic Black Sea outpost.

-Russian forces are continuing to achieve “minor advances” in the strategic city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, with air and artillery strikes continuing in the district, British intelligence says. Ukrainian forces probably continue to block Russian forces in the south-eastern outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian city, according to the latest UK Ministry of Defence report.

I repeat UK MoD reports here only for the Lols. They really are beyond ridiculous in their 'characteriztions' of the situation on the ground. It is very hard to find any reliable sources that simply report what happened. The Ukrainians took this town or the Russians took that town, without injecting their opinion of said action. As if their audience is too dumb to be able to understand what said action means, so we have to explain why this defeat is no big deal, or that victory wont help X side win.

-A little over a week ago Ukraine's military began showing off it newly acquired long-rage rocket systems from the US by uploading videos of launches against Russian forces. Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced last month, "HIMARS have arrived to Ukraine. Thank you to my colleague and friend SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III for these powerful tools! Summer will be hot for Russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them," in reference to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. Already, Ukraine's forces and their American backers are touting that they've been able to target and strike Russian command centers with the HIMARS, which are well past the front lines. The Hill has cited a senior US defense official who said Ukraine is now having "a good deal of success" with the recently deployed HIMARS rockets, particularly in the hotspot of current fighting, the Donbas in the east of the country. "Because it is such a precise, longer-range system, Ukrainians are able to carefully select targets that will undermine the effort by Russia in a more systematic way, certainly than they would be able to do with the shorter-range artillery systems," the Pentagon official said further. "What you see is the Ukrainians are actually systematically selecting targets and then accurately hitting them, thus providing this, you know, precise method of degrading Russian capability," the official added. "I see them being able to continue to use this throughout Donbas." At the moment, only four are reportedly in use on the battlefield, after lately arriving, but four more were pledged starting last month. The somewhat slow rollout of the systems is related to the time-gap of training Ukrainian operators on how to use them effectively. The HIMARS being provided to the Ukrainians are estimated to be able to hit targets about 40 to 50 miles away, which from the administration's standpoint marks a significant improvement in range, but still makes it unlikely the missiles could be used to strike within Russian territory, which Biden had expressly said he wants to avoid. The US has said that Ukraine's military leadership has provided "assurances" it won't use the newly provided systems to attack Russian territory, amid persisting fears Washington and Moscow could enter direct conflict.

-A prominant pro-Russian anylist points out:

If a hundred thousand are 200s and three hundred thousand are 300s wounded, surrendered or captured, it doesn't matter much. There are hundreds of thousands of bodies available to force into service. Training for Ukies is 2-4 weeks, all important weapons systems seem to be manned by mercs, NATO advisers and PMC contractors. The Ukie tactics now are: stay in prepared defenses until they are breeched and overrun, retreat to civilian infrastructure, use human shields, fight until you have no ammo, run to the next location, second or third echelon. You'll get more ammo, some food and water, repeat until you are dead. Of course there are catastrophic losses. The US designed defenses haven't worked in a war since before WWI. They require a suicidal human frontal assault from the Russians to produce winning results. The Russians' frontal assault comes in the mode of artillery and missile strikes. They have recently added a helicopter and armed drone-based rocket, Project 305, LMAR. Helos can stand off 10-20 kilometers and blowup any target. Russians have been using these in night raids. So, the Ukies get hit 24/7. No trench, house, or armored vehicle is safe. The technology of the rocket makes it devastatingly deadly.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-Russian authorities are saying that a series of strikes rocked one of its cities near the border with Ukraine. Russia is calling it a "deliberate" Ukrainian attack on its territory in the early hours of Sunday morning, which reportedly killed at least four people in the city of Belgorod. "The regional governor said the blasts hit dozens of residential buildings and air defenses had been activated," BBC reports. "The Kremlin said that Sunday's attack had been a deliberate attempt by Ukrainian forces to target civilians." Belgorod is near Ukraine's large northern city of Kharkiv. Lying just 25 miles north across the Ukrainian border, the major city in Russia's south has 370,000 residents. It's not the first time potentially 'errant' missiles have struck Russian territory - or also it's not the first time Russia has accused Ukraine of a deliberate cross-border attack, but the damage and death toll is the most significant and extensive thus far, with a major emergency response at the scenes of impact ongoing. Correspondent Alan Fisher added: "What appears is that somewhere around 25 missiles were fired towards the airport which is a Russian base in Belgorod. It appears that some of those missiles may have hit a residential area. That’s certainly what the media is saying …"If this figure of a volley of more than two dozen rockets proves accurate, it would indeed strongly suggest the Russian city was deliberately targeted, and wasn't merely an incident with a few errant missiles. Meanwhile, some observers are speculating that Ukraine could possibly have used recently provided US long-range rockets to hit deep within Russia's borders, which if true would signal massive escalation in the war.

-Turkish customs authorities have detained a Russian cargo ship carrying grain allegedly stolen from Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador to the country has said. “We have full co-operation. The ship is currently standing at the entrance to the port, it has been detained by the customs authorities of Turkey,” ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said on Ukrainian national television. Bodnar said that the ship’s fate would be decided by a meeting of investigators on Monday.

-Australia will provide 34 additional armoured vehicles to Ukraine and prohibit Russian gold imports, Reuters reports.

-The US is to supply Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) as part of an $820m military aid package, the BBC reports. Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov tweeted thanks to US President Joe Biden and defence secretary Lloyd Austin.

-Ukraine has called for a ship carrying grain from a Russian-occupied part of the country to be seized. The ship is currently lying off the Turkish coast. We've monitored the Russian-flagged ship, the Zhibek Zholy, on its route from the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk to the Turkish port of Karasu. It is not clear where its cargo came from or how it was obtained, but Russia has been accused of stealing grain from areas of Ukraine it controls - allegations Russia denies.

-Ukraine’s forces have received less training over the recent weeks, which impacts their capacity to operate some advanced weapons systems, magazine Foreign Policy (FP) reported on Friday, citing sources. Since the launch of Russia's military offensive in the neighboring country in late February, Ukraine has been constantly asking its Western partners to provide them with more heavy weapons and to do so as quickly as possible. However, as a senior US defense official told FP, “the drumbeat of faster, faster, faster” does not always work well because “the Ukrainians needed to have the training to be able to effectively use these systems.” Meanwhile, the Ukrainian officials cited by the FP, complained on the one hand about the “too slow” pace of Western aid but, on the other hand, admitted that “beyond training for the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) and Western artillery, military training for their troops has dipped in recent weeks, leaving them unable to operate more advanced systems.”

-Demonstrators took to the streets in Berlin to demand that the German government not intervene in war in Ukraine. Germany has offered support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, sending billions in military aid and heavy weapons.

-President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to transfer the rights of the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and liquefied natural gas project to a new Russian company. The move comes in response to actions from “unfriendly states” and could force out foreign stakeholders, including British and Japanese investors.

-The president of Belarus has claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukraine attempted to strike military facilities on Belarusian territory earlier this week. Reuters, citing the state-run Belta news agency, reported that Alexander Lukashenko said Ukrainian armed forces tried to strike facilities in Belarus three days ago, but that the missiles were intercepted. He claimed Ukraine was attempting to provoke Belarus, and that his country does not plan to intervene in the conflict.

-Video is circulating on social media of a Ukrainian-Israeli man who's been captured by pro-Russian separatists. In the video, 40-year-old Vladimir Kozlovsky tells a bleak story of his brief service with the Ukrainian military.

"When the war started, my wife and I wanted to leave the country," says Kozlovsky, according to a translation of the video by Israeli news site ynet. "I am also a citizen of Israel...Before the border, in Uzhgorod, I met with the Israeli consulate, they gave me a special certificate so I could leave the country—but I was stopped at the border. The border guards detained me and did not let me out."

Uzhgorod is in westernmost Ukraine, on the Slovakian border. While Kozlovsky's wife and child were allowed to proceed, Ukraine bars men age 18-60 from leaving the country so they can be available for conscription into the war against Russia.

Sent on a mission to transport personnel, Kozlovsky and fellow members of his unit came under heavy artillery fire. They retreated but, upon returning, were captured by members of the pro-Russian, separatist Luhansk Republic Army.  It's important to note the possibility that Kozlovsky's statements may be coerced. However, if his account is true, it shows the limited effectiveness of efforts to pour Western weapons into the conflict, and Ukraine's challenge in rapidly turning civilians into soldiers:  

"We had foreign weapon systems but we didn't know how to use them. We were not trained to fight and nevertheless were sent to the battlefield. They didn't tell us we were going to fight either. We thought we'd stay in Western Ukraine, but we were deployed to Lysychansk. We were thrown to the battleground like cannon fodder."

Kozlovsky said Ukrainian military commanders encouraged the hapless conscripts to fight to the death. "We've received messages from the Russians saying we'll be better off if we surrendered. The soldiers also discussed this before, but commanders tried to prevent these talks. They told us that if we surrendered, the Russians would torture us to death, so it is better not to be taken alive."

-Late this week Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the EU and Russia agree that they need to come up with a plan concerning the transit of goods through Lithuania to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. "Both sides concluded that it is worth agreeing a plan that will not violate de facto implementation of the sanctions, because, frankly speaking, the Kaliningrad Oblast is a very small part of Russia," Morawiecki said. Lithuania recently started enforcing EU sanctions on goods traveling to Kaliningrad through its territory, angering Russia, which has warned of a response if the move is not reversed. Morawiecki’s comments came a day after Reuters reported that European officials are in talks on a compromise that could exempt goods traveling to Kaliningrad. The report said a deal could be reached soon if Lithuania drops its reservations, although Vilnius doesn’t want to appear like it’s making a concession to Russia. "Poland supports Lithuania as much as possible in its discussion together with the European Commission in the area of ​​developing… an appropriate mechanism in the flow of goods between Kaliningrad and Russia proper," Morawiecki said.

-Ukraine has requested that Turkey detain and arrest a Russian-flagged cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain. Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said the ship, Zhibek Zholy, was involved in the “illegal export of Ukrainian grain” from the Russian-occupied port of Berdiansk and headed to Karasu, Turket. On Thursday, a pro-Russia official said the first cargo ship to leave Berdiansk was carrying 7,000 tonnes of grain to “friendly countries”.

-Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed that pressure from the west has pushed Russia to accelerate its integration with neighbouring Belarus. Putin’s remarks at a Russia-Belarus forum on Friday follow comments last week by Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, who said Russia and Belarus must take urgent joint measures to improve their defence capabilities and troops’ combat readiness.

-US, UK Unveil A Combined $2BN More In Ukraine Security Aid, Including "Offensive" Weapons. According to The Hill some of the weapons he listed off were identified as "more counter-battery radars, artillery and ammunition, including ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that the U.S. has recently supplied to the Ukrainians. Biden also predicted that other countries would send HIMARS to Ukraine." The day prior, on Wednesday, the UK too announced it will be providing Kiev with another one billion pounds in military aid. This has been described as to include "air defense systems, uncrewed aerial vehicles, new electronic warfare equipment and thousands of pieces of equipment for Ukrainian soldiers."

-The US announced on Friday that it will provide Ukraine with an additional $820 million in military aid. The new aid package will include new surface-to-air missile systems and counter-artillery radars to respond to Russia’s long-range strikes in its war against Ukraine. The Pentagon also announced that it will provide up to 150,000 rounds of millimeter artillery ammunition to Ukrainians.

-Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, has said war in Europe beyond Ukraine is “of course” a possibility and urged countries to support Kyiv. Finland could not maintain neutrality as its neighbour Russia becomes a security threat, Haavisto said in an interview with CNN, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has changed the security atmosphere”.

-After spending billions doubling the size of its fulfillment network during the pandemic, Amazon finds itself in a perilous position. In the first quarter of 2022, the e-commerce giant reported a $3.8 billion net loss after raking in an $8.1 billion profit in Q1 2021. That includes $6 billion in added costs — the bulk of which can be traced back to that same fulfillment network. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company chose to expand its warehouse network based on “the high end of a very volatile demand outlook.” So far this year, though, it has shut down or delayed plans for at least 16 scheduled facilities. “We currently have some excess capacity in the network that we need to grow into,” Olsavsky told investors on Amazon’s Q1 2022 earnings call. “So, we’ve brought down our build expectations. Note again that many of the build decisions were made 18 to 24 months ago, so there are limitations on what we can adjust midyear.”

After Lisichansk

Chechens and LDPR Forces in Lisichansk's City Center

Update - The Russians are Now Reporting that Lysychansk has Fallen

There was a Russian TV report from the Lysychansk City Park about 8 hours ago. The Ukrainian defence channels on Twitter are already posting withdrawal justifications like "The fundamental principle is that no battle, combat, or skirmish is to be fought unless it will be won" 

From the Guardian about 6pm EST Saturday:

Ukrainian officials say that Lysychansk remains in Ukraine’s hands, despite claims from Russia that the city “has been brought under control”, Reuters reports. Ukrainian forces have spent weeks trying to defend the city, Ukraine’s last bastion in the eastern province of Luhansk. The city saw intensified fighting on Saturday and videos on Russian media showed Luhansk militia waving flags and cheering in Lysychansk streets. A spokesperson for the pro-Russian separatist forces said “Lysychansk has been brought under control,” but “unfortunately, it is not yet liberated.” Despite fierce battles near the city, Lysychansk is not surrounded and remains under control of the army, said Ruslan Muzychuk, the Ukraine national guard spokesman. “The goal of the enemy here remains access to the administrative border of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Also, in the Sloviansk direction, the enemy is attempting assault actions,” he said.

 

July 2nd - Ukraine's Army says Lysychansk is 'not encircled’

The Ukrainian army has rejected claims that Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces have surrounded the key eastern city of Lysychansk. Ruslan Muzytchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Guard, said on Ukrainian television: Fighting rages around Lysychansk. (But) luckily the city has not been encircled and is under control of the Ukrainian army.

Overview of U.S. Military Supplies to Ukraine

Tell me again how the US is not at War with Russia?

Captured Western Weapons in Lysychansk

It looks like the Ukrainians are leaving a lot of British and American missiles and equipment behind for the Russians as areas of southern Lysychansk are over-run:

Russia/Ukraine War Update - July 1st, 2022

*** MILITARY SITUATION ***

-Ukrainian forces say they have pushed Russian forces from Snake Island, a strategic Black Sea island off the southern coast near the city of Odesa. Russia portrayed the pullout from the island as a “goodwill gesture”. Ukraine’s military said the Russians fled the island in two speedboats following a barrage of Ukrainian artillery and missile strikes.

-The frontline eastern city of Lysychansk is under relentless shelling as Russia presses on with its offensive in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities said they were trying to evacuate residents from the city, the focus of Russia’s attacks, where about 15,000 people remained.

-Russia’s defence ministry has said more than 6,000 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered or been captured, according to Russian state media.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-The Biden administration announced plans for new US military deployments to Europe:

1. Create permanent HQ Base for US 5th Army Corps in Poland
2. Deploy additional rotational brigade to Romania
3. Deploy 2 additional F-35 squadrons to the UK
4. "Enhance" rotational deployments in Baltics
5. Deploy 2 additional Navy destroyers to Spain, bringing total from 4 to 6
6. Deploy "additional" air defense to Germany, Italy

Poland:
"We will permanently forward station V Corps HQ Forward Command Post, Army garrison HQ, and field support battalion."
"First permanent US forces on NATO’s Eastern Flank."
"US will also maintain and seek to enhance rotational force presence..."

Romania:
"US will position rotational Brigade Combat Team, thus maintaining an additional brigade on the eastern flank compared to our January 2022 posture. This additional brigade will maintain the ability to deploy subordinate elements across the eastern flank."

Baltics:
The US will "enhance rotational deployments – which include armored, aviation, air defense, and special operations forces... a persistent, heel-to-toe presence in the region."

Germany:
US will forward station air defense artillery brigade HQ, short-range air defense battalion, combat sustainment support battalion headquarters, engineer brigade headquarters. 625 personnel
Italy: US will forward station short-range air defense battery w/ 65 personnel

-Stoltenberg said NATO in future would have "well over 300,000" troops on high alert, compared to 40,000 troops that currently make up the alliance's existing quick reaction force, the NATO Response Force (NRF).

NATO does not have 300,000 troops to put on high alert. The troops are controlled by member states and I see no willingness by any of them to shoulder the costs that a real high alert status would have. Units on high alert means that they fully manned with no one on vacation and with enough supplies ready to sustain weeks of battle. All of that costs money. Member states will instead designate existing units as 'high alert' ones and change nothing else in their usual equipment and training.

-Pentagon leaders should consider sending weapons inspectors to Ukraine to monitor the billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. arms flowing to the country, a top Defense Department official said. All U.S. officials can do now is review receipts of the arms transfers from other locations in Europe and take Ukrainian officials’ word that the weapons are being properly used and stored. “Over time, we would like to be able to extend our insights with greater presence on the ground,” said Jed Royal, deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that oversees U.S. arms sales. Royal spoke as U.S. lawmakers push to create a new U.S. government watchdog to oversee the more than $6 billion in security assistance sent in the wake of Russia’s February invasion. Royal said senior administration officials, outside of DSCA, will decide if and when weapon inspectors enter Ukraine.

-Russian oil cargoes are increasingly disappearing from view in the Atlantic Ocean as sanctions against the nation’s exports ratchet up. In the past 10 days, at least three tankers have vanished from vessel-tracking systems as they approached the Azores, a tiny group of islands about 950 miles west of mainland Portugal. They probably transfered their consignments onto other vessels. Such transfers didn’t happen there before Russia invaded Ukraine, let alone out of view of satellite monitoring. It’s not clear why the ships have gone dark -- it could be that some buyers want to conclude their purchases as privately as possible. The European Union instituted a ban on Russian oil buying that fully enters into force only in December.

-Electricity prices in Europe are soaring again as the market starts to fear that energy shortages this winter would be much larger than expected a few weeks ago. The German power prices for next year, a benchmark in the European electricity market, have surged by 12 percent so far this week and were rising by 2 percent early on Thursday, according to Bloomberg estimates. Europe is grappling with filling gas storage in time for the winter, after Russia slashed supply to major EU consumers, including Germany and Italy, citing “technical reasons.” Germany and Italy dismissed Gazprom’s reasons for the lower flows and said the move was politically motivated.At any rate, the low Russian gas deliveries and the two-week maintenance on Nord Stream which will halt supply via the pipeline in July are making European governments and electricity market traders and participants nervous about gas and power supply.

-China Cabinet will issue CNY 300bln of bonds to replenish capital for major projects and boost employment, according to Global Times. Furthermore, China will start construction of a new batch of connection projects including national expressways within 2022.

-China's Defense Ministry said the Chinese military will take countermeasures whenever foreign military aircraft come on China's doorstep to provoke, in response to ‘recent provocation’ by Australian and Canadian warplanes, according to Global Times.

-Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Medvedev said in certain circumstances, sanctions may be seen as an act of aggression and justification for war.

-Russia will reportedly ban exports of rice from July 1st to December 31st, according to IFX.

-Russian Deputy PM Novak said oil output in June was nearly back to the level seen in February and warned that price caps for oil would lead to market imbalances and a deficit, according to Tass. It was also reported that Russia's Kremlin sees risks that Western sanctions could hit revenues from oil exports, according to IFX.

-US stocks declined in which the S&P 500 closed off its worst H1 performance since 1970 as growth concerns were exacerbated after data showed weak consumer spending dynamics in May, which resulted in the Atlanta Fed GDPnow model tracking an economic contraction of 1.0% in Q2 and stoked recession fears.

-Oil tumbled amid risk-off trading conditions and concerns about the growth outlook which weighed on the demand side of the equation, while analysts noted futures of Brent (for August), heating oil (for July), and RBOB (for July) expired which may have contributed to the volatile price action.

-OPEC+ ratified the planned August oil-supply hikes, as expected, while OPEC+ made no decision on output policy beyond August and the next meeting is planned for August 3rd, according to Reuters sources.

-US President Biden said he hopes the Gulf state leaders he will be meeting with next month see it as in their interest to increase oil production, according to CNN. It was also reported that President Biden said he will not be making an individual request to Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, according to CNBC's Tausche.

-The Biden administration is laser-focused on sending Ukraine billions of dollars in weapons, including the latest round of anti-ship systems, artillery rockets, and rounds of 105 mm ammo for howitzer cannons that it has entirely lost focus on reshoring efforts to boost semiconductor production Stateside. Multiple manufacturers of semiconductor wafers have announced plans for new multi-billion dollar factories across the U.S. but are contingent on Congress allocating funds to aid in building facilities under the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. Congress passed the CHIPS Act in January 2021 as part of last year's National Defense Authorization Act, which proposed $52 billion in funding for increasing the domestic capacity of chip production, though the House and Senate have come to a standstill over disagreements on certain parts of the bill that have sparked so much uncertainty among companies set to build new factories.

-Just when the wife of one incarcerated Jan. 6 prisoner believed things couldn’t get worse, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) informed her they are going to suspend all of her husband’s benefits. According to United States Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), “this is what you have when vindictive leftists get in charge of major parts of the government.” The letter further noted that: “Pursuant to 38 U.S. Code § 6105(a)”—Forfeiture for subversive activities—”after receiving notice of an indictment for the above offense” the “VA must suspend payment of gratuitous benefits pending disposition of the criminal proceedings. If convicted, gratuitous benefits are forfeited, automatically, from and after the date of the offense.”

In a letter on June 15, dozens of technology executives from IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Analog Devices, Micron, Amazon, and Alphabet called on Congress to move quickly on the CHIPS Act. They wrote, "the rest of the world is not waiting for the U.S. to act," and funding for new chip factories must be achieved immediately. The uncertainty around Congress not formally allocating any budget to finance the CHIPS Act is causing concern among top chipmakers planning to build massive factories that might have to delay expansion plans. "Unfortunately, CHIPS Act funding has moved more slowly than we expected, and we still don't know when it will get done. It is time for Congress to act so we can move forward at the speed and scale we have long envisioned for Ohio and our other projects to help restore U.S. semiconductor manufacturing leadership and build a more resilient semiconductor supply chain," an Intel spokesperson recently said in a statement.

-The OPEC+ coalition ratified an oil-production increase that completes the return of supplies halted during the pandemic, while deferring discussions on its next move for another day. The 23-nation group led by Saudi Arabia rubber-stamped plans to add 648,000 barrels a day in August, restoring the final tranche of the 9.7 million barrels a day that was shuttered just over two years ago But with most members besides the Saudis and their neighbors unable to raise output, the decision is largely symbolic.

-The continued erosion in economic data has prompted The Atlanta Fed to slash its forecast for Q2 GDP growth from 0.0% to -1.0%+0.9% to 0.0%, meaning the US is now right on the verge of a technical recession (after Q1's confirmed 1.6% contraction yesterday). According to the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model estimate for real GDP, growth in the second quarter of 2022 has been cut to a contractionary -1.0%, down from 0.0% on June 15, down from +0.9% on June 6, down from 1.3% on June 1, and down from 1.9% on May 27.

-Shares in German gas and power utility Uniper crashed, plunging as much as a fifth on Thursday after the company slashed its outlook and sought a possible bailout from the German government after Russia reduced natural gas deliveries to Europe, according to Financial Times. Uniper said earnings before interest and taxes would be "significantly below" previous years, considering it only received 40% of the NatGas from Russia's Gazprom PJSC.

-President Biden announced Wednesday during the NATO summit in Madrid steps that the US will take to increase its military presence in Europe, including the establishment of a permanent base in Poland. The base in Poland will mark the first time the US will establish an official permanent military facility in the area known as NATO’s "eastern flank." The US military presence elsewhere in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic states is technically on a rotational basis, although Washington has no plans to scale back its presence in the region.

-ECB Will Buy Italian, Greek Bonds Using Proceeds From German, French Bonds To Avoid Crash.

-G7 Quietly Shelves Russian Oil Price Cap Idea, Biden Will Beg Mideast Allies To Pump More

-President Joe Biden announced Thursday he would support ending the 60-vote Senate filibuster to pass bills to allow abortions at the federal level. Biden was asked during the NATO summit in Spain on Thursday about keeping the rule in the midst of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He said that the only way to respond is by Congress passing a law.

-The US president, Joe Biden, has said he is in favour of supplying new F-16 fighters to Turkey, but needs congressional approval. Biden rejected suggestions that the new planes were in return for Turkey dropping objections to Finland and Sweden joining Nato.

-Norway’s foreign minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, has said her nation is not blocking Russian access to Svalbard. On Wednesday, Russia accused Norway of disrupting the delivery of critical supplies and threatened retaliation.

-Russia’s former president and current deputy security council chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, has said sanctions against Moscow may be seen as an act of aggression and justification for war. Medvedev said “under certain circumstances such hostile measures can also qualify as an act of international aggression, and even as a casus belli,” adding that Russia had the right to defend itself.

-The UK’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said it is a “realistic” ambition to push Russian forces out of Ukraine entirely.

-Nato leaders yesterday announced a new “strategic concept” in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, describing Moscow as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and stability”. Leaders also pledged further help to Kyiv and agreed on a package of support aimed at modernising the country’s defence sector.

-Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Sweden and Finland are expected to formally sign the Nato accession protocol on Tuesday.

-A cargo ship has left the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port of Berdiansk for the first time since the city was seized by Moscow’s troops, according to a pro-Russia local official. Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the pro-Russia administration, was cited by Russian state media as saying the first cargo ship to leave Berdiansk was carrying 7,000 tonnes of grain to “friendly countries”.

-Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has denied that Moscow is blocking Ukrainian grain exports and downplayed the impact of missing Ukrainian agricultural goods on the world food market. In a joint press conference after talks with visiting Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, Putin said: We do not prevent the export of Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainian military has mined the approaches to their ports, no one prevents them from clearing those mines and we guarantee the safety of shipping grain out of there. Instead, the Russian leader blamed western sanctions for problems in the global food market and rising prices.

-Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said, a new “iron curtain” was descending between Russia and the west, and that Moscow would not trust Washington and Brussels “from now on”.

-Joe Biden has declared that the US and Nato allies will stick with Ukraine “as long as it takes” at the end of a two-day summit that saw the military alliance promise hundreds of thousands more troops to defend eastern Europe. The US president also announced another $800m of military aid to Kyiv.

-The Biden administration announced it will expand access to monkeypox vaccines in a new “enhanced” national strategy to combat the outbreak, which includes the deployment of 296,000 vaccine doses over the coming weeks, and potentially 1.6 million vaccine doses over the coming months. The plan seeks to “expand vaccination for individuals at risk and make testing more convenient for healthcare providers and patients across the country,” the White House said in a statement on June 28.

-Russia is using inaccurate missiles from old Soviet stocks for more than 50% of its strikes in Ukraine, leading to significant loss of civilian life, a brigadier general in Ukraine’s armed forces said. The rate of Russian strikes in Ukraine has more than doubled in the last two weeks, Brigadier Gen Oleksii Hromov said in a news conference, Reuters reports. He said Russia was trying to hit military and critical infrastructure but using old Soviet missiles that are less accurate.

-Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the British ambassador in Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, to protest against Boris Johnson’s “offensive” remarks regarding Russia and Vladimir Putin. A strong protest was expressed to the ambassador over “the frankly boorish statements of the British leadership regarding Russia, its leader and official representatives of the authorities, as well as the Russian people”, it said in a statement. The ministry said Bronnert was handed a memorandum stating that “offensive rhetoric from representatives of the UK authorities is unacceptable”, adding: In polite society, it is customary to apologise for such statements. The ministry said Russia had told her it objected to British statements containing “deliberately false information, in particular about alleged Russian ‘threats to use nuclear weapons’”. Russia’s move comes after Johnson said Putin would not have started the war in Ukraine if he was a woman and said the military operation was “a perfect example of toxic masculinity”.

-The former Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has said he would “take a bullet” for Vladimir Putin, whom he described as “a first-class person”. Ecclestone said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided if Volodymyr Zelenskiy had done more.