Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the European Political Community summit, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK, July 18, 2024 (Kin Cheung/Reuters)

Thursday’s Coverage: Germany To Halve Military Aid To Kyiv?

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1309 GMT:

Political prisoner Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter and US citizen has been given a 16-year sentence by a Russian court.

The condemnation was issued after a swift closed-door trial with secret witnesses and evidence. The prosecution had requested an 18-year prison term.

Gershkovich was seized by security forces in March 2023 as he was working on stories in Yekaterinburg about local reactions to the invasion of Ukraine and to Wagner Group mercenaries.

The correspondent has been held for leverage, including a possible prisoner exchange. Senior Russian and US officials say talks are underway but can only proceed after the formal completion of the trial.

UPDATE 0735 GMT:

Moscow’s payments to military personnel and their relatives now amount to around 1.5% of Russian GDP, assesses the Re:Russia project.

The payments from July 2023 to June 2024 are estimated at between 2.75 and 3 trillion roubles ($31.25 and $34.1 billion).

The amount consisted of 1.55 to 1.8 trillion roubles in monthly and one-time signing payments to military personnel and about 1.2 trillion in payments for injuries, mutilations, or deaths.

The total is between 7.5% and 8.2% of all federal expenditures for the current year.

UPDTE 0716 GMT:

In an interview with the BBC, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that unified support for Kyiv could halt the Russian invasion by the end of 2024.

Zelenskiy endorsed negotiations, saying that not all Ukrainian territory had to be liberated from Russia by force.

UPDATE 0640 GMT:

Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours killed at least seven civilians and injured at least 25, including children.

Five civilians were killed by Russian attacks on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

The victims were an 85-year-old resident. his wife. and three women aged 26, 32, and 77.

In the Kherson region, two people were killed and eight injured, including a child. A television tower, a mobile dispensary, high-rise buildings, houses, and gas pipelines were damaged.

One of the two fatalities occurred on the morning of July 19, when a Russian attack killed a 72-year-old woman in the town of Bilozerka.

Nine people, including a 14-year-old boy, were injured in an attack on a residential building in Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

UPDATE 0631 GMT:

A Ukrainian defense official says Kyiv’s aerial and maritime drones struck Russian military targets in occupied Crimea on Thursday.

The source said an operation by the Navy and the SBU security service damaged a Russian command centre, an ammunition depot, and other facilities at Lake Donuzlav in the west of the peninsula.

Without referring to any damage, the Russian military said it downed 33 Ukrainian aerial drones and intercepted 10 naval drones.

UPDATE 0606 GMT:

Ukraine’s aerial and maritime drones struck Russian military targets on the illegally occupied Crimean peninsula on Thursday, a defence source in Kyiv said. An operation by the navy and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) damaged or disabled a command centre and an ammunition depot among other facilities at Lake Donuzlav in western Crimea, the source told Agence France-Presse. The Russian military said it brought down 33 Ukrainian aerial drones over Crimea and 10 naval drones heading for the peninsula. The figures were not independently verified and Russian officials routinely claim after attacks that most or all threats were eliminated, regardless of the outcome.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in the UK for discussions, including an address to the European Political Community summit on Thursday.

Speaking to leaders and officials from 43 European countries at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Zelenskiy focused on permission for Ukraine to hit targets within Russia.

He said strikes, including with US-made HIMARS rocket systems, along the Ukrainian border had stopped Moscow’s expansion of its invasion, and urged allies to allow Ukraine to hit Russian military airfields and missile launch sites deeper inside Russia.

The fewer restrictions we have on the use of effective weapons, the more Russia will seek peace.

This will not only eliminate some targets, but will also reduce Russia’s capability to continue this war.

Referring to the successful defense against Russia’s cross-border offensive into the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine in May, the President assessed, “Did [strikes inside Russia] lead to escalation? No. On the contrary, it blocked Putin’s attempt to expand the war. Did Putin have any response? No.”

Zelenskiy also warned about the mission of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin, promoting “peace talks” which would allow Russia to annex occupied areas of Ukraine.

We have maintained unity in Europe by acting together, which means that Putin has missed his primary targets … This is our advantage, but it remains an advantage only as long as we are united….

[Putin] may try to approach you, or go to some of your partners individually, trying to tempt or pressure you to blackmail you so that one of you betrays the rest. We keep our unity.

Orbán met Zelenskiy in Kyiv on July 1. He then visited Putin in Moscow, an initiative denounced by the European Union, and took the Russian line on “peace talks” to Beijing and to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on July 11.

Zelenskiy asked:

If someone in Europe tries to resolve issues behind our backs, or even at the expense of someone else, if someone wants to make some trips to the capital of war to talk – and perhaps promise something against our common interests or at the expense of Ukraine or other countries – then why should we consider such a person?

On Friday, Zelenskiy will speak with the Cabinet of the new Labour Government. Introducing the President yesterday at the EPC summit, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:

Every day Ukraine fights to protect not just the Ukrainian people, but the European people – a continent where our belief in freedom, democracy and the rule of law was hard won, that wants to live in peace. [Allies] will stand with you for as long as it takes.