Ukraine Briefly

June 17, 2022

Ukraine, Briefly

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• French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi landed in Kyiv Thursday, visiting the Ukrainian capital for the first time since Russia’s invasion began, Politico wrote. The three leaders rode a night train to Kyiv, where they were welcomed by air raid sirens as Russia continued its assault on the country. The visit is “a message of European unity toward Ukrainians, and of support, [a message] about the present and the future because we know the weeks to come are going to be very difficult,” Macron said.

• According to Dutch intelligence, a Russian agent attempted and failed to acquire an internship at the International Criminal Court using the fictitious identity of a Brazilian citizen he had built up over a decade, the Guardian reported. Had the man succeeded, he would have obtained access to the court’s email systems and might have been able to copy, tamper with or destroy documents or evidence submitted as the court begins to investigate alleged Russian war crimes.

• Russia is scrambling to recruit soldiers to fight in Ukraine after heavy casualties in the early months of the conflict left the army stretched thin and with poor morale, the Washington Post noted. The Kremlin has so far refused to implement the draft, fearing that doing so would signal that the war is not the success the Russian media portrays, and also worrying that a draft order would spark a wide movement against the military effort.

This story originally appeared in the June 17, 2022 newsletter, No Place Like Home.