Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin loses 70,000 troops in just 60 days as joint naval drills begin in China

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has stepped down as the leader of the Baltic country to become the foreign policy chief of the European Union later this year.

Kallas, Estonia’s first female prime minister, handed in her formal resignation to President Alar Karis during a brief meeting at the Presidential Palace in the capital, Tallinn, on Monday.

Estonia under Kallas has been one of Europe’s most vocal backers of Ukraine following the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

She replaces Josep Borrell of Spain, who has served as the EU foreign policy chief since 2019.

Summing up Kallas’ 3 1/2 years at the helm of the nation of 1.3 million, Karis was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service that “it has been a time full of crises, the milestones (such as) the coronavirus, the economic recession and the war in Europe, when Russia destroyed our previous security picture with its aggression in Ukraine“.

The prime minister’s move automatically triggered the resignation of Kallas’ three-party Cabinet, made up of her center-right Reform Party, the Social Democratic Party and the liberal Estonia 200 party. It will continue as a caretaker government until the new Cabinet has been sworn in, most likely the end of July or early August.

More than 45 European leaders will converge on Oxfordshire next week to discuss some of the most pressing generational issues facing Europe.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “Europe is at the forefront of some of the greatest challenges of our time.

“Russia‘s barbaric war continues to reverberate across our continent, while vile smuggling gangs traffic innocent people on perilous journeys that too often end in tragedy.

“We cannot be spectators in this chapter of history. We must do more and go further, not just for the courageous Ukrainians on the frontlines, or those being trafficked from country-to-country, but so our future generations look back with pride at what our continent achieved together.

“I said I would change the way the UK engages with our European partners, working collaboratively to drive forward progress on these generational challenges, and that work starts at the European Political Community meeting on Thursday.”

Treason cases were rare in Russia 30 years ago, with only a handful brought annually. In the past decade and especially since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, the number has soared, along with espionage prosecutions.

They are ensnaring citizens and foreigners alike. Recent victims range from Kremlin critics and independent journalists to veteran scientists working with countries that Moscow considers friendly.

One rights group counted over 100 known treason cases in 2023, with probably another 100 that nobody knows about.

“For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC,” he said.

Over the past decade, Russia has seen a sharp increase in treason and espionage cases.

Lawyers and experts say prosecutions for these high crimes started to grow after 2014 – the year when Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula. That’s also when Moscow backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

The number of these cases in Russia spiked significantly after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, urged the security services to “harshly suppress the actions of foreign intelligence services [and] promptly identify traitors, spies and saboteurs”. The crackdown has ensnared scientists and journalists, as well as ordinary citizens.

China and Russia‘s naval forces on Sunday kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese defense ministry said in a brief statement forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.

The exercise, which began in Guangdong province on Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defense.

Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.

An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.

Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.

Officials and military bloggers in Russia are complaining about poor security around critical infrastructure in areas away from the war frontline, just days after a Ukrainian drone strike successfully hit an oil depot, the Institute for the Study of War said.

It cited footage from Russian sources over the weekend of two security guards armed with anti-drone guns seemingly watching a Ukrainian drone strike the oil depot without attempting to shoot down the drone and criticised the security guards for not defending the depot, the Washington-based think tank said in its latest assessment.

This has sparked Russian officials to draw comparisons with a robust defence system from Ukraine against Russia’s Shahed drone strikes.

“Russian sources alleged that Russian authorities have attempted to absolve themselves of responsibility for Ukrainian drone strikes by ordering Russian facilities to hire their own security and questioned why the Russian government has not organised mobile fire groups similar to Ukraine’s mobile fire groups that defend against Russian Shahed-136/131 drone strikes,” it said.

The ISW added that Russian milbloggers have routinely complained about the Russian government’s inability to address and repel Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure.

Ukraine has launched a new drive to boost recruitment to its armed forces, unveiling a set of billboards telling potential soldiers it offers an opportunity to “be yourself”.

One of the billboards reads, “Summer, UAV,” showing a soldier operating a drone from a beach chair as his boots rest on the sand. Another from the Khartia Brigade promises: “We guarantee 60 days of preparation,” reported The Guardian.

Manpower has long been an issue for Kyiv’s military as it fights a much larger and better-equipped foe. The problem has grown more acute in recent months, prompting authorities to introduce stricter measures for draft evaders.

In May this year, president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law allowing some convicts to join the armed forces as it battles to hold the line against Russian offensives in Ukraine’s northeast, east and south.

Ukraine has already lowered the draft mobilisation age from 27 to 25. The upper limit is 60.

Ukraine has said its forces are facing the “hottest situation” along the frontline in the Pokrovsk area in eastern Donetsk region.

Intense Russian attacks have surged in the area, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

“The enemy has already attacked our positions 35 times today in the areas of Novooleksandrivka, Vozdvizhenka, Progress, Lozuvatskyi, Novoselivka Pershoya and Yasnobrodivka … The situation remains tense near Novooleksandrivka, Novoselivka Persha and Progress, where six clashes are still ongoing. Our defenders restrain the enemy,” it said.

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Chasiv Yar yesterday but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline, said The Institute for the Study of War.