Latest developments:

Russian President Vladimir Putin observed Russia's national day on Monday. During an awards ceremony, Putin spoke about national unity and patriotic pride for “the greatness and glory of the fatherland," at what he admitted was a "difficult time" for the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden's meeting with outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been pushed back a day after Biden underwent an unexpected root canal procedure. The two are now expected to hold talks Tuesday.
Swiss authorities said Monday’s attack of several government websites was claimed by the NoName hacking group controlled by pro-Russian hackers. The government websites were down as Switzerland’s parliament prepares for a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Thursday. It also coincides with a national holiday in Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that although it was too soon to predict where Ukraine’s counteroffensive was going, Washington was confident that Kyiv will continue to take back its land occupied by Russia.

During a news conference in Washington, Blinken said the United States was determined to maximize its support for Ukraine so it can succeed on the battlefield. A “robust” package of political and practical support for Ukraine, Blinken added, can also be expected at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.

A Ukrainian official said Monday the country’s troops retook control of Storozhov, a village in the Donetsk region as they conduct a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Russia.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar thanked a marine brigade in a Telegram post, saying the Ukrainian flag was flying over Storozhov. She said the scene would repeat in every area until Ukrainian forces liberate all of Ukraine’s land.

The development came a day after Ukrainian officials said their troops recaptured three other villages in the area: Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka.

Ukraine’s General Staff said Monday that during the past day there had been heavy fighting elsewhere in Donetsk, including in Bakhmut, and in the Luhansk region.

F-16s training

Ukrainian pilots could begin training on F-16 fighter jets as soon as this summer. The Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said this is a first step toward supplying Kyiv with a powerful, long-term capability in its war with Russia, Reuters reports.

Previously, the Netherlands had said it aimed to start training Ukrainian pilots “as soon as possible,” but had not specified when such training could start.

Ollongren told Reuters the goal was to have the training program fully operational within six months. A possible location for the training could be in Denmark where there are flight simulators. The training would begin with two groups of 12 Ukrainian pilots, already experienced flying Soviet-era MiGs.

The Dutch defense chief did not, however, commit to supplying F-16s to Ukraine.

“It is a very strong weapons system. It’s a very strong capability. But it’s not going to be available anytime soon and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, of course, knows that,” Ollongren said. She did note that F-16s will be “very important for the future,” in Ukraine.

“When the war is over Ukraine has to be able to defend itself to deter Russia from trying again,” she said. “And I think … that’s what the Ukrainians also see.”

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power

The United Nations atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant this week to assess risks from the decrease of water levels at the Kakhovka reservoir.

Ukraine’s Kakhovka reservoir has lost nearly three-quarters of its volume of water since the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed last week, but it has not impacted the plant’s cooling ponds, Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said Monday.

Ukrainian nuclear authorities said the water at the plant’s cooling ponds remains stable and high enough because the pods are separate from the reservoir and can be refilled by wells in the area. The water in the pond evaporates slowly, they said, because the reactors are not producing power.

In Kherson, the United Nations is coordinating relief efforts for the Kakhovka disaster by delivering water, food and hygiene items to almost 180,000 people. Since the day of the disaster, the U.N. has distributed more than 800,000 liters (211,000 gallons) of bottled water and 70,000 monthly rations of ready-to-eat food, U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Dujarric told reporters Monday, adding that the U.N. has also provided information to 100,000 people in the area about risks regarding mine contamination.

In his nightly video address Sunday, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy decried Russian attacks on evacuation routes for civilians escaping flooded areas.

“It was an evacuation from Kardashynka, a village on the left bank of Kherson region. … The occupiers created this disaster by blowing up a dam, leaving people to their fate in flooded towns and villages, and then shelling the boats that are trying to take people away,” he said.

Kyiv and Russia trade blame on the destruction of the dam that led to catastrophic flooding.

Black Sea grain deal

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern Monday that Russia will pull out of the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal by July 17.

The agreement allowing safe wartime export of grain and fertilizers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports may be nixed by Moscow if its terms regarding its own grain and fertilizer shipments are not met.

While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have obstructed shipments.

Russia demands the export of ammonia via a pipeline to Ukraine’s port of Pivdennyi and the reconnection of Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT international payment system.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said on Monday he would not suspend his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon after her arrest as part of a police inquiry into the finances of the governing, pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP).

The police are investigating what happened to more than 600,000 pounds ($750,000) in funding raised by Scottish independence campaigners in 2017 that was supposed to have been ring-fenced, but may have been used for other purposes.

Yousaf has faced growing calls from senior members of his party and rival politicians to suspend Sturgeon, her husband Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, and its former treasurer, who have all been arrested and then released without charge, while the investigation continues.  

“I see no reason to suspend their membership,” Yousaf told the BBC. He said Sturgeon’s arrest was “quite painful personally” given their “long-standing friendship.”

After she was released on Sunday, Sturgeon said she had committed no offence and was innocent of wrongdoing. 

Sturgeon’s arrest marks a dramatic fall from grace for a politician who served as leader of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government for more than eight years until she announced she was stepping down earlier this year. 

Ash Regan, a former SNP leadership candidate, called on Monday for Sturgeon to resign her membership while under investigation as she had become a “distraction.”

Angus MacNeil, one of the SNP’s longest-serving members of the British parliament, said on Sunday Sturgeon should be suspended. “This soap opera has gone far enough,” he said. 

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party believes that the scandal will help them gain seats in Scotland, which is likely to be a key battleground at the next United Kingdom-wide election expected to be held next year.  

Large gains for Labour in Scotland could be key to the party’s hopes of winning a majority and returning to power in Westminster for the first time since 2010. 
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Latest developments:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that representatives from the International Criminal Court visited the Kherson region following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting White House talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

A Ukrainian official said Monday the country’s troops retook control of Storozhov, a village in the Donetsk region as they conduct a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Russia.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar thanked a marine brigade in a Telegram post, saying the Ukrainian flag was flying over Storozhov.  She said the scene would repeat in every area until Ukrainian forces liberate all of Ukraine’s land.

The development came a day after Ukrainian officials said their troops recaptured three other villages in the area: Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka.

Ukraine’s armed forces general staff said Monday that during the past day there had been heavy fighting elsewhere in Donetsk, including in Bakhmut, and in the Luhansk region.

NATO drills

In Germany, NATO was beginning the largest air deployment exercise in its history with 250 aircraft from 25 nations.

Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz said last week the exercise had been in planning since 2018 when it was conceived in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Highlighting that NATO is a defensive alliance, Gerhartz said the exercise, which will last until June 23, would not involve sending any aircraft toward Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

In addition to NATO members, other participants include Japan as well as Sweden, which has applied to join NATO and received the necessary approval from all but two existing members.

Kakhovka dam

In his nightly video address Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried Russian attacks on evacuation routes for civilians escaping areas flooded after last week’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

“It was an evacuation from Kardashynka, a village on the left bank of Kherson region. … The occupiers created this disaster by blowing up a dam, leaving people to their fate in flooded towns and villages, and then shelling the boats that are trying to take people away,” he said. [[ https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/duzhe-vazhlivo-sho-predstavniki-mizhnarodnogo-pravosuddya-na-83553 ]]

There have also been concerns about the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant after the dam breach dramatically lowered the levels of water available for cooling operations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday it needs to access areas around the plant to verify current water levels.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement he expects IAEA experts will be able to go to the site soon.  He plans to travel the plant this week.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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In a move that many hailed as a salve for the historic wounds between Europe and Africa, Germany last December returned 22 artifacts looted during the Colonial Era to what is now Nigeria.

But five months on, questions are being asked in Germany as to whether cultural guardians were wise to hand back the priceless treasures, known as the Benin bronzes.

Controversy erupted after Nigeria’s outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, suddenly declared in March that the artifacts would be returned to a traditional ruler — and not to the Nigerian state, as Germany had expected.

The recipient named by Buhari is the Oba of Benin, a descendant of the sovereign who reigned over the kingdom of Benin when the bronzes were looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.

Custody of any repatriated bronzes must be “handed over to the Oba,” who will be “responsible for the management of all places” where they are kept, Buhari’s statement said.

Buhari’s announcement was one of his last moves in office before he was succeeded by Bola Tinubu following elections.

But it stirred soul-searching in Germany, where critics said it appeared to breach a key understanding with Nigeria.

Under a July 2022 agreement, Germany promised to return around 1,100 bronzes from 20 of its museums, and both sides agreed on the importance of making the works accessible to the public.

Underpinning this were plans to display the bronzes in a new museum in Benin City in southern Edo state.

The state of Saxony has put the brakes on further restitutions pending clarification on whether the Oba’s ownership would affect public display of the bronzes.

Saxony’s Grassi museum was among five museums that handed over the 22 bronzes in December and other museums in the state still hold 262 pieces.

Before proceeding with returning them, the state wants to “wait to see what the effect of this declaration is … and how the new government is going to proceed,” a spokesman for the Saxon culture ministry told AFP.

“We will not take any new steps” before the situation is made clear, he said.

Asked about Buhari’s declaration, foreign ministry spokesman Christopher Burger said the return of the bronzes was “not subject to conditions.”

“It is the decision of the sovereign state of Nigeria to do what it wants,” he said, while adding that it was “important to us that the public continue to have access to the Benin bronzes.”

German Culture Minister Claudia Roth said she was “surprised and irritated” by the response to the declaration in Germany.

“What happens to the bronzes now is for the current owner to decide, and that is the sovereign state of Nigeria,” she told the ZDF broadcaster.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which runs the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, said he did not believe Buhari’s declaration placed future restitutions in doubt.

The Ethnological Museum has around 530 historical objects from the ancient kingdom of Benin, including more than 400 bronzes — considered the most important collection outside London’s British Museum.

The Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg is also among the German museums that returned the first tranche of bronzes in December

It has signed a deal to return 179 artifacts from its collection to Nigerian ownership, though a third of them are to remain in Hamburg

The museum told AFP it “has confidence in its Nigerian partners.”

Abba Isa Tijani, who heads the Nigerian government agency in charge of recovering looted works, said the planned museum project in Benin City was unaffected by the declaration.

“The museum construction is still in place,” he said.

“The Oba of Benin relies on this museum, nothing has changed because he doesn’t have the staff or the expertise to run the museum,” he added.

“We want to reassure our partners, the museums in Europe” that the objects will be “made available for researchers, and for the public and tourists to be seen,” Tijani said.

“The artifacts of course can’t be sold, because in Nigeria it’s forbidden to sell Nigerian antiquities.”

Peju Layiwola, an art historian and artist in Nigeria who was heavily involved in the battle for the return of the bronzes, said the reaction of Western museums to the declaration had been overblown.

“It’s an excuse… to not return those artifacts, because they didn’t want to give it back,” she said.
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The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.

The short-term dangers can be seen from outer space — tens of thousands of parcels of land flooded, and more to come. Experts say the long-term consequences will be generational.

For every flooded home and farm, there are fields upon fields of newly planted grains, fruits and vegetables whose irrigation canals are drying up. Thousands of fish were left gasping on mud flats. Fledgling water birds lost their nests and their food sources. Countless trees and plants were drowned.

If water is life, then the draining of the Kakhovka reservoir creates an uncertain future for the region of southern Ukraine that was an arid plain until the damming of the Dnipro River 70 years ago. The Kakhovka Dam was the last in a system of six Soviet-era dams on the river, which flows from Belarus to the Black Sea.

Then the Dnipro became part of the front line after Russia’s invasion last year.

“All this territory formed its own particular ecosystem, with the reservoir included,” said Kateryna Filiuta, an expert in protected habitats for the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group.

Immediate destruction

Ihor Medunov is very much part of that ecosystem. His work as a hunting and fishing guide effectively ended with the start of the war, but he stayed on his little island compound with his four dogs because it seemed safer than the alternative. Still, for months the knowledge that Russian forces controlled the dam downstream worried him.

The six dams along the Dnipro were designed to operate in tandem, adjusting to each other as water levels rose and fell from one season to the next. When Russian forces seized the Kakhovka Dam, the whole system fell into neglect.

Whether deliberately or simply carelessly, the Russian forces allowed water levels to fluctuate uncontrollably. They dropped dangerously low in winter and then rose to historic peaks when snowmelt and spring rains pooled in the reservoir. Until Monday, the waters were lapping into Medunov’s living room.

Now, with the destruction of the dam, he is watching his livelihood literally ebb away. The waves that stood at his doorstep a week ago are now a muddy walk away.

“The water is leaving before our eyes,” he told The Associated Press. “Everything that was in my house, what we worked for all our lives, it’s all gone. First it drowned, then, when the water left, it rotted.”

Since the dam’s collapse Tuesday, the rushing waters have uprooted landmines, torn through caches of weapons and ammunition, and carried 150 tons of machine oil to the Black Sea. Entire towns were submerged to the rooflines, and thousands of animals died in a large national park now under Russian occupation.

Rainbow-colored slicks already coat the murky, placid waters around flooded Kherson, the capital of southern Ukraine’s province of the same name. Abandoned homes reek from rot as cars, first-floor rooms and basements remain submerged. Enormous slicks seen in aerial footage stretch across the river from the city’s port and industrial facilities, demonstrating the scale of the Dnipro’s new pollution problem.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry estimated 10,000 hectares (24,000 acres) of farmland were underwater in the territory of Kherson province controlled by Ukraine, and “many times more than that” in territory occupied by Russia.

Farmers are already feeling the pain of the disappearing reservoir. Dmytro Neveselyi, mayor of the village of Maryinske, said everyone in the community of 18,000 people will be affected within days.

“Today and tomorrow, we’ll be able to provide the population with drinking water,” he said. After that, who knows. “The canal that supplied our water reservoir has also stopped flowing.”

Long-term catastrophe

The waters slowly began to recede on Friday, only to reveal the environmental catastrophe looming.

The reservoir, which had a capacity of 18 cubic kilometers (14.5 million acre-feet), was the last stop along hundreds of kilometers of river that passed through Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural heartlands. For decades, its flow carried the runoff of chemicals and pesticides that settled in the mud at the bottom.

Ukrainian authorities are testing the level of toxins in the muck, which risks turning into poisonous dust with the arrival of summer, said Eugene Simonov, an environmental scientist with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, a non-profit organization of activists and researchers.

The extent of the long-term damage depends on the movement of the front lines in an unpredictable war. Can the dam and reservoir be restored if fighting continues there? Should the region be allowed to become arid plain once again?

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk called the destruction of the dam “the worst environmental catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster.”

The fish and waterfowl that had come to depend on the reservoir “will lose the majority of their spawning grounds and feeding grounds,” Simonov said.

Downstream from the dam are about 50 protected areas, including three national parks, said Simonov, who co-authored a paper in October warning of the potentially disastrous consequences, both upstream and downstream, if the Kakhovka Dam came to harm.

It will take a decade for the flora and fauna populations to return and adjust to their new reality, according to Filiuta. And possibly longer for the millions of Ukrainians who lived there.

In Maryinske, the farming community, they are combing archives for records of old wells, which they’ll unearth, clean and analyze to see if the water is still potable.

“Because a territory without water will become a desert,” the mayor said.

Consequences for generations

Further afield, all of Ukraine will have to grapple with whether to restore the reservoir or think differently about the region’s future, its water supply, and a large swath of territory that is suddenly vulnerable to invasive species — just as it was vulnerable to the invasion that caused the disaster to begin with.

“The worst consequences will probably not affect us directly, not me, not you, but rather our future generations, because this man-made disaster is not transparent,” Filiuta said. “The consequences to come will be for our children or grandchildren, just as we are the ones now experiencing the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, not our ancestors.”
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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday said the first cargo of discounted Russian crude oil arranged under a new deal struck between Islamabad and Moscow had arrived in Karachi. 

“Glad to announce that the first Russian discounted crude oil cargo has arrived in Karachi and will begin oil discharge tomorrow,” Sharif tweeted. 

“This is the first ever Russian oil cargo to Pakistan and the beginning of a new relationship between Pakistan and Russian Federation,” he added. 

A port official said on Sunday evening that the oil was in the process of being unloaded. 

Reuters first reported on the deal in April. The discounted crude offers a relief to Pakistan, which is facing a payments crisis and is at risk of defaulting on its debt. 

Pakistan’s purchase gives Russia a new outlet, adding to Moscow’s growing sales to India and China, as it redirects oil from Western markets because of the Ukraine conflict. 

Energy imports make up the majority of Pakistan’s external payments. The country’s imports of crude are expected to reach 100,000 barrels per day after the first cargo arrives on Monday. 

There has been no confirmation of how payment would be made, but Pakistan recently announced a plan to allow barter trade with Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, which analysts said could reduce the need for dollars and the risk of cross-border smuggling of energy products. 
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Pope Francis did not deliver his Sunday blessing in public but his recovery from surgery was progressing normally and he has begun physical therapy to help his breathing, the Vatican said.

As previously announced, the 86-year-old pope did not say his Sunday traditional noon Angelus prayer in public and watched Mass on television, the statement said.

Doctors had recommended he avoid putting strain on his abdomen after a three-hour operation at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to repair a hernia on Wednesday.

“What could be a better occasion than being able to support the Pope here at Gemelli?” said Giovanna Vitiello from Pompeii, who went there for medical tests and was praying under Francis’ hospital window.

“I send him best wishes and a hug because without him we would feel like lost sheep.”

Francis will stay in hospital for at least all of this week. Audiences have been canceled until June 18.

The pope has two trips planned for this summer, to Portugal on Aug. 2-6 and Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4.

Sunday’s Vatican statement said the pope showed no signs of fever and had normal blood levels.

He also received communion, it said.

Francis managed to recite the Angelus during his 2021 stay in the same hospital, also for abdominal surgery, when he had part of his colon removed to address a painful bowel condition called diverticulitis.

The pope, who has been affected by a string of health problems, earlier this year said the condition had returned and was one cause of his increasing weight.

 
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