Russo-Ukrainian war, day 1564: Ukraine’s long-range drones reach Kronstadt

Exclusives

Ukraine's drones got bigger warheads. A Russian corvette in the Baltic just found out.. The Fire Point FP-1 that struck Boikiy at Kronstadt on 3 June crossed 1,100 km to get there — and arrived with a heavier warhead than the model that started Ukraine's deep-strike campaign.

"It was never formulated as Ukraine winning"—NATO's ex-military chief on the missing strategy. It was also not formulated, "We're doing this so that Russia can lose this war." So the formulation became, "We're going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes," Admiral Bauer tells EP

EU urgency to dump Rosatom is growing but Russia will use every lever to prevent it. This is part three of a series of three articles exploring Rosatom, its role in the war in Ukraine, and Moscow's international influence.

Russia more than doubles production of converted SAMs to make ballistic missile strikes even harder to defend. Missiles add few qualitative improvements but do add mass to Russia's terror attacks

Military

Russia reportedly restricts bus and private car movement on main arteries through occupied territories, capping two weeks of land-corridor breakdown. The stated reason is protection against Ukrainian "attacks on civilian transport." The actual reason is visible in the two-week sequence of events that produced the closures.

Flat steppe: Ukraine is strangling Crimea's supply lines from air. Melitopol-Chonhar road is latest target. The operation extends the squeeze on Russia's land corridor to the occupied Crimean peninsula.

Kronstadt, Russia's major naval base after Black Sea Fleet losses, gets hit by Ukrainian drones (VIDEO). Russia was in the middle of hosting foreign investors.

Intelligence and technology

What do Ukrainian drone makers have to accept to win Pentagon contracts? Experts document "draconian conditions". Below 50% foreign ownership triggers a Security Control Agreement under which the company must be led by a US citizen.

Ukraine has built 822 kilometers of anti-drone road tunnels. Each kilometer means safer evacuations and faster supply. In May alone, the State Special Transport Service rebuilt 115.5 km of conventional road, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.

International

Russia is already causing harm to UK. Britain may not be prepared for what comes next, says former top general. Lord Peach, the former UK Chief of the Defence Staff said the hybrid war is already happening.

US warned Russia it would "be very, very sorry" over 2022 nuclear use, NATO ex-military chief confirms. Russian forces in Ukraine would be "taken out conventionally" by the Americans, the Kremlin was warned amid Kherson retreat, Admiral Bauer says

"Ukraine might have won" if NATO had acted in 2022, ex-top chief says. Admiral Rob Bauer says the West armed Ukraine too slowly to win—and never had a strategy for victory at all

Humanitarian and social impact

"The worst environmental catastrophe since Chornobyl disaster": Three years after Russia destroyed Kakhovka Dam, real death toll is still unknown. On 6 June 2023, Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant while occupying the dam, flooding 80 settlements, forcing nearly 4,000 people to evacuate, and killing at least 34.

Russian pilot saw man in Ukraine's Kramatorsk and chose to kill him. FPV drones are operated in real time. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has formally classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.

Read our earlier daily review here.