Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russia could be ready to attack NATO in three years, Norway warns (2024)

Russia's two largest banks expect to open branches and offices in the regions of Ukraine that Moscow claimed to have annexed by July.

Sberbank CEO German Gref said in Russia's upper house of parliament the bank would be "present throughout the whole country's territory".

While VTB CEO Andrei Kostin said they would open two offices in Luhansk in July and had plans to start serving clients in Donetsk and the port city of Mariupol by the end of the year.

For context: Vladimir Putin moved to annex Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in September 2022, following what Ukraine said were sham referendums.

The move was condemned by many countries as illegal.

Russian forces only partly control the four regions.

Manufacturers and distributors need to improve compliance with Russia-related sanctions, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo has said.

American companies in particular need to pay more attention to their supply chains to ensure they are not complicit with Russia's evasion of sanctions over Ukraine, Mr Adeyemo said in an interview with CNBC.

He said manufacturers of microelectronics and machine tools especially needed to step up compliance to help cut off supplies of "dual use" goods to Russia, including from Chinese producers.

Freight forwarders and distributors need to do the same and financial institutions need to look at their relationships with small and medium-sized banks in "countries of concern" because Moscow is looking for ways around US sanctions, Adeyemo said.

VolodymyrZelenskyy's chief of staff has said that using Westernweapons to strike inside Russia was a vital decision that wouldimpact Moscow's tactical aviation and its offensive ability in border regions.

"This will impact the conduct of the war, planning ofcounteroffensive actions, and will weaken Russians' abilities touse their forces in the border areas," Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

Russia has said the move would mark an escalation to the conflict and has threatened war with NATO if Western weapons are used in its airspace.

ByIvor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Dozens of Alexei Navalny supporters have visited his grave to lay flowers and pay tribute to the late Kremlin critic on what would have been his 48th birthday.

The opposition leader died at an Arctic prison colony in February, prompting outrage from Western governments.

Nearly four months on, his family say the cause of his death remains unexplained.

His widow Yulia Navalnaya has accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, and last week his allies called for additional sanctions to punish the Russian president's inner circle.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in his death. According to his death certificate, he died of natural causes.

Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, as well as his mother-in-law Alla Abrosimova, were among those who gathered at his grave in the Borisovskoye cemetery in southeast Moscow today.

Video posted by SOTAvision on the social media platform Telegram shows a memorial service led by Dmitry Safronov, a priest who was previously banned from clerical duties by the Russian Orthodox Church for presiding over a similar service in March, which marked 40 days since the activist's death.

According to the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, three police officers were on duty near the cemetery but they did not make any arrests.

Having been convicted of multiple charges, ranging from fraud to extremism, Navalny was serving sentences totalling more than 30 years when he died.

His Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) is outlawed in Russia, and has been accused by the authorities of having links to the CIA.

What remains of his team now operates in exile.

Polish farmers have resumed their protest blockade at the Ukrainian border crossing due to agricultural imports from the country.

Farmers in Poland have staged sporadic demonstrations at the border since last autumn.

The demonstrators are blocking trucks from leaving Ukraine.

Cargo vehicles heading to Ukraine are allowed to enter by 12 trucks per 12 hours and by four trucks with humanitarian aid per hour, the Ukrainian Border Guard Service said.

Other vehicles are continuing as usual.

"Representatives of Polish farmers demand reduced imports of Ukrainian crops to Polish territory from Ukraine," the Border Guard Service said.

Disputes over crop imports have strained the relationship between Warsaw and Kyiv, with both countries being major agricultural producers.

Polish farmers have complained that Ukrainian products create uneven competition, particularly since the EU lifted tariffs in 2022.

Poland banned the import of several products from Ukraine, including grain, corn, and rapeseed, in 2023.

In our last post, we brought you news that Microsoft had made allegations in the New York Times that Russia was targeting the upcoming Olympics with a disinformation campaign.

Moscow has now branded those accusations "absolute slander", with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying there is no substance to them.

Russia is widely accused of having waged disinformation campaigns over the years, often targeting elections in the United States, Europe and Britain.

Moscow has always denied it uses disinformation to influence public opinion.

The Paris Olympics are being targeted by a Russian-linked disinformation campaign, according to the New York Times.

Since last summer, efforts have been under way by a hacker group named Storm-1679, the paper reports.

The campaign "began in earnest" when a documentary was released with a doctored International Olympic Committee (IOC) logo, along with an AI-powered impersonation of Tom Cruise's voice.

The hackers "are trying to cultivate an anticipation of violence", said Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft's Digital Threat Analysis Centre.

"They want people to be fearful of going to the Olympics."

Storm-1679 makes around three to eight disinformation videos a week, Mr Watts told the newspaper, many of which appear as if they come from media outlets such as the BBC or Al Jazeera.

Both Russia and Belarus have been banned from competing in the Olympics over the war in Ukraine, but some athletes from those countries will be allowed to compete as "neutral athletes", the IOC announced in March.

The Paris games will take place between 26 July and 11 August.

The Kremlin has said the peace talks set to take place in Switzerland this month are "absurd" as Russia isn't invited.

Moscow claimed it was understandable that some countries were declining to takepart in the summit on Ukraine this monthbecause the gathering lacked clear goals.

Ukraine says more than 100 countries and organisations haveagreed to take part in the summit on 15-16 June.

The summit, which will take place at an Alpine resort near Lucerne, is intended to create a framework for lasting peace and a roadmap for Russia's eventual participation in the process.

Kyiv decided against inviting Russia because it does not trust Moscow.

China, which has grown closer to Russia after Western sanctions brought in since the invasion of Ukraine, has also said it won't be attending.

Poland has claimed Belarus and its ally Russia are behind a recent surge in migrants from the former Soviet state into the European Union.

The number of attempted illegal border crossings from Belarus into Poland has shot up in recent months from only a handful to almost 400 a day, Polish officials say.

Poland's border guards have also described increasingly aggressive behaviour by some migrants on the Belarusian side of the border, posting online videos of some throwing rocks, logs and even burning wood at Polish troops.

There have been cases of soldiers and guards ending up in hospital, and some have needed stitches after being stabbed or cut by knife-wielding assailants.

Last Tuesday, near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne, officials said a migrant reached between the bars of the 16-foot-high barrier and stabbed a soldier in the ribs.

The government in Warsaw sees the new push at the border as an orchestrated attempt by Russia and Belarus to fuel anti-migrant sentiment, which could in turn boost far-right parties in the EU parliamentary vote.

"We are not dealing with [just] any asylum seekers here, we are dealing with a coordinated, very efficient - on many levels - operation to break the Polish border and attempts to destabilise the country," Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said last week while visiting troops at the border.

Ukraine's use of Western-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia will not "contribute to escalation", German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.

Germany has long opposed lifting the ban on Ukraine's use of Western weapons to target Russia, but changed course last month.

A German government spokesperson told Deutsche Welle on 31 May that Ukraine could use German-supplied weapons to hit legitimate targets in Russia.

Berlin's defence minister Boris Pistorius later clarified that the decision applied to the area around Kharkiv, which has recently become the target of a heavy Russian offensive.

"We are certain that it will not contribute to an escalation because, as Joe Biden has also described, it is only a matter of being able to defend a large city like Kharkiv," Mr Scholz said.

In the past, Chancellor Scholz has cited a fear of escalation as among the principal reasons for limiting Germany's support for Ukraine.

"I think it is clear to everyone that this must be possible. Under international law, this has always been possible anyway," he added.