Ukraine Update…478 days into the Russian move on Ukraine….US Military aid to Hungary stoped on their Sweden NATO application hold….

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

• Austin toured U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden, home of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, and met with U.S. and allied forces focused on supporting Ukraine. The Pentagon said in a statement that Austin spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Their call came ahead of a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting this month in Brussels, which the Pentagon said “will focus on bolstering Ukraine’s air defense and other near-term capability priorities, as well as training and sustainment to enhance Ukraine’s enduring strength over the long term.”
• Russia fired four cruise missiles at Odessa from the Black Sea, three of which were shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force said. One missile struck a civilian object, it said. The air force said Russia also launched 10 attack drones toward Ukraine’s southeast. The Ukrainians claimed that nine of them were shot down.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for tougher sanctions on manufacturers of missile components following a Russian attack on his hometown of Kryvyi Rih that killed 12 people and injured more than 30. Local officials declared Wednesday a day of mourning. Zelensky said some 50 components — mostly microelectronics — in one of the missiles that struck Kryvyi Rih were produced in countries outside Russia. It is less expensive, he said, to cut off the supply of components than to spend money on air defense.
• Germany’s much-anticipated first national security strategy states that Russia is “for now the most significant threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area.” The strategy, unveiled Wednesday, lays out Germany’s foreign policy and defense priorities in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but contains few concrete steps for achieving them. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described it as “not an end point but a starting point.” It includes a written commitment to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, in line with Germany’s preexisting pledge to NATO, but qualifies that this would be “an average over a multi-year period.”

• Russian rocket attacks killed three people and injured three others in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region,according to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. The early-morning strikes targeted the cities of Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka in northern Donetsk, he said. Dozens of houses were also destroyed or damaged, Kyrylenko added.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the Kremlin might try to seize more Ukrainian territory bordering Russia to create a “sanitary zone,” but he added that there is currently “no need” for another troop mobilization. He made the comments during a meeting with Russian military bloggers and correspondents Tuesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said this would be necessary to protect Russian territory as Kyiv “gets more sophisticated and long-range weapons” from allies.
• Britain’s Defense Ministry reported a recent rise “in Russian tactical combat air sorties, especially over southern Ukraine.” According to the ministry, the increase over the past two weeks in sorties — the military term for the deployment of aircraft on a mission — is “almost certainly” due to “reports of increased Ukrainian offensive operations, as the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) attempt to support ground troops with airstrikes.” Still, Russian sorties, the ministry notes, are less frequent “than the peak of up to 300 daily missions early in the war.”
• The Ukrainian counteroffensive is taking place in at least three directions, according to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, including around the long-contested city of Bakhmut and along the border between the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Ukrainian troops made “further limited territorial gains” on Tuesday, the D.C.-based think tank said, in some cases advancing a couple hundred meters.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine was “making advances and liberating more land,” but that it wasn’t clear if it would be a turning point for the war. “The progress we see is a testament to the courage and commitment of the Ukrainian forces,” Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of the meeting of Ukrainian allies in Brussels. “It also demonstrates that the support provided by NATO allies is making a real difference on the battlefield as we speak.”

• Russians are almost evenly split between those who think that the invasion of Ukraine has been beneficial or done more harm, according to a new poll by the Russian-based Levada Center in collaboration with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. There is more of a sense that it has been successful since Russia’s recent gains in Bakhmut, the survey found. Accurate measurements of public opinion are difficult in places like Russia, where authorities clamp down on any dissent.
• A delegation of seven African countries will visit Ukraine and Russia to discuss a possible negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said. Putin will meet the delegation on Saturday, Ushakov said. Beforehand, the delegation will visit Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian leaders, he added.
• The U.N. refugee agency recorded its “largest ever increase” in the year-on-year number of forcibly displaced people and said it was driven in large part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Between late 2021 and late 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide — 108.4 million at the end of 2022 — increased by 19 million, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in its yearly trends report. The war in Ukraine contributed to the increase by creating “the fastest displacement crisis, and one of the largest, since the Second World War,” UNHCR said. Some 11.6 million Ukrainians remained displaced at the end of 2022, the agency said.
• A top Republican is halting a $735 million U.S. arms sale to Hungary over the country’s refusal to approve NATO membership for Sweden. The move comes ahead of a NATO summit next month, where Ukraine will be leading the agenda. “For some time now, I have directly expressed my concerns to the Hungarian government regarding its refusal to move forward a vote for Sweden to join NATO,” Sen. James E. Risch (Idaho) said in a statement to The Washington Post. “The fact that it is now June and still not done, I decided that the sale of new U.S. military equipment to Hungary will be on hold,” he added. As the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Risch must approve the sale of the weapons before the process can move forward.

As Kyiv’s counteroffensive heats up, Washington holds its breath: After 16 months of war, and with billions of dollars’ worth of advanced weapons sent, Kyiv’s Western backers are hoping Ukrainian troops can make some strategic gains as they launch a long-awaited counteroffensive, writes Karen DeYoung…..

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