Ukraine Update…481 days into the Russian move on Ukraine…The Offense…..

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday during a trip to Beijing that he welcomes China playing a role toward a just and durable peace in Ukraine. He added that he and European leaders “received assurances from China” that it will not provide lethal assistance to Russia in the invasion.

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

• The United States remains concerned that “Chinese companies” may be providing technology to help Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, Blinken said during a Monday news conference, adding that he is continuing to discuss this issue with his Chinese counterparts. His visit to China comes amid high tensions between Washington and Beijing.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the war in Ukraine “will take a long time” and the world should be prepared. Scholz said Germany is adapting its policies for a long-term conflict and will “support Ukraine as long as it is necessary.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking with Scholz in Berlin, said that if Ukraine’s counteroffensive is successful, it will be in a stronger position in any eventual negotiations to end the conflict. On Tuesday, Stoltenberg will meet with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius at the Jagel Air Base, which is partly hosting Air Defender 23, the largest air deployment exercise in NATO’s history.
• Drone photos and information obtained by the Associated Press suggest that Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to blow up the Kakhovka dam,whose destruction has been catastrophic for residents and the local environment. Both Ukraine and Russia have blamed the other side for the disaster.
• A new trial began Monday in Russia for the country’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who is serving a sentence totaling more than a decade for charges widely viewed as trumped up. Held in a maximum-security penal colony, the latest trial focuses on extremism charges, which could extend his sentence by decades. Media and even Navalny’s parents were barred from the trial room. In a statement Monday, Navalny launched a mass “campaign” that aims to turn Russian public opinion “against the war. And against Putin.”
• The European Commission is set to state in a report this week that Ukraine has fulfilled two of seven conditions to begin E.U. membership talks, Reuters reported, citing two E.U. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Ukraine was granted E.U. candidate status in June 2022, and the seven conditions include those relating to judiciary reform, anti-corruption and media legislation.

• The United Nations accused Moscow of continuing to block humanitarian aid shipments to Russian-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine affected by the Kakhovka dam collapse. “Aid cannot be denied to people who need it,” Denise Brown, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday blamed security issues around the site for the holdup. “There are a lot of questions there, how to cross, where the line of contact is, how to ensure security. You know there is constant shelling there,” he said. The death toll from the dam collapse and resulting flooding rose to 17 on Sunday, with more than 3,600 people displaced, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
• Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar said the situation in eastern Ukraine is “difficult.” She said on Telegram that Russia is continuing an active offensive in the directions of Lyman and Kupiansk — with intense shelling and “hot battles,” she added — in what she said was part of Russia’s plans to reach the borders of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
• Russia struck Kherson overnight, causing a number of fires to break out in the city, Ukrainian authorities said. Serhii Kruk, head of the State Emergency Service, said Monday that a gas tank caught fire at a gas station in the city and that another fire broke out at the site of a local business. As The Washington Post has reported, Kherson has been devastated by floods caused by the collapse of the Kakhovka dam and by repeated bombings in recent weeks.
• It is “highly likely” that Russia has started relocating troops from the eastern bank of the Dnieper River to other regions in the wake of flooding from the dam collapse, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. Russia occupies one side of the river, and Ukrainian forces have staged several attempts to cross it and regain control. Now, the ministry said, Russia is moving “elements of its Dnipro Group of Forces” to Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut, probably reflecting “Russia’s perception that a major Ukrainian attack across the Dnipro is now less likely following the collapse of Kakhovka Dam and the resulting flooding.”

• NATO is “not discussing” issuing a formal membership invitation to Ukraine at the alliance’s upcoming summit in Lithuania, Stoltenberg said Monday. However, “what we are discussing is how to move Ukraine closer to NATO,” he said. Zelensky has called on NATO to greenlight Ukraine’s membership bid at the July summit, but as The Post has reported, the alliance is divided about what to offer Kyiv. While Stoltenberg has previously implied that a formal invitation will not be on the table at the Lithuania meeting, his Monday comment is more definite in tone.
• Britain strengthened its sanctions regime against Russia on Monday, introducing legislation that allows it to continue sanctions until Moscow pays compensation to Ukraine. In a statement Monday, the British government said new regulations would allow sanctions to be “used for the express purpose of promoting the payment of compensation by Russia.” It also announced a route for sanctioned Russians to voluntarily apply to donate their assets toward Ukrainian reconstruction. The measures “show the UK is ready and able to clear new paths to ensure Russian money reaches Ukrainian people,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said in the statement.
• Zelensky spoke with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a conference for Ukraine in London. The two leaders spoke by phone Monday, as the British capital prepares to host the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Wednesday and Thursday. Sunak told Zelensky “that he believed NATO members would demonstrate a strong signal of support for Ukraine” at the NATO summit next month, Downing Street said.
• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the leaders of Ukraine and Russia “agreed to further engagements” following the visit of an African delegation to both countries last week. The delegation, made up of leaders and envoys from seven African countries, visited Kyiv and St. Petersburg and presented a proposal to end the conflict, Ramaphosa said in a statement. Putin rebuffed the delegation’s proposal over the weekend, Reuters reported. Peskov said Monday that the “dialogue with Africans will continue,” including at a Russia-Africa summit in July in St. Petersburg. “There are topics that can be implemented in the ideas proposed by the representatives of the delegations,” he said.

Ukraine clamps down on corruption as Western supporters cast watchful eye: Officials in Ukraine are waging a war on corruption, David L. Stern reports, as Kyiv attempts to reassure Western donors that foreign aid is not being lost to graft and works to strengthen Ukraine’s path to European Union membership….

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