Ukraine Update…496 days into the Russian move on Ukraine…Ukraine F-16’s are Far away…..

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Russian officials have previously indicated their willingness to discuss swapping U.S.-held prisoners for Gershkovich. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in April that such conversations could take place only after Gershkovich’s espionage trial ends. The Journal, Gershkovich and U.S. officials have denied the spying charges and demanded the reporter’s release.

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

• Peskov’s comments came a day after the U.S. ambassador to Russia visited Gershkovich in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. The reporter appeared “in good health” and “remains resilient despite the circumstances,” the U.S. Embassy said. Gershkovich was detained in March. The visit is the second by Ambassador Lynne Tracy since Gershkovich was detained; a Russian court rejected Gershkovich’s appeal last month.
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost connection to its main power line Tuesday morning, forcing it to rely on a recently installed backup, nuclear power company Energoatom said on Telegram. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Russian forces are considering triggering an explosion at the site, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The Ukrainian army’s strategic command said Tuesday Russia had placed “objects similar to explosive devices” on two of the plant’s power units, alleging Russia intended to detonate them and blame Ukraine for doing so. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Russia’s state nuclear energy company, accused Ukraine in turn of planning an attack on the plant July 5 using “a warhead stuffed with nuclear waste,” RIA Novosti reported. The allegation echoes repeated Russian claims that Ukraine plans to use radioactive bombs.
• NATO allies agreed to extend Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s term until October 2024, Stoltenberg confirmed Tuesday. This is the fourth extension for Stoltenberg, who has steered the alliance through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It comes a week ahead of a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Zelensky and Stoltenberg spoke over the phone following the announcement, the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram. “We coordinated our positions on the eve of the NATO Summit,” Zelensky wrote. “Now is the time for powerful decisions and concrete steps in this direction.”
• Putin claimed that Russians showed “a united front against the attempted armed rebellion.” He was speaking virtually to leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian security and development alliance formed in 2001 by Russia, China and other states. Putin also thanked SCO member states “who expressed their support for the actions of the Russian leadership” during Wagner’s mutiny.
• Zelensky alleged without providing evidence that the Kremlin, via the Georgian government, is trying to kill Mikheil Saakashvili, who was the pro-West president of Georgia during Russia’s 2008 invasion. Saakashvili, who is imprisoned in Georgia on abuse-of-power charges, is a citizen of Ukraine and previously served as governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, summoned the Georgian ambassador for a “tough conversation” about Saakashvili’s imprisonment, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry wrote on Telegram. Human Rights Watch says Saakashvili’s trial occurred outside international legal standards.
• Russian air defenses repelled a drone attack in the Moscow region, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. Sobyanin said no one was injured and all drones were eliminated. Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport said it restricted landings and takeoffs shortly after 5 a.m. local time “for technical reasons beyond the control of the airport,” and that some flights were rerouted. Flights had resumed their normal schedule by 8 a.m., Sobyanin said.

• Ukraine’s military hit what it said was an ammunitions warehouse in the Russian-occupied city of Makiivka in Donetsk, the Ukrainian army’s strategic command said Sunday. Videos shared on Ukrainian Telegram channels showed a large fiery cloud of smoke billowing over the city.
• Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region injured at least 43 people, the region’s governor Oleh Synyehubov wrote on Telegram. About a dozen children were treated after the attack on a residential building in Pervomaiskyi, about 40 miles south of Kharkiv city, he said.
• A Russia MiG-31 fighter jet crashed during a training flight over the Kamchatka Territory, state media outlet RIA Novosti reported. Search and rescue forces were headed to the plane, which was not carrying ammunition. The Kamchatka Peninsula lies along Russia’s southeastern coast, separated from Alaska by the Bering Sea and from Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk.
• A drone attack on the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine killed three people and left 21 injured, the mayor, Oleksandr Lysenko, said on Telegram. The hits by Iranian-made Shahed drones damaged two apartment buildings and an administrative building, as well as a school, according to the regional military administration. July 4 was declared a day of mourning in Sumy, the mayor said.
• The founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, said his march on Moscow was a success in an audio message, his first since calling off the mutiny aimed at Russian military leaders. In the message, posted on a Telegram channel closely associated with Wagner, he said his fighters will win the “next victories” in the war in Ukraine.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu credited the loyalty of his forces for the Wagner mutiny’s defeat, in his first public comments since the rebellion. “These plans failed primarily because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to the oath and military duty,” Shoigu said, according to the state-owned Zvezda TV network. Moscow was rattled by the failed rebellion, which ended with Prigozhin agreeing to leave the country.

• A Russian journalist and a human rights lawyer were attacked in Chechnya, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper said. Novaya Gazeta — which was Russia’s last independent newspaper before it was forced to suspend operations amid a crackdown on coverage of the Ukraine war — said that Alexander Nemov and Elena Milashina were “severely” beaten in Grozny, the Chechen capital. They were on their way to hear the verdict in the trial of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of a Chechen human rights activist, who was abducted by Chechen security agents from her home in Nizhny Novgorod in January. Musayeva’s son, Abubakar Yangulbayev, is an exiled former lawyer for the Committee Against Torture and a critic of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The apparent attack is part of a broader crackdown on any critics of Russian authorities that has gained pace during the war.

As war nears Crimea, Russian occupiers are trying to lure tourists: Tourism-dependent Crimea is looking ahead to a grim summer holiday season as the war grinds on, Francesca Ebel and Natalia Abbakumova report. Many visitors, concerned by recent attacks, are canceling their summer bookings to the Black Sea peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Crimea accounted for only 1 percent of Russian hotel bookings this year, according to the online booking portal Ostrovok.ru, down from 3 percent last year and 19 percent from the year before.

“There are indeed fewer people in Crimea than usual,” said Nikita Krimskiy, a tour guide in Yalta. “Many people were intimidated by military news and various ‘fakes.’ They have changed their plans and decided to not go to Crimea this season.” Some all-inclusive hotels have lowered their prices by as much as 60 percent. Others have simply decided not to open this summer. Sixty percent of Crimean tourism businesses lost money last year, official data shows, with combined losses of $10 million as tourist revenue dropped by about a third…..

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Russian President Putin keeps his distance from his subjects for his own personal safety…..

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is said to work out of identically constructed offices at multiple residences so that photographs don’t reveal his location.

His assistants undergo such a rigorous selection process that a former bodyguard once called them “a caste of chosen people.”

And more than three years after the pandemic’s beginning, the Kremlin has continued to enforce a “clean zone” around the president, requiring many who come near him to quarantine for days.

For decades, people who know him say, Mr. Putin has been remarkably focused on his personal security and on preventing rivals from using the powers of government against him. Now, in the aftermath of last month’s short-lived rebellion led by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner private mercenary group that fought for Russia in Ukraine, Mr. Putin appears to be scrambling to coup-proof his system once more….

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“Short term, Putin has achieved a win here,” said Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University at St. Petersburg. “But, in the long term, this is a destabilizing situation.”…

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Speculation has swirled over the fate of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a senior military official close to the mercenary chief. While some reports, including preliminary ones from American officials, said he might have been detained or arrested, several close observers of Mr. Putin’s system predicted that if the general had been held for questioning, he would soon be let go.

Arresting generals “would throw the army into disarray,” said a person who has known Mr. Putin for decades, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared repercussions for discussing sensitive matters….

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, analysts say, will act as a further destabilizing force. It was the battlefield role of Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary force that apparently prompted Mr. Putin to overlook the warlord’s criticism of the war effort. Now, the Kremlin may face the challenge of waging war in Ukraine without parts of Wagner — and maintaining the balance in an increasingly fragile system…..

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