Ukraine Update…497 days into the Russian move on Ukraine…Ukraine in NATO?

Earlier Wednesday, Kyiv and Moscow traded allegations that a false-flag attack was looming at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian troops placed “objects resembling explosives” on the roof of the power plant, Zelensky said in his nightly address. Russia accused Ukraine of planning an attack on the plant Wednesday using “a warhead stuffed with nuclear waste,” the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency reported. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.

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

• Zelensky said that he would have wanted to launch the Ukrainian counteroffensive “much earlier” but that some areas lacked “the relevant weapons.” While he said he was grateful for other nations’ support, he said he made U.S. and European leaders aware that he had hoped for an earlier start to the counteroffensive. “Everyone understood that if the counteroffensive unfolds later, then a bigger part of our territory will be mined,” Zelensky told CNN. “We give our enemy the time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines.”
• Zelensky denied allegations that Ukraine was planning a false-flag attack on the nuclear plant, saying in his nightly address Tuesday that “the only source of danger to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Russia and no one else.” On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned of “sabotage” by Ukrainians, though he did not provide a basis for the claims. Fighting is ongoing near the plant, where fears of nuclear fallout have heightened in recent weeks. The plant lost connection to its main power line Tuesday morning, forcing it to rely on a recently reinstalled backup power supply, Ukraine’s national nuclear operator, Energoatom, said on Telegram.
• Biden met with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House on Wednesday, ahead of a major NATO summit set to take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11 and 12. “I want to reiterate the United States fully, fully, fully supports Sweden’s membership in NATO. The bottom line is simple: Sweden is going to make our alliance stronger,” Biden told Kristersson. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resisted Sweden’s NATO membership — which requires the support of all alliance members — because of what it sees as Sweden’s leniency toward the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey.
• Russian and U.S. officials have had discussions on a potential prisoner swap that could include detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Peskov said Tuesday, though they “don’t want them to be discussed in public.” Russian officials have previously indicated their willingness to discuss swapping U.S.-held prisoners for Gershkovich. On Monday, 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.
• A Russian investigative journalist and a human rights lawyer were brutally beaten in Russia’s Chechnya republic as they were en route to a high-profile trial Tuesday. A vehicle blocked their car while they were heading from the airport in the Chechen capital to the courthouse to attend the trial of a mother of exiled opposition activists. A group of masked men beat them and threatened to shoot them, according to rights groups and the journalist’s employer.

• Ukrainian forces have gained ground in villages around the Russian-held city of Bakhmut, Andriy Kovalov, a spokesman for the general staff of the Ukrainian military, said Wednesday. “In the area of Klishchiivka, they have partial success. They are entrenching themselves on the achieved lines,” Kovalov said in the staff’s daily update.
• Renewed attention on two high-ranking generals in Russia’s military after the Wagner rebellion shows how the failed mutiny “worsened existing fault lineswithin Russia’s national security community,” the British Defense Ministry said. Gen. Sergei Surovikin and Col. Gen. Yunus-bek Yevkurov have withdrawn from public view since the mutiny, the ministry said. Surovikin had good relations with Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and Yevkurov was seen talking to Prigozhin when Wagner forces took over the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, The Post has reported.
• Two Russian regions were attacked early Wednesday,and one person was wounded, authorities there said. Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the town of Valuyki — about 110 miles east of Ukraine’s Kharkiv — was shelled for “more than an hour.” The attack damaged a power line and eight homes, he said. A woman was injured in the chest by shrapnel and was taken to a hospital for treatment, he added. The governor of the Kursk region said the village of Tetkino was also attacked. A house and a school were damaged, but no one was injured, he said. The Post could not independently verify the claims. Belgorod and Kursk, both close to the Ukrainian border, have also come under fire in the past.
• One person was killed and 25 injured in a strike in Russian-occupied Makiivka, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday evening, the Russian-appointed local authority said in a Telegram post. Denis Pushilin said that “a number of apartment buildings, hospital buildings, schools and kindergartens were damaged” in the apparent attack. Late Tuesday, the Ukrainian military’s strategic communications office said its forces destroyed a Russian formation in Makiivka, Reuters reported. It is not immediately clear whether they were referring to the same attack.

• Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and Britain jointly asked the International Court of Justice to open proceedings against Iran over the 2020 shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger jet. Iran shot down the plane in January 2020, killing all 176 passengers. In a statement released Wednesday, the ICJ said the four applicant nations said Iran violated the Montreal Convention, a treaty that deals with civil aviation safety, and also failed to conduct a fair criminal investigation and prosecution.
• The leaders of Italy and Poland said Ukraine must receive “real security guarantees” to achieve peace.According to Reuters, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said during a visit to Warsaw: “We are in perfect agreement with Poland on the need for real security guarantees for Ukraine, also because offering real security guarantees to Ukraine is also a key condition for the achievement in the future of a just and long-lasting peace.” Italy, Poland and other members of NATO will meet next week in Lithuania. Ukrainian officials hope for more clarity on the next steps in their membership bid, but as The Post has reported, member states disagree on the issue.
• The United Nations said it remains committed to agreements on grain and fertilizer exports from Ukraine and Russia. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, an agreement among Russia, Ukraine, the United Nations and Turkey to unblock grain exports from Ukraine, is up for renewal on July 17. Rebeca Grynspan, the secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, said the initiative and a memorandum of understanding on Russian food and fertilizer exports are needed to “to continue bringing down” global food prices, Reuters reported. Russia previously suggested it would not renew the Black Sea deal unless it received more help exporting its own grain and fertilizer. On Wednesday, Peskov said that “Russia will announce its decision on the grain deal in due time, while there is still time.”
• The Altai Project, a U.S.-based charity, has been banned in Russia, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced Wednesday. Russian officials said the goals of the organization — the latest in a string of NGOs declared “undesirable” by the Kremlin — include “sabotaging the construction of the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline,” a project intended to deliver natural gas from Russia to China through Mongolia. The Altai Project’s self-stated purpose is to preserve nature and assist Indigenous people in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The organization “stands in solidarity” with Ukraine, according to its website…..

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