Unfortunately, left unmentioned by The Guardian was Tymoshenko's 2014 'Nuland' moment — a leaked phone conversation between her and a top security official where she called for the killing of 8 million Russians residing in Ukraine.

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Ukraine preparing ban on classic Russian literature, officials say.

Ukraine is working on regulatory measures that would enable the removal of over 100 million Russian literature books, including the works of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, from the country's public schools and libraries, said Oleksandra Koval — the head of the Ukrainian Book Institute (a subsidiary of the Ministry of Culture).

According to Koval, Russian poets and writers such as Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky laid the foundation for the Russian world and Russian messianism. "This is very harmful literature that can influence people's views," she emphasized.

Koval's comments were later reinforced by Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Andrii Vitrenko, who went on to say that any literature that "praises the orc army" will disappear from the country's education programs. Vitrenko then cited Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" as one example.

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Putin acknowledges mission to ‘take back’ Russian lands, draws parallels to Peter the Great.

During opening remarks at a meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists on Thursday, the Russian president unexpectedly delved into geopolitics, speaking of Russia’s place in a rapidly changing world.

According to Vladimir Putin, the world has always been divided into sovereign states and colonies, with no in-between. The colonies, he argued, have no historical prospects or chances of survival in the arduous and never-ending geopolitical struggle.

In Putin's view, Russia has always remained at the forefront of global transformations and, even in periods of retreat, gathered its strengths for a new advance forward.

Perhaps the most significant part of Putin's comments came when he drew parallels with Tsar Peter the Great, saying that today's Russia, just like in the times of Peter I, is on a historic quest to “take back and strengthen” its lands.

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Assad: Russia is fighting to secure an international equilibrium that the West seeks to upend.

The West’s war against Russia has been ongoing since before World War I because Russia plays a vital role in ensuring the existence of an international balance of power, says Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

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“If we say we are for Russia, they will shoot us.”

Kids, reportedly from the city of Kupyansk in Kharkov oblast, talk about their life in a war zone.

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Russia cuts interest rate to pre-war level and further softens capital controls as the economy continues to demonstrate strong resilience to Western sanctions.

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Biden blames record-high inflation on “Putin's tax.”

President Biden said the United States "has never seen anything like Putin’s tax on both food and gas," after the Labor Department announced Friday that inflation hit a new four-decade high in May.

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A Russian meme in response to Biden’s comments about a “Putin’s tax” is making the rounds online:

Mishustin: Mr. President, in accordance with your orders, we imposed a tax on gas and electricity in the U.S.

Putin: And the food?

Mishustin: That was done in May.

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The Putin’s tax meme.

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American historian and Yale professor Timothy Snyder argues that Russia is out to starve the world, and that WWII was actually all about Ukraine.

From Snyder’s Twitter thread:

The idea that controlling Ukrainian grain can change the world is not new. Both Stalin and Hitler wished to do so. […] Controlling Ukrainian agriculture — this was in fact Hitler's central war aim.

Putin's hunger plan is meant to generate refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, areas usually fed by Ukraine. This would generate instability in the EU.

When the food riots begin, and as starvation spreads, Russian propaganda will blame Ukraine, and call for Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine to be recognized, and for all sanctions to be lifted.

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❗️Medvedev: Ukraine may soon disappear from the world map.

From Medvedev’s Telegram post:

I saw the news that Ukraine wants to receive LNG from its overseas owners with a 2-year payment deferral under the Lend-Lease Program, otherwise they will simply freeze in the winter.

But who said that in two years Ukraine will even exist on the world map? Although the Americans don’t care anymore — they have invested so much into the “anti-Russia” project that nothing else really matters for them.

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❗️Putin set to deliver a major speech on the state of the world at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17.

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SPIEF, Russia’s premiere economic forum, kicks off in St. Petersburg.

Western investors are out.
The Taliban is in.

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Ukrainian losses in Donbas are reaching astronomical levels, with up to 1,000 soldiers killed or wounded daily.

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SPIEF 2022 ROUNDUP

Today is the last day of the 25th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum under the theme “New Opportunities in a New World”. Here are some key takeaways:

SPIEF is an event for business leaders, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and others to network, discuss, and make deals. This year, the forum took place against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, global volatility, and unprecedented sanctions against Russia. Despite this, some 14,000 participants attended SPIEF in 2022, slightly up from 13,500 last year.

In 2021, 890 agreements were signed at SPIEF, valuing 3.271 trillion rubles. This year more than 690 agreements totally worth over 5.6 trillion rubles ($99.8 bln) have been concluded.

Vladimir Putin also gave a highly anticipated speech at the plenary session on June 17th:

▪️“The era of unipolarity is over.” What this will bring in the future remains to be seen. The dynamism of the current moment is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and leaders;
▪️Russia “will normalise the economic situation” and has already “stabilised the financial markets, the banking system and the trade network”;
▪️“The dire forecasts for the prospects of the Russian economy […] have not materialized”;
▪️“After peaking at 17.8 percent, inflation now stands at 16.7 percent and continues dropping”;
▪️“The [Russian] federal budget has a surplus of 1.5 trillion rubles and the consolidated budget – a surplus of 3.3 trillion ruble”;
▪️The West is waging an “economic Blitzkrieg” against Russia, which Putin said has not gone well for the European Union, with calculable losses of $400 billion due to blowback from sanctions;
▪️Western economies continue to print money. US money supply grew by 38% in just 2 years. 20% in the EU over the same period. This policy is not sustainable, and Western Leaders, not Russia, are to blame for inflation and rising prices in their countries.

The full speech includes more details, also regarding the war in Donbass. React with 👍 if you would like to hear more about SPIEF 2022.
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U.S. Embassy in Moscow gets new address, named after the DPR.

"The United States Embassy in Russia has a new official address," the Moscow City Hall said in a statement.

The embassy is now located at the Donetsk People's Republic Square, referring to a breakaway region in eastern Ukraine that Russia recognized as independent on February 22.

The new address was chosen in a public vote with the participation of nearly 280,000 Moscovites, the city hall noted.

In February 2018, a street outside the Russian Embassy in Washington was named after Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician who was shot dead outside the Kremlin in 2015.

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Ukraine receives first batch of HIMARS from U.S.

“HIMARS have arrived to Ukraine. Thank you to my U.S. colleague and friend Secretary Austin for these powerful tools! Summer will be hot for Russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

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Some in Congress are now openly calling for the breakup of Russia.

Yesterday, the US government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or Helsinki Commission, held a Congressional briefing titled "Decolonizing Russia". Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) opened up the presentation, which may be the first in a series, by claiming that Russians “have in essence colonized their own country,” arguing that Russia is “not a strict nation, in the sense that we’ve known in the past.”

Present at the meeting was also Casey Michel, who last month authored a piece in The Atlantic titled "Decolonize Russia" and which seems to have been the impetus for the briefing. According to Michel, decolonizing Russia is not solely about "partitioning" and "dismembering" the Russian Federation, but about a supposed authentic commitment to "anti-imperialism."

Which countries would the proponents of this idea like to carve out of Russia? The meeting mentioned Chechnya, Tatarstan, Dagestan, and Circassia. Siberia is to be divided into several Republics.

As we've highlighted in a previous post, some voices in the US/NATO camp have adopted a pro-Balkanization line with respect to the Russian Federation, just as the West sought the breakup of Yugoslavia some 30 years ago. What differs today is the openness with which this is advocated. The language of "decolonization" smudges over what are, in effect, old neo-conservative talking points and foreign policy positions. It's "woke"/"intersectional" neo-conservatism.

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Africans praise Russia, say Ukraine “sold out to the West.”

Speaking to CNN, influential MK veteran Obbey Mabena referred to the Russians as the first white people “who treated us as equal beings.”

“Russia is our friend. Our friend’s enemy is our enemy,” he summed up.

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Ukraine releases first footage of U.S.-supplied HIMARS firing on Russian positions.

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Terminal Tower in downtown Cleveland unexpectedly lights up in colors of the Russian flag.

The photo was taken by one of our editors on Friday night.

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