Open Threads

The cost:

Arsen Fedosenko, a talented military photographer, died at the frontlines.

Arsen joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the spring of 2022.

In his last Facebook post on International Journalists day, he wrote:

“Being open. Accepting and putting pain of others through… pic.twitter.com/QNMY5WmIu8

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 10, 2024

Arsen Fedosenko, a talented military photographer, died at the frontlines.

Arsen joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the spring of 2022.

In his last Facebook post on International Journalists day, he wrote:

“Being open. Accepting and putting pain of others through yourself. Staying objective. Earning the trust of the person you’re talking to. Remembering everyone you’ve spoken to for the last time, and their dreams. Doing everything so we know heroes and don’t forget enemies.”

Eternal memory and eternal glory to Ukrainian Hero. Sincere condolences to the family.

Kyiv:

In @mefimus‘s resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by @FT, Nayyem said he was stepping down “due to systemic obstacles that do not allow me to effectively exercise my powers.”

Beginning last November, he said his agency faced “constant opposition, resistance and the…

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 10, 2024

In @mefimus‘s resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by @FT , Nayyem said he was stepping down “due to systemic obstacles that do not allow me to effectively exercise my powers.”

Beginning last November, he said his agency faced “constant opposition, resistance and the creation of artificial obstacles” which he argued has had “a negative impact on the country’s defense capability, cargo logistics, protection of critical infrastructure and export of our goods.”

Here are the details from The Financial Times:

The top Ukrainian official overseeing wartime reconstruction and defence fortifications has resigned, claiming his agency was being systematically undermined by the government.

Mustafa Nayyem’s departure is the latest in a series of personnel changes in Kyiv that have shaken the confidence of western partners in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government and irked some of Ukraine’s own officials.

Nayyem, head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, told the Financial Times that Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal had barred him from participating in the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference on June 11 and 12 in Berlin, where donors will meet to support projects for rebuilding cities and infrastructure destroyed by Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The void left by Nayyem and the absence of an infrastructure minister are likely to prompt questions about Kyiv’s ability and commitment to protect its critical infrastructure as Russian forces continue to conduct air strikes on Ukraine’s power plants and mount offensives in the country’s east. Two agency officials responsible for anti-corruption policy and procurement resigned with Nayyem on Monday.

Six Ukrainian and western officials told the FT that a series of firings, resignations and government reshuffles directed by Zelenskyy in recent months had caused tension between Kyiv and the western partners financing Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction.

All of them told the FT that they had warned Zelenskyy and his government over what they saw as disruptive and inexplicable moves.

“The US and other western partners want a normal, predictable relationship with their Ukrainian counterparts,” one concerned Ukrainian government official told the FT on condition of anonymity. “Right now they are losing trust in Ukraine’s government because of personnel decisions that they do not understand.”

The FT obtained a letter from the prime minister to Nayyem that read: “I agree to your business trip to Berlin . . . The report on the results of the business trip must be submitted within 10 days of its completion.” However, in blue ink, the handwritten words “I do not agree” were added at the top of the page, and the underlined, handwritten words “I do not” were added beside the start of the printed “I agree.” It was signed by Shmyhal and dated June 7, and its authenticity was confirmed by a government official.

Ukrainian officials said political rivalries were at the heart of the government shake-up, but the government said Nayyem’s travel request to Berlin was denied because a meeting to review his agency’s work was scheduled for June 12 in Kyiv. Nayyem’s statements “appear to be an attempt to avoid reporting on today’s critical issues”, a cabinet spokesperson said.

Zelenskyy is expected to attend the conference while in Berlin to deliver a speech to the German parliament. But experts said the absence of the top bureaucrat in charge of Ukraine’s reconstruction was unlikely to sit well with foreign partners at an event focused on rebuilding the country.

“It sends our partners a message that recovery is not a priority any more,” said Hlib Vyshlinsky, the executive director at the Kyiv-based Centre for Economic Strategy.

In his resignation letter, seen by the FT on Monday, Nayyem said he was stepping down “due to systemic obstacles that do not allow me to effectively exercise my powers”.

Beginning last November, he said his agency faced “constant opposition, resistance and the creation of artificial obstacles” which he argued had “a negative impact on the country’s defence capability, cargo logistics, protection of critical infrastructure and export of our goods”.

Two weeks before his resignation in late May, Nayyem gathered two dozen representatives from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other western agencies to tell them he expected to be fired and to have probes launched into the work of the infrastructure ministry under his ally Oleksandr Kubrakov, the former infrastructure minister, according to audio recording obtained by the FT and two people in attendance.

Nayyem is heard in the recording assuring the agency representatives that the numerous projects in which they were involved, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would stay on track, and he encouraged them to work with whoever replaced him. But several western representatives aired their concerns about his looming departure.

“It’s probably our most important partnership as we prepare for the reconstruction of the country and as we work towards this common goal of getting Ukraine back to business, getting exports flowing,” said a woman representing USAID.

Nayyem’s departure follows the dismissal of Kubrakov in May. The two men were in charge of Ukraine’s wartime reconstruction as well as the construction of the country’s “third lines” of defence fortifications to keep the Russians from penetrating deep inside the country. But two Ukrainian officials said that Kubrakov was viewed by Zelenskyy and his office as being too cozy with Washington. Zelenskyy’s office has not commented on Kubrakov’s dismissal, which was approved by parliament.

“This situation is really bad for perception of the Ukrainian government and Ukraine generally. Ukraine is and has to be perceived as unbroken,” Vyshlinsky said. The sacking of Kubrakov and Nayyem’s departure “build an image of weak and unpredictable governance that is unjust to efforts of Ukrainians during these years”.

Kubrakov’s removal sparked a backlash from Ukraine’s biggest western backers in private and in public, according to the six Ukrainian and western officials.

Diplomats from G7 nations as well as current members of the Ukrainian government described frustration over what they said was internal discord and dysfunction plaguing Zelenskyy’s administration and government at a critical moment in the war.

Once a rising star in Zelenskyy’s government and seen as a reformer, Kubrakov was among the Ukrainian officials who signed the UN grain export deal initially agreed with Russia, he had a direct line to the president, and was even asked by Zelenskyy last August to take over as defence minister, according to three officials close to the men.

More at the link.

It’s unclear exactly what is going on here. From the outside, as well as how the various anonymous officials are framing this, Zelenskyy is cleaning house of anyone to cozy with DC. This is happening, however, as very public rifts have developed between Zelenskyy and his team and the Biden administration over a variety of issues. This is something to keep an eye on going forward to see if things get clearer over time.

A counterpoint from Washington Monthly:

If you want a glimpse of a future Ukraine that could be fully part of Europe economically, read this brilliant on-the-ground reporting from ⁦@tamarjacoby⁩ ⁦@monthly⁩ https://t.co/yRpujuVymn

— Paul Glastris (@glastris) June 10, 2024

Here’s the details:

The damage is evident everywhere in Mykolaiv, once a bustling port and shipbuilding hub near the Black Sea, 85 miles east of Odesa. Russian and Ukrainian forces fought hand to hand in and around the city in March 2022, followed by eight months of relentless shelling by the frustrated invading army. In November, Ukrainian troops pushed the Russians out of range, and the invaders never made it to Odesa.

More than two years later, many of the windows in the working-class city are still covered with plywood. Parking lots are pocked with shell craters. There’s a gaping eight-story hole at the center of the empty regional administration building—a reminder of the missiles meant to assassinate popular Governor Vitalii Kim that killed 37 civil servants in late March 2022.

The city’s economic engine—the port—is idle. Russians still control the mouth of the channel that connects Mykolaiv to the Black Sea, and no cargo has come or gone since February 2022. The nearly 300-year-old town teems with displaced persons from southern Ukraine, but a quarter of the city’s prewar population of 480,000 has yet to return.

The war’s impact on the economy wasn’t clear to me until I drove through the battered city with the owner of NicoTex, a small synthetic materials manufacturer. Our destination: his family’s factory on the edge of town. Tired-looking, in jeans and an old windbreaker, Maksim Khomenko described the 2022 siege as we headed north, retracing the route the invaders took as they fought their way into the city, once closed to foreigners for fear that they would steal Soviet military secrets.

The Russians knew their targets: it’s no accident that schools, universities, and medical facilities sustained some of Mykolaiv’s worst hits. Passing the charred shell of what was once a supermarket, Khomenko reminds me how Russian artillery killed and maimed dozens of civilians queued outside stores and at bus stops.

The NicoTex factory is an empty shell. The first thing you notice is the constant clanging. Big sheets of corrugated metal—once components of the walls or roof—still hang from the rafters. The wind bangs them noisily against what’s left of metal walls. Huge piles of burnt felt and other synthetic materials litter the pitted concrete floors. A pack of stray cats and dogs lives in the rubble, squabbling among themselves. The company has no savings, and Khomenko has been searching for help—grants, loans, or investors—since the shelling. But without collateral and with virtually nothing to build on, he has few prospects in sight.

The question that hangs over the firm and the city: When and how will Ukraine be rebuilt? What are its prospects? What will the economy look like when it emerges from the smoke and rubble? Perhaps the most important question, to be discussed this week as international donors, investors, and government officials convene in Berlin for the third annual Ukraine Recovery Conference: will reconstruction help Ukraine shake off the legacy of the Soviet past and emerge as a fully Western economy?

The shells were still falling and Russian troops were still visible across the river when Denmark decided to help Mykolaiv rebuild. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to address the Danish parliament by video link on the afternoon of March 29, 2022, just a month into the war but well into the Russian destruction of Mykolaiv. That was the morning missiles gutted the governor’s office. Sickening photos of what the invaders had wrought spread worldwide, and Danes were sympathetic when Zelensky proposed a recovery partnership with the port city.

“It was an unusual idea, to say the least,” recalls Ole Egberg Mikkelsen, the Danish ambassador to Ukraine. Few international donors focus their aid locally. Most spend months planning and preparing before they commit to help. But popular opinion in Denmark was, and remains, overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine. A nation of just 6 million people, it has sent more military aid than any country save the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. By midsummer 2022, Danish assistance was on its way to Mykolaiv.

Like the residents of other ravaged Ukrainian cities, Mykolaiv’s population couldn’t wait to start rebuilding roads, bridges, residential buildings, water pipes, and other essentials. An array of donors, including the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), stepped in with support. But from the get-go, Denmark was determined to provide more than humanitarian help, which is unusual. Eager to create a model for other international investors, Copenhagen added a critical second leg: a parallel project cosponsored by the European Union and the Danish foreign ministry to promote anticorruption reform in Mykolaiv.

Also unique—perhaps the most novel feature of the Danish initiative—Copenhagen committed to restarting the port city’s economic engine by helping private businesses. “Military and humanitarian aid and budget support are essential,” says Kaare Stamer Andreasen, the Kyiv-based finance director of the Danish export credit agency, EIFO. “But you can’t revive a city without reviving its economy.”

To date, Copenhagen has disbursed some $230 million for Mykolaiv rebuilding and humanitarian purposes, and, in addition, Denmark’s EIFO has invested $190 million in local projects, including private businesses.

Both Mykolaiv’s mayor and governor were businessmen before being elected, and both are long-time proponents of anticorruption reform. Mayor Oleksandr Sinkevych asked the Danes not to send cash assistance. “It was the first thing I said in our first meeting,” he recalls, “No money. That’s the best hedge against corruption.”

Humanitarian aid flows primarily through Danish nonprofits. The UN Office for Project Services handles big purchases like equipment and building materials, and the EU Anticorruption Initiative (EUACI), co-funded by Brussels and Copenhagen, hired an auditor to oversee the city’s routine purchases, which Denmark doesn’t fund. Among his priorities are helping the city improve its databases and ensuring that officials comply with Western standards for municipal tenders and procurement. “There’s a new spirit in the air thanks to the Danes,” shipyard owner Mykola Kapatsyna explains. “Zero tolerance for corruption.”

Danes and Ukrainians raced through the summer and fall of 2022 to prepare the city for winter. Ambassador Mikkelsen remembers buying truckloads of plywood to replace broken windows. A Danish nonprofit provided water pumps, and a Danish company built 89 emergency pumping stations. (The city had no water for a month after the Russians cut the pipeline, and what flows through city pipes is still unsuitable for drinking.) The municipal heating system needed emergency repairs. Several fleets of new vehicles arrived from abroad: city and school buses, trolley buses, and garbage trucks, among others. Then, as winter approached, the Danes purchased generators for law enforcement offices and medical facilities.

Once the basics had been taken care of, the Danes turned in earnest to jumpstarting the local economy. “It’s our top goal,” Ambassador Mikkelson explains. “The Ukrainians don’t want to be a charity case. They want to earn their own money.” Governor Kim, interviewed in his new office, a windowless bunker barricaded by sandbags across the street from the ruins of his old headquarters, agrees. “Just get government out of the way,” he says, “and the market will do the rest”—not a typical attitude among Ukrainian officials.

Rebuilding the Ukrainian economy faces a host of obstacles. At the top of the list in Mykolaiv are the consequences of the fighting that continues to rage just 40 miles south. The occupying forces shell any companies that begin to rebuild and discuss it in the press or elsewhere. The port can’t and won’t resume operation until a counteroffensive reopens the channel to the Black Sea—which could take years. No one expects Mykolaiv to pick up where it left off before independence, building world-class ships for the Russian and Soviet navies. The city’s giant, once-storied shipyards can no longer compete with those in China, South Korea, or Japan.

More than a quarter of Ukrainian farmland has been rendered unusable by Russian mines, leaving few, if any, available jobs in the villages surrounding Mykolaiv. Perhaps most challenging, labor shortages, already a problem before the war and exacerbated by the exodus, have reached a critical point. Many of the new buses and trolleys purchased by Denmark sit idle in a garage. Fighting-age men don’t want to take jobs in the formal economy for fear that they will be targeted for conscription.

But the challenges don’t end there. International bankers and Ukrainian trade associations have their own list of longer-term concerns.

Much more at the link.

Russian occupied Crimea:

Overnight, Ukrainian defense forces carried out a successful missile strike against russian air defense systems in temporarily occupied Crimea, @GeneralStaffUA reports.

One S-400 division in the Dzhankoi area and two S-300 divisions near Chornomorske and Yevpatoria were struck.… pic.twitter.com/zNvcIWm85Y

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 10, 2024

Overnight, Ukrainian defense forces carried out a successful missile strike against russian air defense systems in temporarily occupied Crimea, @GeneralStaffUA reports.

One S-400 division in the Dzhankoi area and two S-300 divisions near Chornomorske and Yevpatoria were struck.

After the strikes, the immediate shutdown of the S-400/S-300 complex’s radars was recorded.
In addition, further detonation of ammunition was observed in all three areas.

We continue to destroy the enemy!
Crimea is Ukraine!

Russian air defense soldiers have been ordered to evacuate their families from Crimea to the Russian Southern Military District – Atesh military movement reports.

According to their information, air defense systems are also moved from Crimea to Belgorod region of Russia. https://t.co/NdjCDYGXI4 pic.twitter.com/2SsdouBMfL

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 10, 2024

Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast:

After failing to capture Vovchansk in three days, Russian propaganda shifted focus to the Sumy region. One thing they forgot to mention – only 9 people live in Ryzhivka, and it’s been a grey zone for months. pic.twitter.com/spregtFF66

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) June 10, 2024

Kharkiv Oblast:

#Russia‘s offensive in #Kharkiv region, northeastern #Ukraine, has stalled:https://t.co/yqs8RkpzFk

— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) June 10, 2024

From The Moscow Times:

U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security advisor said on Sunday that Russia’s advance on northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region “has stalled.”

“The momentum of that operation in Kharkiv has stalled out,” Jake Sullivan told CBS. “Kharkiv is still under threat but Russians have not been able to make material progress on the ground in recent days in that area.”

Washington recently gave Kyiv the green light to use U.S.-supplied weapons in defending the Kharkiv region, despite concerns that authorizing those kinds of strikes might drag NATO into a direct conflict with Russia.

“From the president’s perspective, this was common sense,” Sullivan said. “It simply didn’t make sense not to allow the Ukrainians to fire across that border, to hit Russian guns and emplacements that were firing at the Ukrainians.”

Kreminna, Donetsk Oblast:

The Russian MLRS TOS-1A “Solntsepek” shatters into pieces after being hit by night vision drones operated by pilots of the 63rd separate mechanized brigade. The MLRS was hit while performing a combat mission near the city of Kreminna, Luhansk region. pic.twitter.com/3AU9NaBCqv

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) June 10, 2024

Kherson Oblast:

Today at 10:40 Russians shelled the Dniprovs’kyi district of Kherson. A 102-year-old woman was injured and required hospitalization. Patrol police arrived, but Russians shelled the same location for second time when police officers were trying to provide medical assistance to a… pic.twitter.com/7wg8HUXwZ6

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 10, 2024

Today at 10:40 Russians shelled the Dniprovs’kyi district of Kherson. A 102-year-old woman was injured and required hospitalization. Patrol police arrived, but Russians shelled the same location for second time when police officers were trying to provide medical assistance to a woman.

«Patrolmen Ivan Sinyov and Oleksandr Moskalenko immediately went to the place of shelling.

A 102-year-old woman was injured and needed immediate medical treatment. But during an attempt to provide first aid to the injured, Russians opened fire again.

Together with the townspeople, they quickly transported the injured woman to a patrol police vehicle and took her to the hospital. She is currently receiving the necessary medical care.»

https://t.me/OBiloshytskiy/586

The Avdiivka front:

The combat work of Ukrainian helicopters on the Avdiivka front. Video by the 47th Brigade of Ukraine. https://t.co/B26rukAEez pic.twitter.com/7kJu01Bgla

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 10, 2024

Krasnohorivka, Donetsk Oblast:

Five russian ‘turtle’ tanks decided to attack Krasnohorivka in Donetsk region.
But their attack turned into a fiasco.

📹: 59th Motorized Brigade pic.twitter.com/LK4HABZdDP

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 10, 2024

We now know the Russian side of butcher’s bill for Bakhmut:

This link give a more clear and detailed info: https://t.co/y6Q2ER2VlK

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) June 10, 2024

So, according to new findings from Russia’s Wagner Group documents, the mercenary army lost at least 19,547 men killed in action in the Battle of Bakhmut.

17,175 of them were convicts recruited from prisons all across Russia.

That’s 35.5% of the total number of convicts (at least 48,366) recruited by the Wagner and used as cheap cannon fodder for insane human wave assaults on Ukrainian guns.

And that is Bakhmut alone.

How many tens of thousands have turned into rotting pieces of flesh at Avdiivka, Sievierodonetsk, Popasna, or Soledar so that Kremlin TV news could take a nice shot of the Russian flag over the lifeless ruins of what used to be a pretty decent medium-sized town in Ukraine’s Donbas?

Seriously, we’ve been living with this war for a decade, but sometimes it’s still hard to fully fathom the idiocy and the barbarity of the Putinist Russia.

This is simply absurdly insane.

This is in line with what we were told when we went to Bakhmut in 2023. The fight became more difficult for Ukraine once the flanks collapsed in Jan and Feb, and Ukrainian units were often only fighting against convicts.

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 10, 2024

And from @mediazona_en with more details.https://t.co/fRRtaQF7oi

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 10, 2024

From BBC Russian in English:

As many as 20,000 Wagner fighters were killed during the Russian assault on Bakhmut. More than 17,000 were convicts sent to the front from prison camps and pre-trial detention centres.

Working with the Mediazona news outlet, BBC Russian has gained access to the personal data of these men and can reveal that the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s statements about losses in the capture of the city, which were met at the time with disapproval even by pro-war bloggers, were heavily whitewashed.

The Wagner archive

In a well-known video from May 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen filmed against a backdrop of corpses, yelling into the camera at the defence minister and chief of staff:  “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the f****** ammunition?!”

At the time, his claim was that heavy losses among his mercenaries during the attacks on Bakhmut could be blamed on the unresponsiveness of the defence ministry and a shortage of shells.

But the data we have seen shows that the highest daily casualties – more than 200 men a day – were being sustained by Wagner far earlier, in January that year. Prigozhin subsequently admitted that he had lost 20,000 mercenaries in the battles for the city, but said that only half of them were prisoners.

“I selected 50,000 prisoners during the operation and about 20% of them died,” he told pro-Kremlin political strategist Konstantin Dolgov just after Bakhmut’s capture. “The same number of men who joined under contract, rather than from jails, also perished.”

The BBC and Mediazona obtained a complete list including the personal data of 19,547 dead Wagner fighters, of whom not half, as Prigozhin claimed, but fully 88% – or 17,175 men – had been prisoners.

The documents in question concern compensation payments of five million roubles for the death of a Wagner fighter on a standard contract. Our source has received the lists of ‘coffin’ payments in August 2023, soon after the death of Prigozhin. We do not have data for salaries and injury payouts.

In addition, relatives have frequently told the BBC of the difficulty in confirming the status of a Wagner prisoner-fighter. For that reason, counting up losses and paying out compensation amid the bloodshed can be a very drawn out affair.

This is the most significant source of data on Wagner losses we have encountered during our project to keep track of Russian casualties in the full-scale war on Ukraine.

We know the call signs, dog tags and dates of death of each of these men, and the majority of their surnames. The documents lack around 1,000 names – 6% – but that does not prevent the categorisation of their deaths since the dog tag makes it plain if the soldier was recruited from jail or civilian life.

But even Prigozhin’s own massaged casualty figures presented a problem for the Ministry of Defence and its plan to push a story about the ‘victory’ in Bakhmut. The conversation, even among ‘Z-bloggers’, turned into a discussion of the catastrophic losses, and whether commanders ought to be receiving medals for the city’s capture in the first place if more men had died there than in nine years’ fighting in Afghanistan.

Prigozhin’s statement had enabled him to kill two birds with one stone: highlight the value of his mercenary outfit while belittling the defence ministry. At the same time, he was promoting the image of his project – and lies about the ratio of losses served this purpose, too.

The recruitment of new forces to Wagner depended on this image, which Prigozhin’s team spent a lot of time curating. They promised former convicts that they would be treated as equals, not as second-class citizens:

“60% of my guys are assault troops, and you will be one of them. You will be no different from the rest of us. You will be treated the same, sometimes more leniently than men who have been fighting alongside me for many years and have gone through dozens of wars,” Prigozhin claimed, speaking at the parade ground of Penal Colony 6 in Mari El.

So a lie about the conditions on the battlefield at Bakhmut, and the numbers of dead prisoners, was essential to keep up Wagner’s reputation in the eyes of a new wave of prisoners hoping to avoid serving more jail time.

Much, much more at the link.

Here’s some interesting analysis of what Macron is doing with the snap elections via the Thread Reader App:

Why did Macron decide to dissolve the Assemblée Nationale (🇫🇷 lower house of parliament) & call early legislative elections. Only Macron’s immediate entourage know but here are some personal thoughts 🧵: 

1. Mix of reasons: end parliamentary deadlock; snap election focuses minds; show what the far-right truly cares about & what it is actually capable of doing; confidence & hubris that Macron can win the French over; rebuild republican camp. Thing is: is this possible in 3 weeks? 

1. End parliamentary deadlock: 🇫🇷 government has a relative majority in parliament making it v tricky to pass legislation. Macron was always likely to dissolve parliament ahead of budget discussions this yr. But why so soon, and why give only 3 weeks? 

2. Higher turnout: since early 2000s, legislative elections have taken place shortly after presidential election. Turnout tends to be high for presidential election & low for legislative. Ppl think “whatever, we know who the PR will be”. 

3. Higher turnout (2): hope is that more will turn up in 3 weeks to cast their vote & perhaps that French will thank Macron for “listening” and calling election following y’day’s result (where far-right got close to 40%). “The President is right: a lot is at stake, let’s vote”. 

3. Rebuild the Republican front: here is where I think it gets interesting. Macron isn’t stupid — he knows his party wd struggle to get majority. His strategy, as per @steph_sejourne comment y’day, might be to try and rebuild Republican front. This means… 

4. … that Macron won’t put up candidates in seats held by centre-left (PS) & centre-right (LR). This does several things: give LR and PS the chance to hold/increase number of seats (good ahead of 2027) & focus their energy on combatting extremes (LFI & RN). 

(4bis. Choice of where/where not to put candidates up is all down to the way legislative elections work: there are 2 rounds of voting; candidates need at least 12,5% of registered votes to go onto 2nd round. Fewer candidates = higher chance to getting through to 2nd round) 

5. Rebuild the Republican front (3): Problem is.. why wd LR and PS ever agree to form an alliance with Macron? Might make tactical sense but politically, it’s v risky. Plus, declarations by head of LR (Ciotti) and PS (Faure) this morning suggest they think this is a v bad idea. 

6. No grand Republican front:
– PS is likely to try and create a “grand coalition of the Left” (making sure there is only 1 left-wing candidate per seat):
– LR against any sort of coalition with centre:

7. Overconfident Macron: I can see why this strategy is intellectually persuasive, but it also shows how disconnected Macron can be. Even Gabriel Attal, the PM, is said to have tried to dissuade him from dissolving parliament saying he wd resign instead:

8. Letting RN form a government & do a bad job of it: another theory is that if the RN (far right) wins a relative or absolute majority, it will form a gov and will do “so terribly” that the French will realise how “incompetent they are”. If true, this is a terrible strategy too. 

9. The case of Trump shows that no amount of incompetence can ever be enough to dissuade voters. And to think French voters will somehow come to a different conclusion than American voters is silly. 

10. RN forming a government: there is also no reason to assume that RN would be “so incompetent” that the French wd suddenly vote differently in 2027. The French administration is good, solid, they’d be surrounded by good advice. Stay radical? Yes. Be incompetent? Not necessarily 

11. Sometimes a sense that Macron thinks he can charm and win over the French through his words. But many are fed up with him & Macronisme.. and without a strong republican front, coupled with high levels of abstention, it is the extreme parties that stand to win. END 

Astrakhan Oblast, Russia:

MAXAR Satellite imagery of June 8 after the attack on Russian Su-57 new generation fighters.https://t.co/ZKz3M5QUnp https://t.co/DVFOxtmc7x pic.twitter.com/k0N0mDd8Wc

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 10, 2024

Belgorod Oblast, Russia:

/2. Location of the targeted building/claimed Russian command post on Kharkiv front.
(50.3819448, 36.8207541) pic.twitter.com/LkIRLg5DPP

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 10, 2024

Claimed strike on the Russian command post of the 6th Combined Arms Army. (military unit 31807, Leningrad region). Yesterday, 06/09/2024. Shebekino, Belgorod region:

“The command post was deployed at the Nezhegol recreation center (belongs to Belgorod State University), near the settlement.

The Command Post controlled the units that are taking part in the offensive operation in Volchansk, Kharkiv region.

At the moment, eight army officers are considered missing.

Also, it is worth noting that the Nezhegol recreation center appeared on the “target lists” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which intelligence warned the 6th Army about at least a week before the strike. However, no countermeasures were taken.”

https://t.me/dosye_shpiona/543

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today. Here is some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

A young furry pilot inspects the drone before the flight.

📷: 53rd Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/9hBRN0adyF

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 10, 2024

Open thread!