The Kremlin is undertaking a “reflexive control” campaign of threats to discourage the US from supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). On Wednesday, Andrei Kartapolov, a senior Russian lawmaker, said: “We know these missiles very well, how they fly, how to shoot them down, we worked on them in Syria, so there is nothing new. Only those who supply them and those who use them will have problems … We will find ways to hurt those who cause us trouble.” It came as the Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday that the “powerful momentum” towards reaching a peace deal in Ukraine after the presidential meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska had “largely gone”.
Ukrainian forces were inflicting heavy losses in a counteroffensive in eastern Donetsk region, the war’s main theatre, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. The Ukrainian president’s account, based on a report by his top commander, contrasted with Putin’s address to senior Russian officers a day earlier in which he said Moscow’s forces held the strategic initiative in all frontline sectors. Zelenskyy said he spoke for almost an hour to Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, with “particular attention on the Dobropillia operation, our counteroffensive”. Ukraine has pointed to successes in Dobropillia, just north of the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, one of Russia’s key targets.
