Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 478

This is the situation as it stands on Friday, June 16, 2023.

Fighting

• Brigadier General Oleksii Hromov, a senior Ukrainian military commander, said Ukrainian forces had regained control of more than 100 square kilometres (38 square miles) of territory in its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
• The death toll from the Nova Kakhovka dam collapse last week rose to 28. The number of dead in the Russian-occupied Kherson region was 18, said Vladimir Saldo, the top Russian-installed official in the area. Ukrainian authorities have reported 10 dead. Each side has blamed the other for the breach. The dam was under Russian control.
• UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and said the situation was “serious” but stable following the destruction of Nova Kakhovka. The dam’s reservoir was the source of water for the Russian-occupied plant’s cooling pond.
• Russian missiles hit two industrial facilities in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, and an elderly woman was killed by Russian fire in the southern Kherson region, local officials said.
• Moscow-installed officials in the occupied Kherson region said a child had been killed in Ukrainian shelling, according to Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency.
• Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014,  said nine drones were shot down over the peninsula.
• Authorities in the southern port city of Odesa said Ukrainian air defences brought down 18 Russian drones that approached the region.
• United States General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a meeting of the US-led Ukraine Contact Group that an “international effort” has trained nearly 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers. More than 6,000 Ukrainians are currently being trained at 40 different locations, he added.
• Chechnya ruler Ramzan Kadyrov said Chechen fighters were deployed in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine to prevent attacks from “Ukrainian sabotage groups”.

Diplomacy

• A draft framework document indicated that African leaders could propose a series of “confidence-building measures” in their initial efforts to mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The measures could include a Russian troop pull-back, removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, suspension of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, and sanctions relief, the Reuters news agency reported.
• The US sharpened its criticism of Russia’s record on human trafficking, citing Moscow’s treatment of conscripts and Ukrainian children, in the Department of State’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons report. The report kept Russia on a list of “state sponsors” of human trafficking.
• A group of UN experts said they had written to Moscow raising concerns about the use of torture by Russian military forces on Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.
• Australia blocked Russia from building its new embassy near Parliament House in Canberra, citing national security.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to China’s Xi Jinping as a “dear friend” and lauded the two countries’ “comprehensive partnership” in a message on the Chinese leader’s 70th birthday.

Weapons

• NATO defence ministers began a two-day meeting in Brussels focused on support for Ukraine and joint efforts to stock up on weapons and ammunition.
• US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called on Ukraine’s allies to “dig deep” and provide more arms and ammunition to help Kyiv fight back against Russia. Austin stressed Kyiv needed both short-term and long-term support as the war was a “marathon, not a sprint”.
• The United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark said in a statement they would send air defence equipment, including hundreds of missiles, to Ukraine.
• Norway and Denmark will donate an additional 9,000 rounds of artillery to Ukraine, Norway’s defence ministry said in a statement. Norway will provide the shells, while Denmark will donate fuses and propellant charges.
• Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Milley said any delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine had a “ways” to go before completion.
• Speaking via video to the Swiss parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Switzerland to allow the re-export of war material to Ukraine. Switzerland has a longstanding policy of disallowing any country that buys Swiss arms from re-exporting to a country involved in active conflict.
• Japan is in talks to provide artillery shells to the United States to bolster stocks for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported.