The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US and Singaporean officials during the Shangri-La Dialogue at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore on June 2. Tam again recalled the upcoming global peace summit. The head of state met with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss the situation on the battlefield, Ukraine's need for additional air defense systems, and Ukraine's ability to strike Russian military targets near Kharkiv region.
Zelensky also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Singaporean businessmen and emphasized Ukraine's interest in strengthening cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
This is stated in the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) daily analysis.
106 countries have confirmed their participation in the upcoming June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. Ukraine has invited all countries to the upcoming summit except Russia.
Zelensky warned that Russian officials were trying to thwart her by threatening to "block" the import and export of food, agricultural and chemical products for the participants.
Ukrainian and Western media reported on June 2 that diplomatic sources in Saudi Arabia said the country would not participate. The news comes after the announcement on May 31 that China will not send a representative either.
The provision of Western air defense systems and the lifting of Western restrictions on Ukraine striking military targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weapons remain critical for Ukraine to repel Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv. Western countries have recently partially or completely lifted the restrictions. Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces shot down several Russian warplanes in February 2024, many of which carried out strategic bombing strikes in the direction of Avdeyevka. Zelensky previously said that Russian forces would not be able to capture the city of Kharkiv if Ukrainian forces were given two Patriot air defense systems to deploy in the region.
Russian forces have attacked the city of Kharkiv with glide bombs and various rocket strikes over the past few weeks.
Ukrainian field commanders are reportedly compensating for the training difficulties that mobilization has exacerbated by training new frontline personnel. Ukrainian field commanders told the Washington Post that they have spent considerable time teaching newly deployed personnel basic skills because they are not learning these skills in training centers.
The Washington Post reported on June 2 that Ukrainian soldiers on the home front also lacked adequate skills when they arrived at the front, although many of them served in the army before the start of the war in 2022. Most of them have been fighting for more than two years and are depleted, so Ukraine is under pressure to quickly replace them with fresh forces and make up for losses to maintain its defenses.
It is difficult to make a trade-off between withdrawing experienced soldiers from the front line to train new personnel, or training new personnel. A Ukrainian officer told the Washington Post that Ukraine needs NATO instructors to train new personnel and cut training time in half to one month.
Russian rear strike campaigns against even the westernmost regions of Ukraine ensure that Ukraine has virtually no safe rear area in which to safely train personnel, and sends personnel to train in NATO countries - such as the current from the UK training under the Operation Interflex program - both removing Ukrainian field commanders from the training process and increasing delays in deploying troops as Ukraine must transport these personnel to and from NATO countries. Ukraine will not resolve these issues quickly, and the average overall quality of Ukrainian frontline forces is likely to decline. However, new soldiers are likely to learn quickly as they fight alongside seasoned veterans.
Decisions by Ukrainian field commanders to train front-line personnel before committing them to combat indicate that the overall quality of Ukrainian forces is likely to remain higher than that of Russian forces in the near to medium term. Russian forces have consistently used newly deployed conscripts, prisoners and new contract soldiers and volunteers without proper training to conduct massive, infantry-led attacks to make little progress in Ukraine.
Further Ukrainian cooperation with NATO instructors, especially if those NATO instructors support training in rear areas in Ukraine, provides additional opportunities for Ukraine to improve its basic training mechanisms and improve the quality of newly deployed personnel.
The New York Times (NYT) published an investigation on June 2 into the forced relocation and deportation of 46 Ukrainian children from a foster home in the occupied Kherson region in 2022.
The NYT analyzed photos, social media posts and official government documents and concluded that Russian government officials were involved in the forced relocation of these children and that occupation officials were separating the children from their parents and relatives as part of a broader effort to deprive Ukrainian children of their identity. A Russian federal adoption site has listed 22 of these Ukrainian children for adoption in Russia and has placed at least two children with Russian families. The NYT consulted legal experts who found that Russia's intention to strip the children of their Ukrainian identity is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and could amount to a war crime. ISW analysts helped prepare this report by reviewing some of its findings and sources.
The Telegraph reported on June 1, in a since-removed article, that British officials had ordered the UK Security Service to shift its counterintelligence efforts to Russian, Chinese and Iranian agents operating in the country.
Unnamed government sources told The Telegraph that UK support for Ukraine has also led to an increase in Russian espionage. ISW has refrained from publishing the article until The Telegraph provides an explanation for its removal.
Russian military commentator Alexander Artamonov has drawn backlash from Kremlin-linked Russian propagandists for claiming that Ukrainians are "second-class citizens". In doing so, he contradicts the Kremlin's false efforts to present the Ukrainian and Russian people as one nation. Artamonov stated in a live broadcast on a Russian state television channel on June 1 that he "does not have a very high opinion of Ukrainians because they are second-class citizens.
Russian State Duma deputy and convicted unregistered Russian foreign agent Maria Butina, Russian ultranationalist and former State Duma deputy Zakhar Prilepin, Kremlin-linked Russian bloggers and other pro-war Russian commentators have sharply criticized Artamonov and repeated the false narrative that Russians and Ukrainians they are actually the same.
Russian occupation officials and Russian forces in occupied Ukraine have subjected Ukrainian civilians in the occupied territory to violence, theft of property, religious persecution, forced deportation, and conscription into the Russian military. This is all part of an ongoing campaign to eradicate Ukrainian national and cultural identity.