The Theory of Victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia will be able to make creeping progress in Ukraine indefinitely will incentivize him to prolong the war and try to destroy Ukrainian statehood. Therefore, the West must hurry to provide Ukraine with the support it needs for counteroffensive operations to ensure a peace acceptable to all partners.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer published on June 30, fears that the West fears for Russian stability and this has allowed Putin to pursue the conquest of as much Ukrainian territory as possible.
Zelensky warned that Putin was aiming for a truce that would allow him to prepare for future military aggression against Ukraine.
This is stated in the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) daily analysis.
Putin recently demanded that Ukraine cede all of the occupied Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as well as the parts of those four oblasts that Ukraine currently controls.
Prolonged war benefits Putin.
According to Russia, Ukraine lacks the ability to liberate operationally significant territory. Western aid remains the only likely route.
Ukraine is also pursuing diplomatic terms to support an end to the war that would prevent Russia from being defeated. Switzerland hosted the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit on June 15, which aimed to build a global consensus on the talks so that the partners could give a joint peace plan to a Russian representative and Putin could negotiate on terms other than the complete Ukrainian capitulation.
The head of Dagestan, Sergey Melikov, publicly sided with the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a recent debate with the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, about religious extremism in Russia. Bastrykin stated on June 29 that "Islamic terrorists" are "capable of flying their banner of Islamic terror" in Russia and called on the State Duma to respond to this threat.
Kadyrov quickly responded to Bastrykin on June 29 and urged him and other Russian officials that such statements about all Muslims could threaten Russia's unity and stability.
Melikov expressed "absolute solidarity" with Kadyrov against equating all Muslims with criminals.
Melikov called such statements dangerous and noted that some high-ranking individuals seem to be deliberately trying to escalate the situation, possibly with Bastrykin's statement in mind.
Russian law enforcement authorities have reportedly detained Gadzhimurad Ataev (also known as Khanov), whom Russian ultranationalists recently accused of harassing a Russian doctor in Dagestan who refused to see a female patient who refused to remove her niqab.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported in October 2015 that German authorities had arrested a Dagestani imam known as "Gajimurad K." and "Murad Atadjev" in Berlin on suspicion of recruiting fighters of the Islamic State (Daesh).
Russian media claim that Ataev works as an assistant to an official of the city of Buinaksk and promotes "[Muslim] religious-traditional values" on social media.
Ataev's detention came only after Russian ultranationalists expressed public outrage against him, to the extent that Bastrykin commented on the matter, suggesting that Russian authorities detained Ataev in response to ultranationalist outrage - rather than his alleged affiliation - although probably knew of his Islamist extremist tendencies in advance.
Military and civilian flights continue to experience GPS jamming over Europe and the Middle East, highlighting the role of long-term GPS jamming in current and future conflicts. The Telegraph, citing flight tracking data, reported on June 30 that hundreds of a total of 1,467 UK Royal Air Force transport and observation flights between January and April 2024 experienced GPS interference.
The Telegraph reported that approximately 28 per cent (142 out of 504) of RAF transport and observation flights over Eastern Europe, 16 per cent of flights over North West Europe and 45 per cent of flights over the Middle East suffered GPS jamming in the first four month of 2024. UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps and an unnamed defense source attributed the GPS jamming to Russian actors, but The Telegraph noted that some of the GPS jamming signals in the Middle East may have originated in Israel in addition to Russian military installations in Syria. ISW has observed high levels of GPS jamming over Poland and the Baltic region since late 2023, which some analysts and experts attribute to Russian electronic warfare activity near Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg.
The Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (RNTF), a non-profit organization that advocates for improved GPS security, responded on June 19 to recent reports of the first confirmed case of GPS jamming on a commercial transatlantic flight and said that the GPS receiver of the aircraft cannot always self-restore after jamming and may operate in a "degraded mode" until a pilot or technician repairs the receiver.
The RNTF considered that an aircraft flying the commercial transatlantic route at the time of the reported jamming incident may have previously flown from the Baltic region or the Middle East, where jamming is more common, and had persistent problems with the GPS receiver due to previous exposure. ISW has seen no reports of Russian actors trying to jam GPS over Western Europe or the Atlantic Ocean. GPS-guided systems are likely to become increasingly unreliable over war zones as long-range jamming against visible GPS-guided weapons and systems becomes more commonplace.