Fourteen-year-old Ukrainian twin sisters Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko were among the 10 victims in last night’s Russian missile attack in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. In a Telegram post, the city council extended its condolences to the parents of the girls, saying that “a Russian rocket stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels.”
👋 Yáʼátʼééh!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where Russian airstrikes on Kramatorsk leave at least 10 dead, including twin sisters, the killing of a 17-year-old by the French police sparks clashes on the outskirts of Paris, and a new law makes people younger in South Korea. Meanwhile, Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda warns that Russia’s history shows that the country exploding into civil war is unlikely to end well.
[*Navajo]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Prigozhin confirmed in Belarus, missile attack in Kramatorsk: Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has announced Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s 24-hour mutiny, has arrived in Belarus. Meanwhile, ten people have been killed, including three children, by Russian missiles that hit the center of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. Rescuers are continuing to search for people trapped under the debris.
• Taiwan detects two Russian warships near its waters: Taiwan says it spotted two Russian warships off its eastern coast on Tuesday and sent its own aircraft and ships to monitor the vessels’ movements. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said in a statement that the Russian ships had been seen “sailing from south to north in the waters off our eastern coast”.
• Armed group kidnaps 14 security ministry staff in Mexico: Security forces in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas are searching for 14 administrative employees of the state security ministry kidnapped by members of an armed group. The incident happened on Tuesday near the state capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
• French police officer detained on homicide charges after killing teen driver: Violent protests have erupted in the outskirts of Paris overnight after police shot dead a 17-year-old driver who failed to stop when ordered to by traffic police. The 38-year-old policeman seen firing the lethal shot was taken into custody and is under investigation for voluntary manslaughter.
• Sierra Leone’s Bio re-elected as president avoiding run-off: President Julius Maada Bio has won re-election in Sierra Leone’s presidential vote. Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed Kenewui Konneh said Wednesday that Bio 59, was re-elected with 56.17% of the vote held this past Saturday. Winning candidates are required to secure 55% of votes, so Bio narrowly avoided a second round.
• South Koreans instantly become younger under new age-counting law: South Koreans have become a year or two younger as a new law aligns the nation’s two traditional age-counting methods with international standards. The law cancels one system that deemed South Koreans one year old at birth, counting time in the womb. Another counted everyone as aging by a year every first day of January instead of on their birthdays.
• Pompeii’s proto-pizza: Archaeologists in the ancient city of Pompeii have uncovered a painting which depicts what might be the precursor to the Italian pizza. According to Italy’s culture ministry, the flatbread depicted in the 2,000-year-old fresco "may be a distant ancestor of the modern dish." The fresco was found in the hall of a house next to a bakery during recent digs at the site in southern Italy.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
The front page of Chinese state newspaper the People’s Daily showcases the country’s president Xi Jinping’s full agenda on the 27th June: Xi met with leaders from all over the world to establish stronger diplomatic relations and to “modernize” their nations together. President Xi met with Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Motley (top left), New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (top right), Mongolian Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai (bottom left), and Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính (bottom right). President Xi also made an important speech about modernizing China and encouraging Chinese youth to continue to struggle and pursue their dreams.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
€86 million
Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s final piece of artwork has sold for €86 million ($94 million) at a Sotheby’s auction, becoming the most expensive painting sold in Europe. Found in his studio in 1918 following his unforeseen death at 55, "Dame mit Fächer" is said to have been painted during his artistic prime.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
A Russian civil war? Be careful what you wish for
The aborted Wagner coup in Russia shows how a "war of all against all" might begin, and there are plenty of other militia factions opposed to the Kremlin, including separatist groups. Though it may appear to solve some big problems, including the war in Ukraine, history has shown that Russia exploding into civil war is unlikely to end well, writes Evheny Rudenko in Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
💥 The situation inside Russia has been increasingly compared to a century earlier, when Vladimir Lenin mobilized convicts to launch the 1917 Russian Revolution. Indeed, rumblings of civil strife are not limited to Wagner and Prigozhin. Hundreds of kilometers away, the fighters of two anti-Putin militias, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion, continue to capture Russian border regions and establish their order there.
➗ Subconsciously, Russia's political elites harbor a persistent fear of separatist tendencies emerging within the country. Their memory of the wave of declarations of sovereignty by various Soviet republics in the 1990s, commonly known as the Parade of Sovereignties, has worsened these concerns.
🇷🇺 If Russian ethnic nationalism were to prevail in Russia, it would undoubtedly lead to its fragmentation. The second path to fragmentation is democratization. If Russia were to suddenly become a country with a genuine democracy, not just a facade of one, it would immediately begin to disintegrate. Just recall 1917. The integrity of Russia can only exist under an authoritarian or totalitarian regime.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📣 VERBATIM
“I think the countdown has started.”
— At a briefing in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky's closest adviser Andriy Yermak said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s days in power are numbered. Questions have been swirling about Putin’s fate since Saturday’s insurrection by the Wagner Group and criticisms of the rationale for the war in Ukraine by the mercenary group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright, Yannick Champion-Osselin, Anne-Sophie Goninet, Michelle Courtois and Sara Kahn
Let us know what’s happening in your corner of the world!
- A Hot Day Melts It, But Global Warming Could Make Chocolate Vanish For Good ›
- Vladimir Putin, And The Cruel Art Of Outlasting Your Enemies ›
- Why Prigozhin Will Be So Hard To Eliminate ›
