The conflict between Russia and Ukraine took on a new dimension after Ukraine attacked Russian bombers. The exchange of prisoners, dead or alive, is not so simple. As for diplomacy, it has been relegated to the sidelines. Facts and comments.
By Frank Husband
On June 8, attacking Russian troops reached the western border of the Donetsk region. Significantly they did not stop there but continued into the neighboring region of Dnepropetrovsk. Russia claims Donetsk as part of the Russian Federation but not Dnepropetrovsk. Russian troops would not have crossed the border without express permission from Moscow. This seems to mark a new phase in the war and an expansion of Russian war aims.
The threat is clear. The longer Ukraine refuses to negotiate peace, the more territory it may lose. Military experts report that Russia now has large numbers of uncommitted fresh troops ready to exploit any break in the Ukrainian defenses.
Intensified missile strikes
Heavy hits have been recorded across Ukraine on energy sources and underground facilities previously thought immune to attack, with huge explosions. At Least one power station was hit indicating that the Russian embargo on striking energy sources has indeed ended.
On the night of June 7, more than 50 explosions were heard in Kharkov. Local authorities called the incident the largest attack since the beginning of the Special Operation in Ukraine.
As predicted here last week the Russian armed forces have upped their missile attacks on Ukraine in response to the attack on Russian nuclear bombers. However it is still not clear what the full Russian response will be.
Diplomacy à la Trump
In Washington President Trump commented to journalists that the recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian nuclear bombers has given the Russian side an excuse to “bomb the hell out of” Ukraine. The US President expressed the hope that the threat of the conflict in Ukraine escalating into a nuclear one will not arise. He stressed that he did not like Kiev’s actions. He said “They gave Putin an excuse to go and bomb the hell out of them. I didn’t like that. When I saw that, I said, ‘Well, that’s where it’s going to hit,'” Trump said.
When asked by a journalist about new sanctions on Russia in one of those bizarre joint press conferences with foreign leaders – this time Chancellor Merz. Trump diverted attention with a startling comment about how it was him that stopped Nord Stream 2, not Biden “in a place called Germany, come to think about it”. Turning to Merz he said “Sorry I did that”.
Journalists were surprised at this casual admission by one NATO ally that they deliberately interrupted vital energy supplies to another. They forgot all about sanctions and the original question went unanswered.
Merz, had come to enlist President Trump’s support for Europe in the war in Ukraine. Like all western leaders, he looked to boost his image with the home electorate by sitting with Trump in the White House. Trump remains ambivalent but his administration has made it clear that there will be no US air protection for any European force that enters Ukraine. As far as boosting his image is concerned, it does not seem Merz has been much more successful. A German journalist described him as looking like ‘a nervous bride groom in the presence of a difficult future mother-in-law’. None the less despite Trump’s unorthodox behavior and casual insults, Merz kept his temper and the meeting was friendly.
Terror war
Besides missile attacks, Russia may have decided to retaliate after the series of terror attacks that have seen journalists and three Russian generals assassinated. On June 7, Ukrainian army Colonel Oleg Nomerovsky head of the Odessa regional office of the feared compulsory recruiting organization TCC was blown up in his car near Odessa, a traditionally Russian city. The TCC notoriously snatches men of all ages off the streets and forces them into uniform, sending them directly to the front line. TCC officers get big bonuses for every recruit they catch. As a result many Ukrainian men are in hiding in their own homes and dare not go out on the streets.
This may have been a vengeance attack by an angry family that had lost a loved one but taking out a leading figure in the regional government would not have been that simple. It would likely have required intelligence service resources to place the bomb and then detonate it remotely. There are other reports of senior Ukrainian intelligence officers being eliminated in Sumy.
Ukraine refuses the return of dead and wounded
In a surprise announcement, leading Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky, who heads Moscow’s delegation to talks with Ukraine, said “on June 6, in strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, Russia unilaterally launched a humanitarian mission to hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian service members to Ukraine. They also agreed to exchange wounded and seriously ill as well as prisoners under the age of 25. “The first batch of 1,212 frozen bodies has arrived at the designated exchange point in refrigerator rail cars. The rest are about to arrive. In addition, the first list of 640 wounded, seriously ill and young prisoners are to be handed over to Ukraine in order to begin the exchange process. The Russian Defense Ministry’s contact group is currently on the Ukraine border,” Medinsky wrote on Telegram.
“However, Ukraine has unexpectedly moved to indefinitely postpone both the acceptance of bodies and the prisoner swap,” he added.
The reluctance to pay large monetary compensation to the families of the deceased is one of the main reasons for refusing to accept the bodies: For 6,000 bodies, Ukraine would have to pay compensation in the amount of 2 billion euros. This reflects the Ukraine government’s serious financial difficulties.
This week, S&P Global recognized Ukraine as being in partial default. In early June, Ukraine missed a payment of $670 million on its securities tied to GDP.
It is better for the Kyiv authorities to have the deceased Ukrainian servicemen listed as missing. This allows them to avoid paying monetary compensation to the families of the deceased. In addition, accepting thousands of bodies would indicate that true losses at the front are actually much higher than officially stated.
Ukrainian military expert, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk commented to Russian government news agency Tass, apparently “After Zelensky was informed of the results of the talks in Istanbul on June 2, he assessed the actions of his delegation with one word – “idiots”.
Moscow has responded to Ukraine’s refusal to take the bodies by publishing lists of the names of the dead soldiers.
Similarly the failure to meet the deadlines for the exchange of prisoners of war, may also be financial with unwillingness to provide the wounded with expensive medical services. The psychological aspect is no less important. The appearance of young but injured people would probably adversely affect the already struggling volunteer recruitment drive..
In April, the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC) reported receiving a total of 400 thousand requests from Ukrainian families searching for missing relatives. As of May 2025, the IRC team working in Kiev has a case load of, 126,000 people whose fate or whereabouts remains unknown.
Cynics will note that the apparently generous gesture by the Russian government to return the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers may have been a calculated move to embarrass the Ukrainian government. If so it appears to have worked.
Poland reflects on an uncertain future.
On the foreign relations front, Poland now has a new President Karol Nawrocki. He has no illusions about Ukraine being a fortress for freedom and democracy. That does not mean he is pro-Russian, far from it. The Polish government has started making it quite clear that it does not accept the Ukrainian government’s reluctance to properly acknowledge the terrible massacres of Poles that took place during the Second World War at the hands of Ukrainian Nazi sympathizers. The same Nazi sympathizers that are celebrated in today’s Ukraine.
Poland has, so far, been one of the most determined supporters of the Kiev government against the Russian intervention, officially with money and weapons and unofficially with military ‘volunteers’. Many Poles have died fighting for Ukraine.
Is this the end of a beautiful friendship?
Polish farmers are angry about the privileges allowed to Ukrainian agriculture which has undercut their EU markets.
On June 5, the Sejm, the Polish parliament, approved a new official Day of Remembrance of Poles who became victims of genocide committed by Ukrainian Nazi sympathizers. The initiative was supported by 435 out of 436 deputies, only one abstained. The bill states that the Nazi OUN-UPA “killed more than 100 thousand Poles” in 1939–1946. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested at this ‘unfriendly’ initiative.
New President Nawrocki, as a candidate, promised voters not to support Ukrainian membership into NATO and it is thought that this pledge was important in getting him elected. He has also said he is against Ukraine in the EU, at least in the short term.
Is Poland finally waking up to the fact that unqualified support for Ukraine may not be in its long term interests and that a more conciliatory attitude towards Russia could be better for the Polish people? As a senior Polish diplomat commented some years ago ‘we have had trouble with the Russians for three hundred years but our difficulties with Germans have lasted a thousand years. And we know for sure that one day the Americans will go home to sort out their own problems.’
Empty vessels make the most noise.
Renault has announced that they are considering manufacturing drones in Ukraine, in conjunction with a small specialist company. They make clear that this is at the request of the French Ministry of Defense.
According to CNews ‘this could be tens or hundreds of kilometers from the front’. Anyone thinking of applying to work there should perhaps clarify which it is…
The United Kingdom has signed a new Defense pact with Kazakhstan, the former Soviet state on Russia’s southern border. According to the UK Ministry of Defense, discussions focused on both current topics and potential future steps in developing military cooperation, with particular attention to peacekeeping, language training, and the education of Kazakh officers at UK military academies.