Russian irredentism

That would have happened in line with NATO's current plans to defend the country from any Russian attack, the Estonian prime minister said.
Kaja Kallas told reporters on Wednesday that the alliance's existing defense plans for the three Baltic states is such that it will allow them to be overrun before they are released after 180 days, the Financial Times reports.

Fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russian forces continues in the east of the country.
Reports of civilian shelling victims in Kharkov and Mykolaiv were registered yesterday.
The International Energy Agency warns that Moscow could completely cut off gas supplies to Europe.

EU leaders will gather in Brussels on June 23 to discuss calls to formally grant war-torn Ukraine "candidate status" to join the bloc, as Russian forces slowly advance in the eastern Donbas region despite fierce resistance from Kyiv's military.

Andrei Soldatov - one of the best experts in the media on what is happening in the Russian secret services, was advised not to travel to Bulgaria because the country is too close to Moscow for him to feel safe.

According to the Russian-language newspaper "Meduza" other similar countries whose borders it is not advisable to cross are Hungary, Serbia, Turkey and Armenia.

Senior officials in the Biden administration said that four to six weeks of fighting would determine the final direction of the war, writes the New York Times.

Russia has summoned the European Union's ambassador today in open anger at the suspension on Saturday of the transit of sanctioned goods through Lithuania to the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, world news agencies reported.

Russia called the measure an "illegal blockade" and threatened retaliation against Lithuania, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian army hit drilling points at about 8 o'clock this morning at the Ukrainian company Chornomornaftogaz, which was taken over by Russia in 2014, said the so-called leader of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov. According to him, there are five people who fell into the water, three of whom were injured, and the Russian army is looking for an unknown number of workers.

The war in Ukraine could last "for years", NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned in an interview published Sunday by German daily newspaper Bild, while reiterating calls for Western countries to provide long-term support to Kiev.

Here are the highlights of events related to the war in Ukraine over the past 24 hours:

NATO fears the war in Ukraine could last years

"Russia's war in Ukraine could last for years". This was stated by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with the German weekly "Bild am Sonntag".

President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Brussels' support for Ukraine's European Union bid a historic achievement, as his country's eastern Donas region faced intense Russian shelling.