Russian Digest- 6/5

Top daily stories I'm keeping an eye on

1. Another Russian general was killed in Ukraine

Russian general Roman Kutuzov killed in eastern Ukraine

Russian Major General Roman Kutuzov died in eastern Ukraine. Alexander Sladkov, a VGTRK correspondent, reported about his death.

From  a post on Sladkov's telegram channel, it follows that Kutuzov died, "leading his subordinates into the attack."

The telegram channel “Reports from the militia of Novorossia” published information that Kutuzov died in the village of Nikolaevka near Popasna, in the Luhansk region.

On the evening of June 5, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that in the area of ​​​​Nikolaevka and Belogorovka, Russian troops carried out "assault operations" and suffered "significant losses in manpower and equipment."

Which unit was led by General Kutuzov has not yet been reported. In 2019, he was mentioned on the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation as the interim commander of the 29th Combined Arms Army, and in 2017 -  the 5th.

Roman Kutuzov is the fourth Russian general whose death during the war in Ukraine was confirmed by various official sources. The Ukrainian authorities reported the death of at least seven generals, but at least two of them turned out to be alive after that, wrote the BBC Russian Service. via Meduza

2. The website of the Russian Ministry of Construction was hacked

The website of the Russian Ministry of Construction was hacked, the hackers demanded to transfer half of Bitcoin (BTC) to them within 24 hours. Attention to this was drawn by the telegram channel “Caution, news”.

According to the message, the site was hacked by the DumpForums.com team, and if its requirements are not met, “all personal data of users of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, and possibly not only ;) will be made available to the public.”

The correspondent of Mediazona noted that when searching on Google, the name of the site with the URL of the Ministry of Construction is displayed as “Glory to Ukraine!”. "Yandex" on the same request gives the usual name. At the time of writing, the link opens a blank page with the inscription "Technical work in progress." via Mediazona

3. Putin warns Russia will strike new targets if long-range missiles are supplied to Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that Moscow would strike new targets if the US supplied long-range missiles to Ukraine, according to Russian state media.   

Delivering new arms to Kyiv only aims to “drag out the armed conflict for as long as possible,” Putin said in an interview to Rossiya-1 TV channel, Russian state media TASS reported.

In the case of deliveries of long-range missiles to Kyiv, Russia will draw "appropriate conclusions" and strike those “facilities” that it has not yet targeted, he said.  

"If they are supplied, we will draw appropriate conclusions from this and use our own weapons, of which we have enough, in order to strike at those facilities we are not targeting yet," Putin said commenting on the situation regarding the supply of American multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to Ukraine.  via CNN

4. Three countries closed the sky for the flight of the plane of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to Belgrade

Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bulgaria have banned the flight in their airspace for the aircraft in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov intended to fly to Belgrade on Monday. This was reported by the Serbian edition of Danas, citing its own sources.

The publication notes that the head of the Serbian government, Ana Brnabic, said earlier that the entire logistics of Lavrov's flight was handled by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Russian Ambassador to Bulgaria Eleonora Mitrofanova confirmed to TASS that "Bulgarian authorities did not allow the plane with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on board to fly ... through the country's airspace."

Serbia, unlike most of Europe, continues to maintain good relations with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine began. At the end of May, the presidents of both countries agreed on a new three-year agreement on Russian gas supplies.

On June 3, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, announced that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry would visit Serbia on June 6-7, during which meetings with Vucic, negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and the chairman of the National Assembly (unicameral parliament) are planned. According to the diplomat, it is expected that the parties will discuss in-depth the issues of bilateral political and economic cooperation. via The Insider

5. Russia Fires Missiles at Kyiv, Shattering Weeks of Relative Normalcy 

Russia fired a barrage of missiles early Sunday on Kyiv for the first time in more than a month, shattering a sense of normalcy in the Ukrainian capital.

The Russian defense ministry said its forces had destroyed tanks sent to Kyiv by Western governments, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would hit targets “we haven’t yet struck” if the West went ahead with plans to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine. via VOA

6. ‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan

In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock, a mysterious foreign operator dominates the business.

Locals call it “The Russian Company” — a tightly guarded plant with shining towers, deep in the desert, that processes mounds of dusty ore into bars of semirefined gold.

“The Russians pay the best,” said Ammar al-Amir, a miner and community leader in al-Ibediyya, a hardscrabble mining town 10 miles from the plant. “Otherwise, we don’t know much about them.”

In fact, Sudanese company and government records show, the gold mine is one outpost of the Wagner Group, an opaque network of Russian mercenaries, mining companies and political influence operations — controlled by a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — that is expanding aggressively across a swath of Africa. via NYT

7. Liz Cheney: Jan. 6 "conspiracy" was "extremely broad … well-organized"

CBS News' Robert Costa asked the committee's vice chair, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, "Are you confident that what you have found as a committee will somehow grab the American people by the lapels and say, 'Wake up: You have to pay attention'?"

"I am," she replied, calling the insurrection "an ongoing threat."

"You know, we are not in a situation where former President Trump has expressed any sense of remorse about what happened," Cheney said. "We are in fact in a situation where he continues to use even more extreme language, frankly, than the language that caused the attack. And so, people must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don't defend it." via CBS News