WAR IN UKRAINE: June 23, 2022 — Michael Bociurkiw

*Residents of the village of Iverske line up to receive humanitarian aid from Vse Bude Dobre and its donor, World Central Kitchen, on June 11, 2022. (The Kyiv Independent)*

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 123

Estonia would be wiped off the map and the historic centre of its capital city razed to the ground under current Nato plans to defend the country from any Russian attack, according to its prime minister. Kaja Kallas told reporters on Wednesday that the alliance’s existing defence plans for the three Baltic states was to allow them to be overrun before liberating them after 180 days.
Commenting on what she called Nato’s plan “to lose it and liberate it afterwards”, she said the atrocities allegedly carried out by Russian troops in the Ukrainian town of Bucha took place about 80 days after the invasion began. “Now everyone sees that this tripwire concept doesn’t really work,” Kallas said. Full Financial Times story here
The Russian air force's struggles in Ukraine are surprising because they're fighting 'their own systems,' top US Air Force general says. Russia's air force has been unable to ground Ukrainian aircraft or overcome Ukrainian air defenses even though they use some of the same equipment, Gen. Charles Brown Jr. said Wednesday. “It kind of begs a real question for me: How come they don't understand their own systems and how they might defeat their own systems?" Brown added.
Two hundred Russian deserters are said to be wandering in woods in Kharkiv Oblast. The deserters were noticed by residents of Borova, a small town near the city of Izyum, close to Kharkiv. Borova community council in turn wrote about them on social media.
In Ukraine's occupied territories, workers at one of the country's leading telecommunications providers destroyed equipment to avoid Russian control of internet and phone services. In an interview with Bloomberg, Ukrtelecom's chief executive officer, Yuriy Kurmaz, said employees at the company have experienced threats and some have been imprisoned by Russian forces throughout occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine. Instead of letting Russian forces take control of the network, employees at Ukrtelecom facilities in the occupied territories "decided to delete crucial files from computers.”