Anders H Rimstad 🇳🇴📎

NEW: Russian forces conducted the third largest combined drone and missile strike against Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion on the night of June 16 to 17. The June 16-17 strike series heavily targeted Kyiv City and hit residential areas in the capital, as Russian officials and milbloggers called on Russia to intensify its strikes against Ukraine. Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu announced that North Korea would send 6,000 sappers and military engineers to help with reconstruction efforts in Kursk Oblast. The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) announced sanctions packages against Russia on June 16 and 17.

Small Norwegian fishing boat confronted Russia's large warship Admiral Levchenko during live-fire exercise in the Barents Sea. “I replied that it was out of question for us to move. We had longlines to take onboard.” thebarentsobserver.com/en/se…

Danish military expert Anders Nielsen @anderspuck shares his opinion on why the West does not respond with force to Russian provocations: ▪️ Recently, there has been an increase in hybrid attacks on Europe, which Russia or its agents may be behind. These include fires, sabotage, cyber attacks, attempted murders. In addition, there have recently been several cases when Russian drones violated the airspace of NATO countries - Romania, Latvia, and Poland. ▪️ Contrary to expectations, the Western reaction to these incidents was very calm. There was no media uproar, and no direct action against Russia was taken. According to Anders Nielsen, there is a good reason for this. "The first thing to understand is that this is a very deliberate strategy on the part of the Western countries not to make a big deal out of these things," the analyst believes. Nielsen believes that NATO countries have the courage and guts to confront Russia. However, Western governments believe that such a confrontation is not in their interests. Because the point of Russian provocations is not the action itself but the creation of the effect in the information space. In fact, these are information operations. ▪️ What the Kremlin is trying to accomplish: - set the agenda in the Western news media; - move the war to Europe so that Europeans feel the consequences; - to force NATO countries to withdraw support from Ukraine and redirect resources to their own defense. Accordingly, the lack of response to Russian provocations and hybrid warfare is a refusal to play by the rules set by Russia. ▪️ The Western strategy of ignoring Russian hybrid attacks has been successful so far. Russia has failed to drive a wedge between Western countries and Ukraine, and the aid and support have not stopped. However, in the long term, if Russia continues to send more and more drones across the border into NATO countries, it will become difficult to pretend that this is all an accident or a mistake.