Ukraine will become a candidate for EU membership and introduce a visa regime with Russia

The European Commission recommended giving Ukraine the status of a candidate country for EU membership "as a step towards full EU membership." A similar status is recommended to be granted to neighboring Moldova.

Also, according to Bloomberg, the European Commission recommended making Georgia a candidate for EU membership, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that she would be able to receive the status only if a number of conditions were met.

Shortly thereafter, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine would consider an initiative to introduce a visa regime for Russian citizens from July 1.

Boris Johnson came to Kyiv again

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv for the second time. He suggested starting a large-scale program to train Ukrainian military personnel with the possibility of training up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days.

During the visit, he stated: "The purpose of my visit today in the midst of this war is to send a clear and simple message to the Ukrainian people: Britain is with you and we will be with you until you ultimately win."

UK approves extradition of Julian Assange to US

British Home Secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. She noted that he retained the right to appeal against the extradition decision within two weeks.

The United States accuses Assange of espionage and disclosure of classified information, including the publication of letters from hacked servers of the Democratic Party. Wikileaks has published top-secret material obtained from anonymous sources, including Pentagon documents on the course of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the US, Assange faces 175 years in prison for his activities.

Tokayev, sitting next to Putin, called the "LDNR" "quasi-states"

The President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, during his speech at the SPIEF, said that the so-called "DPR" and "LPR" are "quasi-states" that Kazakhstan will not recognize. At that time, Vladimir Putin was sitting next to him.

According to Tokayev, the right of nations to create their own states and their desire to secede from existing ones will lead to the division of the world. He noted that for the same reason Kazakhstan does not recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In addition, Tokayev criticized propagandist Tegran Keosayan, husband of SPIEF host Margarita Simonyan, for making negative remarks about Kazakhstan. In April, he accused Kazakhstan of "cunning" and threatened him with the fate of Ukraine for refusing to hold a parade on May 9.

Putin's speech at SPIEF was commented on by economist Sergei Aleksashenko on The Insider.

Eurovision 2023 will be transferred from Ukraine to the UK

The European Broadcasting Union announced the transfer of Eurovision 2023 from Ukraine to the UK. In a statement, the organization said that such a decision was made due to the fact that due to the war it would not be possible to guarantee the safety of the participants. Great Britain was chosen as the venue, as it took second place at the last competition.

Ukraine did not agree with the decision of the Eurovision organizers. This was announced by the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Oleksandr Tkachenko:

[Ukraine] believes that it has every reason to conduct further negotiations and find a common solution that will satisfy all parties. We honestly won Eurovision 2022 and met all the conditions within the specified time frame for the process of agreeing to hold it in Ukraine - we provided answers and security guarantees, possible venues for the contest.

Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant dies

French actor and director Jean-Louis Trintignant has died . He was 91 years old. Trintignant's wife said that he died on the morning of June 17 at his home in Gard, surrounded by loved ones.

In total, the actor has played in more than a hundred films. Trintignant is known to the Russian audience primarily for the title role in the film "A Man and a Woman". In recent years, he almost did not act in films, but in 2012 he played the main role in the film "Love" by the Austrian director Michael Haneke, for which he was awarded the "Cesar".

Supporters of "Memorial" created a new human rights organization

Supporters of the human rights center "Memorial", which was liquidated by a court decision, created a new organization - the center for the protection of human rights "Memorial". The new organization will not create a legal entity under it and will use the social networks of the human rights “Memorial”.

Alexander Cherkasov, Chairman of the Board of the Memorial Human Rights Center, told The Insider that former employees of the Human Rights Center will work in the new organization:

Of course, we do not have the opportunities and resources that we had before, but the tasks have not gone away. One of them is maintaining a list of political prisoners. It is solved by a separate team that left Russia. These people got together and formed an informal association Human Rights Defense Center “Memorial”.

NYT published a photo of a mass grave in Lisichansk, in which about 300 bodies of civilians lie

The New York Times published a photo of a mass grave on the outskirts of Lisichansk. According to the Ukrainian military, it contains about 300 bodies of civilians who died in recent months as a result of the shelling of Lysichansk, Severodonetsk and Rubizhne.

Their bodies are wrapped in sacks and dumped into an unburied trench, as there are no relatives who could pick up and bury them.