Paris
CNN
–

French President Emmanuel Macron has lands in Greenland Sunday and is designed to strengthen European support for Danish territory, which is still moving forward from the Trump administration to win it for the US.

Macron will be the first foreign leader to visit a resource-rich island since US President Donald Trump launched a campaign to buy or annex Greenland.

Sources at Elise Palace said that the French president’s trip is “one of the dimensions of solidarity in Europe and the strengthening of sovereignty and territorial integrity” without mentioning the Trump administration’s threat of purchasing Greenland or by force.

Macron’s visit will also focus on Arctic security, climate change and Greenland’s economic development, sources added.

While on the world’s largest island, French leaders tour glaciers, hydroelectric power plants and Danish warships moored near the semi-automatic territory capital Nouk, according to Elisel.

“Deep is not on sale. More than Greenland is on sale. Antarctica and the high seas are on sale,” Macron opened a UN Conference on the Oceans in Nice, France on June 9th.

Trump’s intentions for Greenland cannot be far from the French president’s thoughts on Macron’s first visit to the Arctic Circle, which he will make with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s political leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

French Foreign Minister Jeannoel Barott said in January that Paris had begun to discuss “the deployment of the French army) and Denmark,” but Copenhagen said he didn’t want to move forward with the idea.

Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in buying the island, even if NATO Ally Denmark and Greenland firmly reject the idea. Last month, the US president updated his threat to use military force to annex the territory.

US Vice President JD Vance issued a ban on entry in late March to visit US forces in Greenland. During that trip, the Vice President filed a famous lawsuit to gain control of the island. He said Greenland is better than “that’s you’re under US security umbrella than you were under Danish security umbrella.”

On June 12, Danish Parliament expanded its military agreement with Washington to allow bases of Danish soil. US soldiers previously were based at a Danish facility.

Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence in Greenland, including 1,500 miles of fighter jets from the mainland Denmark, about 1,500 miles from the Danish mainland and fighters to patrol US and naval frigates, according to Greenland’s Parliament.

CNN
–

A recent evening at Kyiv, 4-year-old Olexander Reshetnik gave a simple suggestion to his parents.

The family lives on the 18th floor of a high-rise building, and entering an underground garage that doubles as a bomb shelter during a Russian attack is an unpleasant experience. As air attacks become more common, it makes sense for Olexander to simply stay there.

Even at his younger age he knew that the Russians were likely to attack again.

His mother, Kreistina Leshchetnik, said the family has become accustomed to seeing drones being shot in the sky in the Ukrainian capital. On the day that passed, there’s one or two, maybe three, but things have changed.

“Lately they’ve been flying like a pack that doesn’t stop for three or four hours. They explode just outside the window,” she told CNN.

Russia has intensified its air attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, launching up to 479 drones and missiles in one night. These attacks are bigger and less frequent. It also runs more intensively and makes combat much more difficult. This is because they fly at a higher altitude, which is out of reach of machine guns.

According to CNN tally, the rise in the number of drones Russia is deploying to its neighbors is surprising.

Russia successfully expanded domestic production of its most frequently used drones (Iran-designed Sharp) last fall, and now it is stirring hundreds of killing machines every day.

Christina Harward, a Russian analyst at the War Institute, said current estimates suggest that Moscow can now produce around 2,700 Shahed drones and around 2,500 decoid drones per month.

“These numbers allow Russia to launch 300 or 400 drones more frequently in just one night,” she told CNN.

The fact that some of the drones are decoys makes little difference to Ukraine’s defenses, as Moscow adapted them in a way that made them so difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.

“So one of the Ukrainian troops is spending time trying to identify decoys or shooting down valuable resources. Either way, this will help Russian missiles and Shaheds (with their big payload) (they have the opportunity to reach their target,” Harward said.

The rise in the number of drones released every night is a dominant Ukrainian air defense, especially as Russia began to zero in a handful of places at a time.

On Monday night, it targeted Odesa, the capital of Ukraine and Black Sea Port. The next night it was Kalkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.

“Instead of targeting a bit here and there, they can concentrate their strikes and achieve both kinesily and psychological effects,” Olexi Melnik, a former Ukrainian Ministry of Defense official who is now co-director of the diplomatic relations and international security program at the Razkov Centre in Kiev, told CNN.

Russia claims it is not targeting civilians, but evidence to the contrary continues to rise. At least 154 Ukrainian civilians, including children, have been killed by artillery across the country in the past four weeks, Russian missile attacks. Another 900 civilians were injured.

The deadly attack is designed to undermine Ukraine’s morale, and while Moscow is far from “victory,” it is designed to create the illusion that Russia has the advantage in war.

Ukraine’s frontline has not been so important since the Ukrainian military released the city of the southern city of Carson in November 2023.

Russia has since been able to seize only about 5,000 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) of Ukrainian territory. Russian troops have made progress in some parts of eastern and northern Ukraine in recent months, but have not broken through or taken over the metropolitan cities.

Yuriy Chumak hands over many of the nights on the roof of Kyiv, perched on a machine gun. He is a Supreme Court judge during the day and is part of a volunteer drone hunting squad at night. He said the sky has become quite busy in recent weeks.

“There are even more drones. This is an objective fact. And of course, the more difficult it is to resist them, the more difficult it becomes,” Chumak told CNN.

He said that after Moscow began flying drones at higher altitudes, it became much more difficult, if not impossible, for his units to destroy them.

Previously, Russian forces flew drones low along riverbeds, for example, to ensure that Ukrainian air defenses are not detected for as long as possible.

“The time to respond was very short because it detected it when it was (close),” he said.

Recently, Russian drones fly 2-5 km (1-3 miles) from the ground, he said.

“We can see them all. The radar can track them. But it’s no longer possible to shoot them down with a machine gun,” Chumac said.

However, missiles are much shorter in supply. This encourages the Ukrainian military to find new solutions on the go. Melnyk said the efficiency of Ukraine’s air defense systems is incredible. “Around 80% of drones are still intercepted. A few months ago, this percentage was around 95. (But) the Russian influence can be seen as an increase (in drones) and changes in tactics,” he added.

Speaking with reporters last month, Ukrainian President Voldymi Zelensky praised volunteers like Ukrainian Air Force and volunteers like Chumak as Russia strengthened its air force.

He added that Kyiv is currently using drone-to-drone interceptors to combat higher altitude bombings. “We have technology. The question is when can we expand,” he said.

Zelensky said Russia can produce between 300 and 350 drones per day, while Ukraine can only make 100.

“This issue is no longer about capacity. It’s financial,” he said.

Kyiv Mom Khrystyna Reshetnik said one of the worst things about Russian air attacks is that they are used to three boys, ages 4, 8 and 11.

“He’s just a little boy and he already knows what’s going on,” Reshetnik said. As the size and range of attacks intensifies, the family has spent more time in an underground parking garage where Orexander and his two brothers sleep in the trunk of the car.

“This has become the norm for our kids. It hurts my heart,” she said.

But despite the daily horrors they experience, Reshshitnik is one of the lucky ones. They live in Kiev, a relatively protected city. The majority of the explosions they heard are Ukrainian air defenses intercepting Russian drones.

Access to Ukraine’s air defense is restricted by the willingness of its Western allies to afford it, leaving many others across the country without a protective shield. Russian troops near the frontline use small drones to target civilians.

“We’ll talk about these big attacks, especially when Kiev is under attack, but cities like Sumy and Kherson are under attack 24/7,” Melnyk said.

“(a) I’m going to enter the shelter as ballistic missiles come. My point is that this is the daily life of Ukrainian citizens and civilians.”

The 10-year-old was killed in an Iranian missile strike in central Israel among four people killed in Iranian missile strikes, according to emergency services.
A large-scale emergency response operation is currently underway in Bat Yam City, where the building was hit directly.

According to Mazen David Admu (MDA), Israel’s National Emergency Services, a woman of 60, an 80-year-old, and a girl who was not given that age were also killed on strike.

Bat Yam’s video showed buildings with torn facades and tall mountains of tiled rubs. Emergency workers scrutinised the scene along with the search dogs and were able to see residents gathering on the streets behind the Cordon Line.

Blott said the first building was attacked around 2:30am. Other buildings in the area have also been damaged, indicating that the windows have been shattered, and the window frames have been torn from the exterior walls.

Authorities are now working to establish a family centre and support residents who have been evacuated on strike, he said.

Israeli police international spokesman Dean Elsdan Chut said he received “reports of numerous shock sites” after the “big rocket barrage” was fired from Iran.

“We have a lot of casualties that we had to be medically evacuated. Unfortunately, they contain deaths,” he said from Bat Yam in a Reuters video. He added that police will work with other Israeli agencies, including the military, to find missing residents and secure the scene.

Approximately 140 people have been injured in two locations in central Israel.

In another wave of strikes, four additional people were killed in northern Israel, increasing the number of deaths from Sunday’s attack to eight on Sunday.

CNN
–

Israel’s unprecedented attack on Iran had an elusive, high-risk target at their core. It eradicated the country’s controversial nuclear program.

Israel has targeted Iran’s three key nuclear facilities: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordau – as well as many top scientists involved in nuclear research and development.

The extent of the damage – and whether Iran’s nuclear program will survive is not immediately clear. Israeli military officials said at a briefing on Saturday that they were attacked by Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Isfahan. Iran said it has admitted the deaths of nine experts, despite limited damage to the facility.

“If we miss that, there’s no way Iran will prevent the development of nuclear weapons that threaten our existence,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday.

“We’ve been dealing with Iranian proxy for the past year and a half, and now we’re dealing with the heads of the snake itself.”

Iran claims that the programme is peaceful. This is what we know about the damage to three sites.

Initial assessments show that Israel’s strike against the Natanz nuclear facility in Israel was highly effective, far beyond superficial damage to external structures and knocked out electricity at low levels where the centrifuge used to enrich uranium was stored.

“This was a full-spectrum blitz,” said another source who is well-versed in the assessment.

The strike has destroyed the aboveground portion of Natantz’s pilot fuel enrichment plant, a vast site that has been in operation since 2003, and has enriched uranium by up to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Weapon grade uranium is concentrated to 90%.

CNN has obtained radar images from the space imaging company Umbra, which has damaged several areas of the Natantz facility. Other satellite images reviewed by CNN showed the same damage more clearly as the smoke plume was visibly rising, visible from multiple locations throughout the site.

Natantz’s electrical infrastructure, including major power buildings and emergency and backup generators, has also been destroyed, according to the IAEA. The assessment was supported by two U.S. officials and told CNN that electricity was knocked out at a low level where the centrifuge used to enrich uranium was stored.

Because many of Natantz facilities are strongly strengthened and are underground, that aspect of operation is extremely important as cleaning up power to those parts of the facility is the most effective way to affect underground equipment and machines.

The IAEA said that while Israel does not appear to have directly damaged the underground parts of the plants, the loss of power over the underground cascade hall “may have hurt the centrifuge there.”

Natantz has six above-ground buildings and three underground buildings, two of which can hold 50,000 centrifuges, according to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Centrifuges are machines that can concentrate uranium by rotating gas at high speeds.

There is no broader radiological effects. “The levels of radioactivity outside the Natanz site remain unchanged and remain normal,” the IAEA said. “However, due to the effects, there is radiological and chemical contamination within Natantz’s facility,” he added, but the levels are manageable.

The extent of damage at the Isfahan nuclear site in central Iran, along with conflicting claims about the effects of attacks emerging in Israel and Iran, has been more difficult to analyze within hours of being hit.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy organization, said on Saturday that Iran’s largest nuclear research complex – limited and damages at the site.

Equipment at the two facilities moved in anticipation of a strike, Kamalbandi said. He added that the shed at the facility caused a fire, and there is no risk of contamination.

But Israel was even more bullish. An IDF official said at a briefing on Saturday that the site caused major damage.

The facility was built with support from China and opened in 1984, NTI said. According to the nonprofit, 3,000 scientists are employed in Isfahan, and the site is “suspected to be the heart of Iran’s nuclear program.”

NTI says it “operates conversion facilities and fuel production plants,” as well as “three research reactors supplied by China” and “conversion facilities, fuel production plants, zirconium cladding plants and other facilities and laboratories.”

During a briefing on Saturday, IDF officials said Israel had “specific intelligence” in which Iran “goes to nuclear bombs” at Isfahan’s facility. Despite its significant uranium enrichment, Iran repeatedly stated that the nuclear program was a peaceful purpose and denied the development of the atomic bomb.

Fordow fuel enrichment plants are a much more difficult site to target. The plant is buried deep in the mountains near QOM in northern Iran, and the house is an advanced centrifuge used to enrich uranium of high purity.

Israel targeted the site during the attack on Friday, but the IAEA said it had not been affected and the IDF claimed significant damage there. Iran’s bulletproof shot down an Israeli drone near the plant, Iranian state media outlet reported Friday evening.

The fate of Fordow may be crucial to the overall success of the Israeli attack.

In 2023, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that uranium particles enriched in 83.7% purity were found in Fordow, near the 90% level of enrichment required to make nuclear bombs.

“If Fordow remains operational, Israeli attacks could barely slow Iran’s path to bombs,” wrote James M. Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on Friday.

Acton said Israel might be able to collapse the entrance to the facility, but noted that destroying the Fordau site will be a difficult task for Israel.