0558GMT//Third attack on Russia's Kerch Bridge; Putin-themed scented candles go on sale
KERCH BRIDGE ATTACK: Ukraine's SBU intelligence service on Tuesday blew up a bomb on a support structure of the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea to mainland Russia. The bomb was set off at 4.44am. Nobody was hurt in the attack. According to Russian media, traffic was closed on the bridge from 6am to 9am. (COMMENT: Ukraine's SBU said that the attack took several months to prepare and had caused "severe" damage but traffic was only halted for a few hours. The 18km-long Kerch Bridge was opened in 2018 and was a pet project for Putin. It was attacked in October 2022 using a bomb hidden in a truck and in July 2023 by naval drones. The latest attack on the Kerch Bridge will force Russia to boost security, again.)
MORALITY LESSONS: From Sept. 2026, Russian schoolchildren aged 11 -13 will have to sit through obligatory "spiritual values" courses designed to highlight the "prestige and wisdom" of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Kremlin sources said that they are currently designing the ideological course based on the "spiritual and moral values of Russian and Russian civilization". Metropolitan Tikhon of Simferopol and Crimea, one of Putin's favourite bishops, is reported to be a key adviser on the project. (COMMENT: The Kremlin is obsessed with showing Russia to be pure and moral compared to the West. This is part of its culture war to justify its invasion of Ukraine and its vilification of Europe. It has been manipulating school and university curriculums for several years.)
CAR SALES DROP: Sales of new cars in Russia were 27.5% lower in May than they were a year earlier, Russia's trade ministry said on Tuesday. (COMMENT: This was expected as a similar drop in sales was announced in April. The data highlights the poor state of Russia's civilian economy.)
NORTH KOREA VISIT: Sergei Shoigu, the Secretary of Russia's Security Council, flew into Pyongyang on Wednesday morning ahead of a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. (COMMENT: This looks to be part of the regular series of meetings between Russia and North Korea. Shoigu, Putin's friend and former defence minister, will attend a ceremony to "honour" North Korean conscripts killed fighting Ukrainian soldiers in Russia's Kursk region earlier this year and in December 2024.)
RUSSIAN GAS IMPORTS TO THE EU: France and Belgium will not go along with the EU's plan to ban imports of Russian liquefied Natural Gas until alternatives have been identified, they told the Politico news agency on Tuesday. (COMMENT: France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands continue to buy Russian LNG, embarrassing the EU. Spain and the Netherlands have said that they will back EU legislation to totally ban imports of Russian LNG but the EU needs all four countries onside to pass it. Hungary and Slovakia still buy Russian gas through pipelines.)
CANDLES: Putin-themed scented candles have gone on sale in Russia. They retail on the Wilberries website for 546 roubles ($6.90). The candles come in two different flavours – dark amber and black vanilla. (NOTE: Putin-themed gifts and pro-war gifts are popular in Russia. Wildberries is an online marketplace similar to Amazon.)
CORRECTION: Bashkorostan is not the first region in Russia to reduce the size of bounties for men signing on to join the Russian Army, as The Memo reported yesterday. In April, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod all roughly halved the size of the bounties they were offering. (COMMENT: Clearly, then, Bashkorostan's cut in the size of its bounty is part of a trend. Russian regions are looking to either slow the recruitment of men into the army or reduce their payment burden. What we can't say yet, is that the Kremlin has ordered a recruitment slowdown.)
NEWS MATRIX:
All four stories in today's News Matrix swing towards 'unsurprising'. May's drop in car sales confirms a downward economic trend; the Kremlin has been imposing propaganda lessons on schools and universities for a couple of years; Putin-themed gifts are popular in Russia – although scented candles may be, frankly, taking it a step too far. Perhaps the one contentious news story that has been rated as 'unsurprising' is the attack on the Kerch Bridge. It's unsurprising because it is the third attack on this high profile target. Is it also a surprise that the Ukrainian attack got through Russia's leaky defences? The attack and the poor economic data have been rated as 'important'.