Ukraine Strikes Kronstadt; Iran Fires Missiles at Kuwait, Bahrain

The largest military action of June 6 was Ukraine's strike on Kronstadt, the main base of Russia's Baltic Fleet near St Petersburg. Ukrainian drones flew 1,000km — Zelensky described it as Ukraine's longest-range operation — hitting the naval base, Leningrad arsenals, and a Krasnodar oil depot 500km to the south. Leningrad governor Alexander Drozdenko reported more than 140 drones shot down and a fire at a military facility. St Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov issued the city's first stay-at-home order since February 2022. The attack landed on the final day of Russia's annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum — 'Russia's Davos' — a day after Putin, speaking at the same forum, had refused Zelensky's request for direct negotiations and said Russia would end the war only when its maximalist territorial and political demands were met. It was the second Ukrainian strike on the St Petersburg region in under a week.

In the Gulf, Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain; US forces intercepted six and the seventh failed to reach its target. Kuwait's defence ministry said its systems tracked 30 ballistic missiles and drones in the attack — a figure that points to multiple salvoes — and called it 'heinous Iranian aggression targeting civilian and vital facilities.' Kuwait and Bahrain both issued formal condemnations. The attack is part of an escalating pattern of Iranian missile and drone strikes on Gulf states since the US-Israel military campaign began, including an earlier Iranian drone that killed an Indian citizen at Kuwait's main airport.

The economic dimension of the US-Iran conflict is now registering in Western capitals. The Independent published an editorial arguing that Britain is absorbing the conflict through higher energy bills, food prices and mortgage costs, compounding a fragile domestic recovery. Lower-income countries in Africa and Asia have been hit hardest — fuel shortages, currency pressure and supply chain disruption — but advanced economies are not insulated. US fuel prices have also risen. The conflict is proving more protracted than the White House anticipated, with Lebanon now the most active front and negotiations stalled. Iran separately accused US and Israeli strikes of causing a partial loss of IAEA nuclear oversight, complicating the diplomacy.

The trade dimension of great-power competition moved in parallel. More than a year after Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, the EU, Canada and others are adding their own barriers against Chinese exports in pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and semiconductors — the structural aim now being to break Beijing's lock on strategic supply chains rather than to rebuild the pre-2025 open trading architecture, which most analysts regard as unrecoverable. China retains as its strongest retaliatory instrument near-monopoly control over critical mineral supply chains.

Diplomatically, the week's most significant shift for Ukraine's future was Hungary's decision to lift its 17-month veto on Ukraine's EU accession process. Hungary's new Prime Minister Péter Magyar — who won the April election on a pro-European platform, defeating Viktor Orbán's Fidesz — reached a deal with Kyiv on minority rights for the 100,000-strong Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia. EU ambassadors confirmed the shift on June 3; intergovernmental accession conferences with Ukraine and Moldova are scheduled for June 15. Hungary will hold a legally binding referendum if Ukraine closes all 33 accession chapters within 10 to 15 years.

In France, the death of 11-year-old Lyhanna from Fleurance — whose body was found Thursday in a silo, days after she disappeared into the car of a man who had twice faced dropped child-rape accusations — plunged Prime Minister Lecornu's government into crisis mode. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin called the judicial chain failure 'terrifying,' promised administrative inquiries and sanctions, and acknowledged that France does not take children's words seriously. The case arrived alongside a figure that had already drawn criticism: more than 70 percent of child violence complaints in France are dismissed without prosecution, according to LFI deputy Manuel Bompard.

NATO discussed a €70 billion military aid package for Ukraine ahead of its Ankara summit. Former NATO Military Committee chairman Admiral Rob Bauer confirmed that the US warned Russia of conventional military destruction in autumn 2022 when Moscow signalled nuclear use as 20,000 Russian troops faced capture on the west bank of the Dnipro. Turkey graduated soldiers from Mali and Niger at its special forces camp in Isparta, extending to 20+ African nations its 'Somalia model' of military training partnerships — filling the strategic vacuum left by France's withdrawal from the Sahel. Germany's interior ministry recorded 85,000 politically motivated crimes in 2025, more than double the 2015 figure, on a day when pro-Palestine activists disrupted the German Armed Forces Day exhibition by climbing a Bundeswehr tank and naming Rheinmetall.