June 16, Friday, 2023

1. Policymakers at the Bank of Japan have wrapped up their two-day meeting. They say they are leaving the central bank’s easing program unchanged. The BOJ will keep its short-term benchmark interest rate in negative territory. And it will continue asset purchases to keep long-term rates around zero percent.
2. Ukrainian defense officials say the country’s troops are making progress in their counteroffensive against Russia despite fierce resistance. Speaking to reporters on Thursday in Kyiv, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said Ukrainian troops have advanced more than three kilometers to the east. She also said they are advancing “gradually but surely” to the south. 3. Russia’s central election commission says it will hold elections in September in the four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed, along with the rest of Russia.