The time in Kyiv is almost 8:30pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s headlines:
A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing in the region of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday, the Russian state news agency Tass said, in an attack that Russia immediately blamed on Ukraine and the west. Tass quoted a source in the emergency services as saying the writer’s car was blown up. “He survived, but was wounded and is conscious,” the source was quoted as saying.
Russia has been accused of attacking the besieged city of Bakhmut with incendiary phosphorus weapons, BBC News reported. Ukraine’s military shared drone footage of what appeared to show Bakhmut ablaze as white phosphorus rains down on the city.
Ukraine hailed the return of 45 Azov battalion fighters captured during the battle for Mariupol while Russia said three of its pilots had been released by Kyiv, but neither side gave a full account of the apparent prisoner swap, Reuters reports. The freed Ukrainian prisoners included 42 men and three women from the Azov battalion, said Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office.
Ukraine’s air force has claimed to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defence systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles. Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defence systems.
Russian shelling killed six Ukrainian explosives experts engaged in demining operations in the southern Kherson region, the Ukrainian emergency services said on Saturday. The emergency services, in a report on Telegram, said two other members of the de-mining team were injured, along with a female nurse, and were being treated in hospital, Reuters reports.
Concerns in the Russian leadership about its vulnerability to attacks and the potential for public protests over the Ukraine war have contributed to the decision to cancel many Victory Day parades, citing security concerns, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said six Russian regions, occupied Crimea and 21 cities had cancelled their parades on Tuesday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Russia is still not satisfied with how the issue of Russian agricultural exports as part of the Black Sea grain deal is being resolved, Tass news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin as saying on Saturday after the latest talks with a top UN official. “We are still not satisfied with the progress. This is very important for us,” Vershinin said. He was speaking after talks in Moscow with the United Nations’ top trade official Rebeca Grynspan, Tass said.
Poland will demand European Union sanctions on imports of Russian farm products, its ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sadoś was quoted as saying by PAP news agency. “Europe isn’t threatened by disruptions in supply chain of farm products now, contrary, we have a problem of surpluses. We are resolving a problem of increased imports of farm products from Ukraine,” Sadoś said, according to PAP.
Switzerland’s parliament has approved a request from Ukrainian authorities for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address it. The invitation, announced in a statement late on Friday, comes amid pressure on Switzerland’s government to break with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality and end a ban of exports of Swiss weapons to conflict zones such as Ukraine.
Kherson’s weekend curfew is the latest inconvenience for residents who, after enduring months of Russian occupation last year, have been subjected to daily bombardments by Russian troops encamped nearby on the other side of the River Dnipro. Despite their retreat from Kherson city last November, Russian forces still hold large swathes of territory in the wider Kherson region that Ukraine wants to recapture, Reuters reports.
Some residents left Kherson in cars and buses on Friday while others stocked up on groceries before a 56-hour curfew began on Friday evening in the southern Ukrainian city. Reuters reports that the announcement of the curfew, lasting until Monday morning, prompted speculation in Kherson that the city was about to be used as a launch point for Ukraine’s much-anticipated counterattack.
Strikes on Russian infrastructure including drone attacks on refineries and train sabotage have multiplied in recent weeks, with experts suggesting they are part of Ukraine’s preparations for an expected spring offensive. Agence France-Presse reports that Kyiv has not claimed any of the acts denounced by Moscow as Ukrainian “sabotage” of “unprecedented momentum”, but the majority appear to target Russian army supply chains in border regions and in annexed Crimea, a base for Russian troops.
Ukraine sent its first lady, Olena Zelenska, and Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, as the country’s representatives to King Charles’s coronation in London on Saturday. Zelenska posted on her official Facebook: “It is an honour for us and prime minister Denys Shmyhal to attend the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla The royal family here at Westminster Abbey to wish on behalf of all of Ukraine successful governance and prosperity to the country.”
The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said his forces will leave Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer. Yevgeny Prigozhin said they would pull back on Wednesday 10 May – ending their involvement in the war’s longest battle – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies, and he asked defence chiefs to put regular army troops in their place. But Ukraine said Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize the eastern city before that date.
Prigozhin earlier released a video showing him standing in a field of Russian corpses and blaming defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine, appearing to reignite his simmering feud with Russian top brass.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has carried out an inspection of troop readiness for forces engaged in the war, in an apparent coded response to Prigozhin’s criticism.
Ukraine said two people had been killed and nine wounded in the eastern Donetsk region and electricity distribution networks had been damaged by shelling in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Authorities in the Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia have begun evacuating villages near the frontline. The Russian-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced the move in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive aimed at retaking the area, claiming Kyiv’s forces had “stepped up shelling of settlements close to the frontline” in the past few days.
Engineers have reduced the risk of a dam bursting and damaging the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a senior Russian official was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying on Friday. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of energy engineering firm Rosenergoatom, said specialists had begun discharging water from the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine.
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of a theatre director and a playwright on charges of “justifying terrorism” over an award-winning play about Russian women recruited online to marry radical Islamists in Syria. Director Yevgeniya Berkovich and author Svetlana Petriychuk were placed in custody until 4 July, Russian news agencies reported.
Bill Clinton has said he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before the Russian president attacked Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 – three years before he took Crimea – that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”
That’s it from me for today. We’ll be closing this blog shortly. Thanks for joining us.
Russian shelling killed six Ukrainian explosives experts engaged in demining operations in the southern Kherson region, the Ukrainian emergency services said on Saturday.
The emergency services, in a report on Telegram, said two other members of the de-mining team were injured, along with a female nurse, and were being treated in hospital, Reuters reports.
Russia said its forces had downed a Ukrainian missile over the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, amid an expected offensive by Kyiv, AFP reports.
The Moscow-appointed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said on social media:
Air defence forces shot down a ballistic missile over the Republic of Crimea. The missile was launched with Ukraine’s Grim-2 system. There was no damage or casualties.
His adviser, Oleg Kryuchkov, later said two such missiles were shot down, Russian news agencies reported.
AFP was unable to verify the claims.
State-run agency TASS said this was the second official confirmation of a Grim missile being neutralised over Crimea, after a first reported case in April.
Russia has in recent weeks seen an uptick in drone incursions and train sabotage, which experts suggest are part of Ukraine’s preparations for an expected spring offensive.
Updated
Updated
Full story: Pro-Kremlin writer Zakhar Prilepin injured in car explosion, says Russia
A prominent pro-Kremlin writer and Russian nationalist has been injured in a car “explosion” and one other person was killed, the interior ministry in Moscow has said, after a string of apparent drone attacks in Russia amid the fighting in Ukraine.
“According to initial reports, one person was killed by the explosion, and the writer Zakhar Prilepin, who was in the car, was injured” in the Nizhny Novgorod region about 250 miles (400km) east of Moscow, the ministry said.
The investigative committee, which investigates serious crimes, said Prilepin was “travelling with his family” at the time. Russian state-run agencies cited sources in the emergency services saying the writer sustained leg injuries.
Read more here:
Ukraine hailed the return of 45 Azov battalion fighters captured during the battle for Mariupol while Russia said three of its pilots had been released by Kyiv, but neither side gave a full account of the apparent prisoner swap, Reuters reports.
The freed Ukrainian prisoners included 42 men and three women from the Azov battalion, said Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office.
Azov battalion fighters, who did much of the fighting in the failed defence of the port city of Mariupol, have been lionized as heroes by many Ukrainians but are widely vilified in Russia.
On the Telegram app in a post that did not mention the release of Russian prisoners, Yermak said:
Excellent news on this sunny day. We are returning home 45 of our people. Thirty-five privates and sergeants, 10 officers.
The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement that three pilots had been returned and were being provided with medical and psychological assistance.
The statement, which did not mention the 45 Ukrainian prisoners, said:
As a result of a difficult negotiation process, three Russian pilots of the Russian Aerospace Forces, who had been in mortal danger while in captivity, were returned from Kyiv-controlled territory.
There were no reports on Russian state media of additional Russian prisoner releases.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, which coordinates prisoner exchanges with Russia, did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
Moscow and Kyiv have agreed a number of prisoner exchanges since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February last year.
Russia says it launched its “special military operation” to counter a threat from Kyiv’s relations with the west, while Ukraine and its western partners say it was an unprovoked land grab.
Updated
Afternoon summary
The time in Kyiv is almost 6pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s headlines:
A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing in the region of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday, the Russian state news agency Tass said, in an attack that Russia immediately blamed on Ukraine and the west. Tass quoted a source in the emergency services as saying the writer’s car was blown up. “He survived, but was wounded and is conscious,” the source was quoted as saying.
Russia has been accused of attacking the besieged city of Bakhmut with incendiary phosphorus weapons, BBC News reported. Ukraine’s military shared drone footage of what appeared to show Bakhmut ablaze as white phosphorus rains down on the city.
Ukraine’s air force has claimed to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defence systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles. Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defence systems.
Concerns in the Russian leadership about its vulnerability to attacks and the potential for public protests over the Ukraine war have contributed to the decision to cancel many Victory Day parades, citing security concerns, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said six Russian regions, occupied Crimea and 21 cities had cancelled their parades on Tuesday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Russia is still not satisfied with how the issue of Russian agricultural exports as part of the Black Sea grain deal is being resolved, Tass news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin as saying on Saturday after the latest talks with a top UN official. “We are still not satisfied with the progress. This is very important for us,” Vershinin said. He was speaking after talks in Moscow with the United Nations’ top trade official Rebeca Grynspan, Tass said.
Poland will demand European Union sanctions on imports of Russian farm products, its ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sadoś was quoted as saying by PAP news agency. “Europe isn’t threatened by disruptions in supply chain of farm products now, contrary, we have a problem of surpluses. We are resolving a problem of increased imports of farm products from Ukraine,” Sadoś said, according to PAP.
Switzerland’s parliament has approved a request from Ukrainian authorities for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address it. The invitation, announced in a statement late on Friday, comes amid pressure on Switzerland’s government to break with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality and end a ban of exports of Swiss weapons to conflict zones such as Ukraine.
Kherson’s weekend curfew is the latest inconvenience for residents who, after enduring months of Russian occupation last year, have been subjected to daily bombardments by Russian troops encamped nearby on the other side of the River Dnipro. Despite their retreat from Kherson city last November, Russian forces still hold large swathes of territory in the wider Kherson region that Ukraine wants to recapture, Reuters reports.
Some residents left Kherson in cars and buses on Friday while others stocked up on groceries before a 56-hour curfew began on Friday evening in the southern Ukrainian city. Reuters reports that the announcement of the curfew, lasting until Monday morning, prompted speculation in Kherson that the city was about to be used as a launch point for Ukraine’s much-anticipated counterattack.
Strikes on Russian infrastructure including drone attacks on refineries and train sabotage have multiplied in recent weeks, with experts suggesting they are part of Ukraine’s preparations for an expected spring offensive. Agence France-Presse reports that Kyiv has not claimed any of the acts denounced by Moscow as Ukrainian “sabotage” of “unprecedented momentum”, but the majority appear to target Russian army supply chains in border regions and in annexed Crimea, a base for Russian troops.
Ukraine sent its first lady, Olena Zelenska, and Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, as the country’s representatives to King Charles’s coronation in London on Saturday. Zelenska posted on her official Facebook: “It is an honour for us and prime minister Denys Shmyhal to attend the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla The royal family here at Westminster Abbey to wish on behalf of all of Ukraine successful governance and prosperity to the country.”
The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said his forces will leave Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer. Yevgeny Prigozhin said they would pull back on Wednesday 10 May – ending their involvement in the war’s longest battle – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies, and he asked defence chiefs to put regular army troops in their place. But Ukraine said Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize the eastern city before that date.
Prigozhin earlier released a video showing him standing in a field of Russian corpses and blaming defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine, appearing to reignite his simmering feud with Russian top brass.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has carried out an inspection of troop readiness for forces engaged in the war, in an apparent coded response to Prigozhin’s criticism.
Ukraine said two people had been killed and nine wounded in the eastern Donetsk region and electricity distribution networks had been damaged by shelling in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Authorities in the Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia have begun evacuating villages near the frontline. The Russian-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced the move in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive aimed at retaking the area, claiming Kyiv’s forces had “stepped up shelling of settlements close to the frontline” in the past few days.
Engineers have reduced the risk of a dam bursting and damaging the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a senior Russian official was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying on Friday. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of energy engineering firm Rosenergoatom, said specialists had begun discharging water from the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine.
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of a theatre director and a playwright on charges of “justifying terrorism” over an award-winning play about Russian women recruited online to marry radical Islamists in Syria. Director Yevgeniya Berkovich and author Svetlana Petriychuk were placed in custody until 4 July, Russian news agencies reported.
Bill Clinton has said he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before the Russian president attacked Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 – three years before he took Crimea – that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Nicola Slawson will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Updated
Ukrainian military accuses Russia of using phosphorus bombs in Bakhmut
Russia has been accused of attacking the besieged city of Bakhmut with incendiary phosphorus weapons, BBC News reported.
Ukraine’s military shared drone footage of what appeared to show Bakhmut ablaze as white phosphorus rains down on the city.
BBC News reported:
White phosphorus weapons are not banned, but their use in civilian areas is considered a war crime. They create fast-spreading fires that are very difficult to put out. Russia has been accused of using them before.
Russia has been trying to capture Bakhmut for months, despite its questionable strategic value. Western officials have estimated that thousands of Moscow’s troops have died in the assault.
On Twitter, Ukraine’s defence ministry said the attack had targeted “unoccupied areas of Bakhmut with incendiary ammunition”.
It added:
Not enough shells, but more than enough phosphorus.
Not enough shells, but more than enough phosphorus.
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 5, 2023
Ruscists are shelling unoccupied areas of Bakhmut with incendiary ammunition.
They will burn in Hell.
📷 @SOF_UKR pic.twitter.com/7oqNTumJ34
Updated
The price of liberation is high. In the village of Posad-Pokrovske in southern Ukraine, a place once on the very frontline of the war, almost every house is damaged by shell fire.
Outside a blue-painted church, Father Viktor Kravchuk, 61, has laid out the sheets, quilts and clothes he has rescued from his ruined house to air in front a little cemetery that is a tangle of blossoming lilac.
Mykola Barkov, a volunteer, helps Kravchuk clear out a ruined room with a sagging, broken ceiling where, before the war, the priest hosted his church group meetings.
Kravchuk tells the story of the village, describing the brief Russian occupation there at the beginning of the war – how after the Russians were pushed out, the village became a frontline position for Ukraine’s soldiers, who were hit by Russian shells for months.
Russia is still not satisfied with how the issue of Russian agricultural exports as part of the Black Sea grain deal is being resolved, Tass news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin as saying on Saturday after the latest talks with a top UN official.
“We are still not satisfied with the progress. This is very important for us,” Vershinin said.
He was speaking after talks in Moscow with the United Nations’ top trade official Rebeca Grynspan, Tass said.
Updated
A mock-up depicting Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hangs from a road sign, which reads ‘Avdiivka is Ukraine’, in the town of Avdiivka, near a frontline in Donetsk region.
Updated
More on the pro-Kremlin writer and army veteran Zakhar Prilepin who was injured in a car “explosion” on Saturday.
One other person in the car was killed, according to the Russian interior ministry. He had been travelling with his family, Russian authorities reported. State-run news agencies said his legs have been injured, Agence France-Presse reports.
“According to initial reports, one person was killed by the explosion, and the writer Zakhar Prilepin, who was in the car, was injured” in the Nizhny Novgorod region about 400km (250 miles) east of Moscow, the ministry said.
Prilepin, 47, one of Russia’s best-known novelists, joined pro-Russian separatists in the east of Ukraine in 2014, and fought by their side.
A Chechnya war veteran, he has regularly gone to eastern Ukraine and is a vocal supporter of Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and of his February 2022 offensive.
The incident comes after a series of apparent attacks and sabotage on Russian territory, sometimes far from the front.
In April a blast from a statuette rigged with explosives killed 40-year-old pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
And last August Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent ultranationalist intellectual, was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow, which Russia blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv denied the charges.
Updated
Ukraine has sent first lady, Olena Zelenska, and Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, as the country’s representatives to UK’s King Charles’s coronation in London on Saturday.
Zelenska posted on her official Facebook: “It is an honour for us and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to attend the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla The royal family here at Westminster Abbey to wish on behalf of all of Ukraine successful governance and prosperity to the country.”
Updated
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has not yet responded to proposals from United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on the Black Sea grain deal, Tass news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, as saying.
The situation around the deal was “not improving for now”, it quoted him as saying.
In April, the UN chief asked the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to deliver to Putin a letter proposing a “way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of the deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain, Reuters reported.
Updated
Car bomb kills one and injures pro-Kremlin writer, Russian state media says
A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing in the region of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday, the Russian state news agency Tass said, in an attack that Russia immediately blamed on Ukraine and the West.
Tass quoted a source in the emergency services as saying the writer’s car was blown up. “He survived, but was wounded and is conscious,” the source was quoted as saying.
No further details were immediately available.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram:
The fact has come true: Washington and Nato fed another international terrorist cell – the Kyiv regime.
She said it was the “direct responsibility of the US and Britain”, but provided no evidence to support the accusation. “We pray for Zakhar,” she added.
Updated
Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot
Ukraine’s air force has claimed to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defence systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.
Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defence systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night time attack on 4 May in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile, AP reported.
The Kinzhal is one of the latest and most advanced Russian weapons. The Russian military says the air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to 2,000km (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.
A combination of hypersonic speed and a heavy warhead allows the Kinzhal to destroy heavily fortified targets, like underground bunkers or mountain tunnels. The Ukrainian military has previously admitted lacking assets to intercept the Kinzhals.
Ukraine took its first delivery of the Patriot missiles in late April. It has not specified how many of the systems it has, but they have been provided by the US, Germany and the Netherlands.
Germany has acknowledged sending at least one system and the Netherlands has said it has provided two.
Updated
Poland will demand European Union sanctions on imports of Russian farm products, its ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sadoś was quoted as saying by PAP news agency.
“Europe isn’t threatened by disruptions in supply chain of farm products now, contrary, we have a problem of surpluses. We are resolving a problem of increased imports of farm products from Ukraine,” Sadoś said, according to PAP.
The European Commission earlier this week set restrictions until 5 June on imports of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed to ease the excess supply of these commodities in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, the EU has adopted 10 sanctions packages against Russian individuals and companies, Reuters reported.
Poland in April proposed a new set of punitive measures against Moscow, including a ban on pipeline oil and diamond imports.
Updated
The FT’s correspondent Christopher Miller has shared a video of what appears to be Russian forces attacking the city of Bakhmut with incendiary weapons.
He tweeted:
Video from Ukraine’s special operations forces purportedly showing Russian forces blanketing the embattled city of Bakhmut with incendiary weapons.
Video from Ukraine’s special operations forces purportedly showing Russian forces blanketing the embattled city of Bakhmut with incendiary weapons. https://t.co/n0LP3Ik3pT
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) May 6, 2023
Switzerland’s parliament has approved a request from Ukrainian authorities for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address it.
The invitation, announced in a statement late on Friday, comes amid pressure on Switzerland’s government to break with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality and end a ban of exports of Swiss weapons to conflict zones such as Ukraine.
So far, the government has refused to change this policy, Reuters reported.
The subject of Zelenskiy’s address, which will the first by video by a foreign leader to the legislature, is unknown. It is scheduled for the summer session beginning on 30 May.
During that session, lawmakers are also set to weigh a motion to provide 5bn Swiss Francs ($5.6bn) of support to Ukraine over five to 10 years.
Updated
Kremlin fears of attacks influenced Victory Day parade cancellations, says UK MoD
Concerns in the Russian leadership about its vulnerability to attacks and the potential for public protests over the Ukraine war have contributed to the decision to cancel many Victory Day parades, citing security concerns, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said.
In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said six Russian regions, occupied Crimea and 21 cities had cancelled their parades on Tuesday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
The ministry said:
The timing of the UAV [drone] strike on the Kremlin a few days before Victory Day shows Russia’s increasing vulnerability to such attacks and has almost certainly raised the threat perception of the Russian leadership over the Victory Day events.
The potential for protests and discontent over the Ukraine war are also likely to have influenced the calculus of the Russian leadership.
Moscow’s Victory Day celebration was likely to go ahead but on a smaller scale, said the briefing, posted on Twitter, while the reception for the president, Vladimir Putin, after the parade would not.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 6 May 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 6, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/7fNDKdzCOF
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/lsD4aRxEH2
Updated
Kherson’s weekend curfew is the latest inconvenience for residents who, after enduring months of Russian occupation last year, have been subjected to daily bombardments by Russian troops encamped nearby on the other side of the River Dnipro.
Despite their retreat from Kherson city last November, Russian forces still hold large swathes of territory in the wider Kherson region that Ukraine wants to recapture, Reuters reports.
Russian shelling on Wednesday killed 23 people in Kherson city, and attacks on Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Kherson region continued on Friday, regional authorities said.
Some residents left Kherson in cars and buses on Friday while others stocked up on groceries before a 56-hour curfew began on Friday evening in the southern Ukrainian city.
Reuters reports that the announcement of the curfew, lasting until Monday morning, prompted speculation in Kherson that the city was about to be used as a launch point for Ukraine’s much-anticipated counterattack.
Iryna Chupryna, a former real estate manager, said:
Everybody understands it [the curfew]. It means it is necessary for our military.
Some residents said they left because they were scared, others because they did not want to spend most of the weekend indoors.
Local authorities gave little away about the reason for the curfew, beyond saying it was intended to enable law enforcement agencies to “conduct their activities in Kherson”.
No one will be allowed to enter or exit the city during the curfew, and residents must limit their movements to short walks outside their homes.
Updated
Attacks on Russia seen as prelude to Ukraine counteroffensive
Strikes on Russian infrastructure including drone attacks on refineries and train sabotage have multiplied in recent weeks, with experts suggesting they are part of Ukraine’s preparations for an expected spring offensive.
Agence France-Presse reports that Kyiv has not claimed any of the acts denounced by Moscow as Ukrainian “sabotage” of “unprecedented momentum”, but the majority appear to target Russian army supply chains in border regions and in annexed Crimea, a base for Russian troops.
Mykhailo Samus, deputy director of the Centre for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies in Kyiv, said:
All of this was done to prepare for an offensive. I am sure that the intensity [of the attacks] will increase.
A senior Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously, said that “these are standard measures for limiting the capabilities of the Russian armed forces”.
Oil facilities – essential for supplying the troops – appear to be the priority targets of the attacks, which have been generally carried out with drones.
The list of incidents has expanded on a near daily basis. On Thursday, a drone was shot down near an airbase in Sevastopol in the Crimea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. That same day, Russia’s southern Krasnodar and Rostov regions, both near Ukraine, reported drone strikes that caused fires. On Friday, another fire broke out at the same oil refinery in Krasnodar.
Over the past week, two fuel depots also caught fire, in and around Crimea, while last weekend an overnight Ukrainian strike on the Russian border village of Suzemka left four dead.
Also in Russia’s Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, two freight trains derailed earlier this week after explosive devices went off on the tracks.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its 437th day. I’m Adam Fulton and let’s begin with a rundown of the latest events.
Increasing attacks on Russian infrastructure in recent weeks are part of Ukraine’s preparations for its long-anticipated spring offensive, experts suggest.
The majority of the strikes appear to be targeting Russian army supply chains in border regions and in annexed Crimea, a base for Russian forces.
In the southern city of Kherson, meanwhile, a 56-hour curfew began on Friday evening and some residents left the city after the curfew announcement prompted speculation that it was about to be used as a launching point for Ukraine’s counterattack.
More on those stories shortly. In other news as it turns 9am in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv:
The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said his forces will leave Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer. Yevgeny Prigozhin said they would pull back on Wednesday 10 May – ending their involvement in the war’s longest battle – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies, and he asked defence chiefs to put regular army troops in their place. But Ukraine said Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize the eastern city before that date.
Prigozhin earlier released a video showing him standing in a field of Russian corpses and blaming defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine, appearing to reignite his simmering feud with Russian top brass.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has carried out an inspection of troop readiness for forces engaged in the war, in an apparent coded response to Prigozhin’s criticism.
Ukraine said two people had been killed and nine wounded in the eastern Donetsk region and electricity distribution networks had been damaged by shelling in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Authorities in the Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia have begun evacuating villages near the frontline. The Russian-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced the move in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive aimed at retaking the area, claiming Kyiv’s forces had “stepped up shelling of settlements close to the frontline” in the past few days.
Engineers have reduced the risk of a dam bursting and damaging the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a senior Russian official was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying on Friday. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of energy engineering firm Rosenergoatom, said specialists had begun discharging water from the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine.
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of a theatre director and a playwright on charges of “justifying terrorism” over an award-winning play about Russian women recruited online to marry radical Islamists in Syria. Director Yevgeniya Berkovich and author Svetlana Petriychuk were placed in custody until 4 July, Russian news agencies reported.
Bill Clinton has said he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before the Russian president attacked Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 – three years before he took Crimea – that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”
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