Ukrainian forces based on the western side of the Dnieper River are frequently carrying out raids on the eastern bank near the city of Kherson to try to dislodge Russian troops, a regional official said on Tuesday. Yuriy Sobolevskiy, deputy head of the Kherson regional administration, said the raids were intended to reduce the combat capability of Russian troops who have been shelling Kherson city since being forced to retreat. “Our military visit the left (eastern) bank very often, conducting raids. The Ukrainian armed forces are working, and working very effectively,” Sobolevskiy told Ukrainian television.
One person has been killed and ten wounded in a strike on a museum in Kupyansk in Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people. Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”
Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, said “Rescue operations are ongoing at the site of the rocket attack in the center of Kupyansk. Unfortunately, the woman who was under the rubble died. Rescuers have just recovered her body. According to our information, one more person may be under the rubble. Special services are doing everything possible to find her. There are no military facilities near the museum building, which was hit by an enemy S-300 missile. The enemy is deliberately hitting civilian infrastructure and terrorizing the civilian population.”
The number of daily casualties Russia is suffering has fallen by about 30% in April, UK intelligence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, the Ministry of Defence reported that the drop was probably due to the end of Russia’s winter offensive, which, it added, had largely failed. The MoD also said Russia was now likely to be preparing its troops for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Kyiv admitted it was behind a drone attack in the bay of Sevastopol, Ukrainian authorities confirmed. However, officials rejected Russian claims that the attack had put the operation of the grain corridor at risk.
Russia has switched to defensive positions in all its areas of combat apart from Bakhmut, according to the Ukrainian head of intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov. In an interview with RBC Ukraine on Monday, he said: “The only places on the frontline where they are making attempts are in the city of Bakhmut, an attempt to cover the city of Avdiivka from the north, and localised fighting in the city of Marinka. Both in Avdiivka and Marinka the tactics are identical to those in Bakhmut – just an attempt to wipe the settlement off the face of the Earth.”
UN secretary-general António Guterres has proposed to Russian president Vladimir Putin a “way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain, which Moscow has threatened to terminate from 18 May. Russia’s defence ministry meanwhile accused Ukraine of attempting to attack its ships in the Black Sea, which it said was threatening prospects of extending the deal.
Russia’s foreign ministry has said it is expelling a Moldovan diplomat in what it cast as retaliation for the expulsion last week of a Russian diplomat in Moldova. The ministry said in a statement it had summoned Moldova’s ambassador in Moscow to announce the expulsion, as well as to protest against what it called “unfriendly steps towards Russia” and “regular anti-Russian statements” from Chișinău.
Sweden is expelling five Russian diplomats, its foreign minister told public broadcaster SVT on Tuesday.
Lithuania’s parliament voted on Tuesday in favour of allowing border guards to turn back migrants who illegally entered the country. Lithuania borders fellow EU states Latvia and Poland, as well as Belarus, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In 2021, Latvia declared a state of emergency and Lithuania began planning a razor-wire fence to stop record numbers of migrants crossing their borders from Belarus. Authorities in the two Baltic states and Poland accused the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, of orchestrating the crossings in a form of “hybrid warfare”.
A former commander in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group seeking asylum in Norway has pleaded guilty to being involved in a fight outside an Oslo bar and carrying an air gun in public and said he felt “very ashamed”. Andrei Medvedev, 26, crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting with Russian invasion forces in Ukraine.
Ukraine has rescued 138 civilians, including its own nationals and citizens of Georgia and Peru, who were trapped by fighting in Sudan, Ukraine’s military intelligence said.
Britain and France’s sports ministers insisted on Tuesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes must never compete as neutrals as recommended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because they could still be funded by their governments.
A court in Russia has convicted a former police officer of publicly spreading false information about the country’s military after he criticised the war in Ukraine to his friends over the phone. The ex-officer, Semiel Vedel, was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison and barred from working in law enforcement for four years after his release.
Risks of a direct military confrontation between the two nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, are steadily growing, the Tass news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Tuesday. Vladimir Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, told the Russian state news agency that Washington is escalating the risks through its conduct with Moscow.
The world may have “reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold,” than it did during the cold war, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN security council at a meeting he chaired as part of Russia’s rotating presidency of the body on Monday. Gutterres said the invasion of Ukraine was “causing massive suffering and devastation”.
A woman charged with killing a pro-war Russian military blogger using explosives was denied bail by a Russian court on Monday. Darya Trepova, 26, is accused of killing Vladen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, on 2 April. He was presented with a statuette containing a bomb while giving a talk at a cafe in St Petersburg.
Ukrainian authorities said on Monday Russian forces are “forcibly evacuating” civilians in the parts of the Kherson region that they still occupy, a day after it was claimed Ukrainian forces had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Dnieper River. The claim cannot be verified, but it comes amid an apparent increase in Ukrainian military activity in the south of the country which some analysts have interpreted as a potential precursor to Kyiv’s long anticipated counter-offensive.
Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas voiced hope that EU membership talks with Kyiv could begin this year, during a Monday visit to the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr. “It will be a hard process and the requirements need to be fulfilled 100%,” she said, speaking alongside Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Estonia has been one of Ukraine’s largest donors per capita and this was Kallas’s first visit after her party won a landslide victory for her pro-Ukraine platform last month.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said his ruling ANC party has resolved to quit the international criminal court, which last month issued an arrest warrant against Putin. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, meaning Pretoria, which is due to host the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc summit this year, would be required to detain him on arrival.
Two German companies that between them build the Leopard 2 – one of the world’s most advanced battle tanks – have become embroiled in a legal spat over its intellectual property rights. Rheinmetall AG, which was thrust into the spotlight last year as Germany ramped up its defence spending, is being taken to court by its peer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), with a hearing due at a Munich court on 2 May.
Calls for a boycott of Beefeater Gin have been made after its French wine and spirits owner resumed selling the iconic British brand to Russia. “Many companies, in our industry and in others, have made the same choice to maintain a limited presence in the market,” a spokesperson for the company, Pernod Ricard, told the Guardian.
It is time for the Nato alliance to “stop making excuses” and accept Ukraine as a member as the country has demonstrated its readiness and has much to offer, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Kuleba said the political will of the alliance had been “sorely lacking” on the issue of admitting Ukraine.
