The US has said it will back a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 and other modern fighter jets, marking a significant boost to western support for Kyiv as it prepares a major counteroffensive. The news was welcomed by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, whose RAF will be involved in the initiative.
Zelenskiy has addressed Arab League leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and asked them not to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine. After the visit, the Saudi foreign minister declared the country to be neutral in the conflict.
The US has halted exports of a slew of consumer goods to Russia including clothes dryers, snow plows and milking machines out of concern the goods may be repurposed to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The list of banned consumer goods came as the Biden administration also added 71 companies to a trade blacklist.
Ukraine said on Friday it had repelled attacks by Russian forces trying to recapture land they had lost around Bakhmut, where Kyiv says it has inflicted heavy Russian casualties. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group leading the assault on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city, said in a Telegram message that “heavy, bloody battles” were continuing and claimed his men were close to completing the capture of Bakhmut itself.
Russia has sanctioned former US president Barack Obama in response to the US sanctioning 300 individuals, companies and institutions. The US measures are largely targeted at energy production.
The G7 group of nations has urged Russia to stop its objection to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and told it to halt “threatening global food supplies”.
The UK unveiled a swathe of new sanctions ahead of the G7 summit in Hiroshima. Sunak announced a UK ban on imports of Russian diamonds and Russian-origin copper, nickel and aluminium. Sunak also has a self-declared mission to push India into showing greater support for Ukraine.
Hungary has stepped up threats to block further EU funds for weapons to aid Ukraine, marring a show of unity from western nations at the G7 meeting.
Australia has imposed a new set of sanctions and an export ban on Russia. The sanctions will target 21 entities and three individuals, with entities including the major Russian oil company Rosneft, gold company Polyus PJSC, steel company Severstal PJSC and five banks.
The Russian government has put the British prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, on a wanted list in an act of retribution after the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for allegedly overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children.
Ukrainian air defence claimed it destroyed 19 drones and missiles out of 28 launched on Friday morning. “Three Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea and 16 drones were shot down. Shelling continues on an almost daily basis,” a Ukrainian air force spokesperson, Yuriy Ihnat, told Ukrainian television. Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, posted to Telegram to say five drones had been shot down overnight above his western Ukrainian region.
Denmark will train Ukrainian F-16 pilots following the US decision to support the training. “Denmark has been working for this together with close allies,” the Nato country’s ministry of defence said.
Vladimir Putin has said the west is trying to break up Russia into different states based on ethnic and national lines. In a speech on Friday the Russian president said the sanctions were helping unite the Russian people rather than divide them. “There are attempts to drive a wedge between peoples of our country. They say Russia should be divided up into tens of different states.”
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, has claimed the US was involved in the killing of a pro-war military blogger in a bomb blast in St Petersburg in April, and the car bombing of a nationalist writer and politician earlier in May.
More than 100,000 people have enlisted in the Russian army so far this year, former president Dmitry Medvedev has said, as Moscow seeks to recruit volunteers for its offensive in Ukraine.
Five members of a Belarusian regiment fighting with Ukrainian forces have been killed in Bakhmut, a Belarusian opposition leader living in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has said on Twitter.
Russia had refused the latest US request for consular access to detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March on suspicion of spying.
With Reuters
