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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Dani Anguiano (now) and Joanna Walters Nicola Slawson, Rachel Hall and Calla Wahlquist (earlier)

More than 260 troops evacuated from steelworks – as it happened

NATO Ukraine Russia Volodymyr Zelenksyy Finland

We’re going to wrap things up for the day. Thanks for reading. We’ll be back in a few hours with a fresh liveblog, bringing you all the news.

Our story about Turkey’s announcement that it would not approve Sweden and Finland joining it as Nato members is here and you can read Daniel Boffey’s moving account here of the battle for Kharkiv, as the fight over Ukraine’s second city nears its end.

Summary

Here are some of the key developments of the day:

  • The evacuation of wounded Ukrainian troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is under way, Volodomyr Zelenskiy confirmed, with more than 260 fighters transported out of the plant. The troops have fulfilled their combat mission, the general staff of the armed forces said. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister has said an “exchange procedure will take place” to bring evacuees home.
  • Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said on Monday that 20 civilians, including a child, were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
  • Western military sources say that Vladimir Putin is involved in the war in Ukraine “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”. The Russian leader is reportedly so personally involved he is helping determine the movement of forces in the Donbas.
  • Ukrainian officials claimed that troops counter-attacking against Russian forces in the country’s north-east had pushed them back from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia.
  • Russian forces have shelled frontline positions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area as fighting becomes increasingly focused on Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukrainian forces after more than 11 weeks of war.
  • After Sweden and Finland yesterday confirmed plans to join Nato, Sweden is seeking to quell Turkish opposition by sending diplomats to the country. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Turkey will not approve the bids, and that delegations from the countries should not bother coming.
  • Vladimir Putin said Russia had no issue with Finland and Sweden, but that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow, as the Nordic countries move closer to joining Nato, which Russia has branded a mistake with far-reaching consequences.
  • Hungary has been accused of “holding the EU hostage” over its refusal to agree an oil embargo against Russia, as the bloc struggles to reach consensus on its latest sanctions aimed at eroding the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.
  • American fast-food giant McDonald’s will exit the Russian market and sell its business in the increasingly isolated country, the company said on Monday. Meanwhile, the Moscow city government is to take over a factory belonging to the French carmaker Renault and use it to revive the Soviet-era Moskvitch in Russia’s first major nationalization of a foreign company during its war in Ukraine.

Updated

The Ukrainian troops defending the Azovstal steel plant have fulfilled their combat mission, the country’s general staff of armed forces said.

“The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” Reuters reported the general staff said in a statement on Facebook. “Efforts to rescue defenders who remain on the territory of Azovstal continue.”

In his nightly video address, Volodomyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine would fight to save the lives of the Azovstal fighters. “There are severely wounded ones among them. They’re receiving care. Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive,” he said.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has said an “exchange procedure will take place” to bring evacuees home.

A wounded service member of Ukrainian forces from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol is transported on a stretcher out of a bus.
A wounded service member of Ukrainian forces from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol is transported on a stretcher out of a bus. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Outgunned and surrounded, troops at the plant became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as they continued to fight even after Mariupol fell to Russian forces. Last week, the last civilians rescued from the plant reached safety in Ukrainian held territory after two months of sheltering in the besieged city.

Updated

Zelenskiy confirms evacuation of wounded troops from Azovstal steelworks

The evacuation of wounded Ukrainian troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is under way, Volodomyr Zelenskiy confirmed, with more than 260 fighters transported out of the plant.

“We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys,” the Ukrainian president said of the evacuation.

Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said that 53 injured troops have been taken to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk and that more than 200 others were transported through a corridor to Olenivka. All evacuees will be returned home through exchanges, Malyar said.

Updated

Putin involved in war ‘at level of colonel or brigadier’, say western sources

Vladimir Putin has become so personally involved in the Ukraine war that he is making operational and tactical decisions “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”, according to western military sources.

The Russian president is helping determine the movement of forces in the Donbas, they added, where last week the invaders suffered a bloody defeat as they tried on multiple occasions to cross a strategic river in the east of Ukraine.

The sources added that Putin is still working closely with General Valery Gerasimov, the commander of the Russian armed forces, in contrast to claims made by Ukraine last week that the military chief had been sidelined.

“We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier,” the military source said, referring to the ongoing battle in the east of Ukraine.

Moscow’s armies have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough in the Donbas, where they have been mounting an offensive for a month that has failed several times encircle the smaller Ukrainian forces.

No further detail to back up the statement was provided, although it was implied the assessment about Putin’s close personal involvement was based on intelligence that had been received.

Read more here:

Updated

Reuters is reporting that Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have arrived in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk.

A witness told the news agency that evacuees, some wounded and carried out of buses on stretchers, arrived late on Monday.

Russia had said it would use a “humanitarian corridor” it established to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers to a medical facility in the town, about 45km east of Mariupol. Moscow claims to have reached a ceasefire with the last-stand Ukrainian troops at the steel plant, but Ukrainian officials have not confirmed this and it’s unclear exactly what is happening inside the plant.

I’m Dani Anguiano and I’ll be taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine for the next few hours.

There is every expectation that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenzkiy will make a public address from Kyiv before long and give us his update on the situation at the Azovstal steel works.

The huge plant has served for weeks as the last, desperate stand for a group of Ukrainians – military and civilian, now just soldiers – after the fall of the city of Mariupol to Russia.

It appears that wounded Ukrainian soldiers have been evacuated by Russian forces but the exact situation is far from clear.

Civilians trapped with the soldiers were evacuated earlier this month. Despite calls for action by pro-Ukrainian protesters in some parts of Europe in recent days, hope that some sort of Ukrainian special forces rescue mission could be mounted to save the troops besieged in the huge factory have proved entirely unrealistic. The soldiers there are understood to number around 600, according to Reuters.

It’s not known if a ceasefire to evacuate the wounded is the beginning of the end of the siege of the Azovstal plant and the final domino going down in Mariupol.

We await more news. The New York team is handing over to California now, where my colleague Dani Anguiano will keep you up to date on developments.

Updated

Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said on Monday that 20 civilians, including a child, were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Reuters reports.

The military task force said in a statement on its Facebook page that 25 communities in the regions were fired at, with 42 residential buildings and a school among locations hit.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.
There was no immediate response from Russia to the report.

Updated

About a dozen buses carrying Ukrainian servicemen who were holed up in the Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s south-east, which was besieged by Russia, left the plant on Monday, a Reuters witness said.

It was not possible to determine how many servicemen were aboard the buses.

It was also unclear whether those on board were all among the 40 wounded fighters Ukrainian officers said to have been beneath the plant, the news agency reports.

Some 600 servicemen were said to have been inside.

A screengrab from a video shows a shower of burning munitions hitting Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Video obtained by Reuters on May 15, 2022.
A screengrab from a video shows a shower of burning munitions hitting Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Video obtained by Reuters on May 15, 2022. Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters

Updated

Some Mariupol steelworks defenders appear to be under evacuation by Russians

The Ukrainian unit holed up beneath the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol said on Monday its garrison was fulfilling orders to save the lives of troops, an apparent indication that the long siege has reached an important new stage.

It is not clear if this is the beginning of the end of the siege or whether the last stand continues by those Ukrainian troops not wounded.

The fighting at Azovstal in ruined Mariupol has symbolized Ukrainian resistance throughout Russia’s nearly three-month invasion. Most civilians who had sought shelter at the vast Soviet-era plant were evacuated earlier this month, Reuters reports.

The besieged Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, May 15, 2022.
The besieged Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, May 15, 2022. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

In order to save lives, the entire Mariupol garrison is implementing the approved decision of the Supreme Military Command and hopes for the support of the Ukrainian people,” the Azov Regiment said in a social media post.

Here’s a little more from the accompanying video that one of the unit’s senior commanders, Denys Prokopenko, posted.

The main thing is to realise all the risks, is there a plan B, are you fully committed to that plan which must allow for fulfilling the assigned tasks and preserve the lives and health of personnel?

This is the highest level of overseeing troops. All the more so when your decision is endorsed by the highest military command.”

Prokopenko did not spell out what action the defenders were taking. The video was released hours after Russia said it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers to a medical facility in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk.

Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians died in Mariupol during months of siege by Russian forces who destroyed the Sea of Azov port, a city of around 400,000 people.

The last defenders, including many who were wounded, had been holding out for weeks in bunkers beneath Azovstal, one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe.

The Russian defense ministry said it established a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate wounded Ukrainian troops to Novoazovsk, about 45kms east of Mariupol in an area under Russian control.

Updated

Russia says a ceasefire has been reached with the last-stand Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in order to evacuate the wounded, although there has been no confirmation of this from Ukrainian officials, Agence France-Presse reports.

Russia’s defence ministry said moments ago that an agreement has been reached to evacuate injured soldiers from the plant.

An agreement was reached with representatives of the Ukrainian military blocked at Azovstal in Mariupol to evacuate the wounded,” the ministry said.

It added that a “regime of silence” was introduced for the duration of the evacuation and that the Ukrainian soldiers would be taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Novoazovsk.

There was no immediate confirmation from Ukrainian officials.

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers remained holed up in the underground tunnels of the huge Azovstal steel factory that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks after Moscow claimed control of Mariupol.

Ukraine’s Azov battalion, which has led the defense of Mariupol, has posted desperate videos from the plant, saying soldiers are dying from their wounds there.

Here is a report from the Guardian with glimpses of what the besieged troops have been withstanding.

The last of hundreds of civilians who had been sheltering in the labyrinthine steel works, after the Russians overran Mariupol, in its deeper layers underground, were brought out earlier this month.

Updated

There are significant developments at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the last stand of a nub of Ukrainian soldiers in the defeated south-eastern port city.

It’s not yet entirely clear what is going on, whether the soldiers surrounded there in dire straits are giving up or are negotiating to have the severely wounded evacuated by occupying Russians. We’ll keep following closely.

A senior commander of Ukrainian forces holed up beneath the Azovstal steel mill besieged by Russian forces said he was carrying out a decision by the military high command to save the lives of service personnel, but made no mention of surrendering, Reuters writes.

Commander Denys Prokopenko has posted a video on social media.

The main thing is to realise all the risks, is there a plan B, are you fully committed to that plan which must allow for fulfilling the assigned tasks and preserve the lives and health of personnel.

This is the highest level of overseeing troops. All the more so when your decision is endorsed by the highest military command,” he said.

Here it is with subtitles:

Here’s a tweet from BBC journalists:

The Guardian US team has taken the blog baton now and will keep you updated for the next few hours. This is Joanna Walters in New York and I’ll be handing over a little later to our colleagues in California.

Updated

Summary

Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:

  • Ukrainian officials claimed that Ukrainian troops counter-attacking against Russian forces in the country’s north-east had pushed them back from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia.
  • Russia said its forces had shot down three fighter jets.
  • Russian forces have shelled frontline positions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area as fighting becomes increasingly focused on Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukrainian forces after more than 11 weeks of war.
  • Following a meeting, the EU foreign ministers failed reached an agreement on the sixth package of sansctions against Russia, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell confirmed.
  • After Sweden and Finland yesterday confirmed plans to join Nato, Sweden is seeking to quell Turkish opposition by sending diplomats to the country. Meanwhile, Russia branded the move a mistake with far-reaching consequences. Estonia welcomed the decision as a boon for Nordic nations’ security.
  • Vladimir Putin said Russia had no issue with Finland and Sweden, but that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow, as the Nordic countries move closer to joining Nato.
  • Norway, Denmark and Iceland have issued a joint statement offering their support to Finland and Sweden in case the two Nordic nations were to come under attack during their Nato applications.
  • The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said he will not approve Finland and Sweden joining Nato. He said Swedish and Finnish delegrations should not bother coming to Turkey to convince Turkey to approve their Nato bids.
  • Hungary has been accused of “holding the EU hostage” over its refusal to agree an oil embargo against Russia, as the bloc struggles to reach consensus on its latest sanctions aimed at eroding the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.
  • The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out potential concessions to Russia that could lead to a ceasefire in the war and said the European Union faces “moral failure” if it doesn’t approve the nation’s candidacy for membership by June.
  • American fast-food giant McDonald’s will exit the Russian market and sell its business in the increasingly isolated country, the company said on Monday. Meanwhile, The Moscow city government is to take over a factory belonging to the French carmaker Renault and use it to revive the Soviet-era Moskvitch in Russia’s first major nationalisation of a foreign company during its war in Ukraine.
  • The European Union and the United States have agreed closer cooperation to counter disrupted supply of commodities and food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to combat disinformation from Moscow.

Thanks so much for joining me. I’m handing over to my colleague Joanna Walters now.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell says that Hungary is maintaining that its block on the EU oil embargo against Russia is for economic reasons rather than political ones.

He said:

The discussion will continue to see when and how much cost each member state will have to bear.

He also said:

The EU considers it unacceptable for the Balkan countries to maintain a neutral position towards Russia.

Updated

The EU will not recognize any part of Ukraine being claimed as part of Russia, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

Borrell is speaking at a press conference following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

He also added that the EU will help Ukraine to export grain from storage to Europe, including by sea, in order to make room for a new crop.

The Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid because they harbour terrorists.

In a news conference, Erdogan said Turkey would not approve their bids to join NATO, calling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organisations, and adding they had terrorists in their parliament.

Ankara says Sweden and Finland harbour people it says are linked to groups it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.

The EU Foreign Ministers have not reached an agreement on the sixth package of sansctions against Russia, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said during a press conference happening now.

Speaking following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels he said they had “failed to agree”

The allocation of another 500 million euros to Ukraine for the purchase of weapons, bringing the total amount to 2 billion euros, was approved by the ministers, however.

Erdoğan says Turkey will not approve Finnish and Swedish membership of Nato

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said he will not approve Finland and Sweden joining Nato.

Reuters is reporting he has said Swedish and Finnish delegrations should not bother coming to Turkey to convince Turkey to approve their Nato bids.

Finland and Sweden, while both Nato partners, have long viewed membership as an unnecessary provocation of Russia, their powerful eastern neighbour. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, however, has led to a radical rethink of their security policies.

Membership of Nato would require ratification by all existing members.

Turkey has been a Nato member since 1952 and its membership remains a cornerstone of its foreign policy towards western countries.

The Moscow city government is to take over a factory belonging to the French carmaker Renault and use it to revive the Soviet-era Moskvitch in Russia’s first major nationalisation of a foreign company during its war in Ukraine.

The development, which was met with ridicule by Russians with long memories, follows Renault’s decision to join the wave of western companies such as McDonald’s and Siemens leaving the Russian market as the war in Ukraine nears its fourth month.

Renault has ceded its 68% stake in Russia’s biggest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, with an option to buy it back within six years. According to media reports, the company’s Russian assets were sold for one rouble, meaning the city of Moscow has effectively taken control of the factory free.

Renault’s CEO, Luca de Meo, said in statement that the company was protecting its future business in Russia.

Today we have taken a difficult but necessary decision, and we are making a responsible choice towards our 45,000 employees in Russia while preserving the group’s performance and our ability to return to the country in the future.

Hawkish commentators such as the head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, have said foreign companies that leave the Russian market should have their local assets seized. Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, appeared to defend Renault’s decision and said the city would take over the factory to prevent unemployment.

Sobyanin said:

The foreign owner decided to close the Moscow Renault plant. This is its right, but we cannot allow thousands of workers to be left without work. Therefore, I decided to take the plant under control of the city and resume the production of passenger cars under the historical Moskvitch brand. We will try to keep most of the team working directly at the plant and its associates.

Read more here:

Zelenskiy praises soldiers pushing back Russian forces from Kharkiv

Ukrainian forces have continued to push Russian forces back from Kharkiv, the country’s second biggest city, with Volodomyr Zelenskiy congratulating soldiers who erected a new border post on Russia’s border.

He said in a video message:

I’m very grateful to you, on behalf of all Ukrainians, on my behalf and on behalf of my family. I’m very grateful to all the fighters like you.

Russia’s withdrawal is a fighting retreat, however, with the outlying northern villages around Kharkiv being peppered with shelling on Monday, with one person confirmed killed in Tsyrkuny, 17 miles from the city centre and four injured in the districts of Shevchenkivskyi and Saltivka.

Ukrainian officials said that Russian forces were concentrating on “maintaining positions and preventing the advance of our troops toward the border”.

Updated

Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra gave an impromptu rendition of their Eurovision-winning song, Stefania, at the Polish border as they made their way home on Monday.

The band, whose music blends traditional folk and hip-hop, were presented with blue and yellow flowers as they were greeted at the border by servicemen and women, before breaking into song.

Oleh Psiuk, center, frontman of Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, and his band sing with Ukrianian border guard soldiers holding the Ukrainian flag, in Krakovets, at the Ukraine border with Poland, Monday, May 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Mykola Tys)
Kalush Orchestra were welcomed by members of Ukraine’s state border guard service at the Ukraine-Poland border. Photograph: Mykola Tys/AP

Stefania had been among the favourites to win the Eurovision song contest in the northern Italian city of Turin, but decisive victory came from the public, with 439 points from the public vote putting the band in first place among the 25 finalists.

The song, which includes the lyrics: “I’ll always find my way home, even if all roads are destroyed”, was written by frontman Oleh Psiuk as a tribute to his mother, before finding new resonance among Ukrainians as it became an anthem in their war-torn country.

Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, perform for fans in Krakovets, at the Ukraine border with Poland, Monday, May 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Mykola Tys)
Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, perform for fans in Krakovets, at the Ukraine border with Poland. Photograph: Mykola Tys/AP

In an interview on Italian TV on Sunday night, Psiuk, who turned 28 on Monday, became emotional when talking about his mother: “She stayed up until 3am to cheer us on,” he said. “In our city, Kalush, the sirens go off four times a day, nothing like in other places.”

Please read more:

The outspoken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has tweeted praise of the UK’s latest sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s relatives and his mistress.

The jailed anti-corruption activist said Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were “showing remarkable leadership on the issue of Putin’s war with Ukraine in general, and on sanctions in particular”.

He continued:

Individual sanctions, asset freezing and confiscation, visa bans and seizure of yachts and accounts of officials are very popular among Russian citizens. Even the most dormant Russian voter is in solidarity with and more radical than the west on this issue.

The whole thread can be read here:

Updated

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has warned that Moscow will respond if Nato bolsters the military infrastructure of Sweden and Finland, which have both decided to join the alliance after the invasion of Ukraine. Putin has repeatedly cited the post-Soviet enlargement of Nato eastwards towards Russia’s borders as a reason for the invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to the leaders of a Russian-dominated military alliance of former Soviet states, Putin said the enlargement of Nato was being used by the US in an “aggressive” way to aggravate an already difficult global security situation. Russia, Putin said, had no problem with Finland or Sweden, so there was no direct threat from Nato enlargement to include those countries.

“But the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke our response,” Putin said.

Updated

Questions raised about UK arts donations of Leonard Blavatnik

It did not take long for the tremors from Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolling into Ukraine to reach the British arts sector, long a beneficiary of Russian money. Institutions including the Tate and Royal Academy ended ties with Russian oligarchs and donors, including Petr Aven and Viktor Vekselberg.

But it appears the war has also led to questions about the role of Sir Leonard Blavatnik – listed by the Sunday Times as Britain’s richest man. While not on any sanctions list, the Ukrainian-born billionaire’s links to sanctioned Russian oligarchs were the focus of discussion among officials involved in a multimillion-pound donation by him that helped ensure a trove of literary treasures were saved for the nation.

Blavatnik’s gift last year – the largest given by an individual to the UK for a literary treasure – amounted to half of the £15m raised by a national libraries charity, which saved the collection known as the Honresfield Library from being sold abroad. It is being shared with major UK cultural institutions, including the British Library.

However, correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that his Russian links were the subject of discussions at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) in the days after the invasion of Ukraine.

“Do we know if the Blavatnik money has been paid for the Honresfield yet?” a senior official at the NLS wrote to the chief executive of the library, Amina Shah, on 28 February.

The official, the NLS director of business support, Anthony Gillespie, added:

Blavatnik is a longtime friend and business partner of Ukrainian-born Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, one of Russia’s richest men, who is close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and some other Russian-associated oligarchs under western sanctions for support of totalitarian regimes and criminal activities.

The NLS has since responded that Gillespie’s query to Shah “was of a procedural nature regarding whether there was a risk to the sale going through during a time when sanctions were being considered by the UK and other governments”. There is no suggestion Blavatnik is actively being considered for sanction.

Blavatnik’s name has become a near-omnipresent fixture at major British cultural sites as a result of his philanthropy.

After he made a £50m donation towards the new extension at Tate Modern, it was renamed the Blavatnik Building in 2017.

But his philanthropy has not gone without comment. Criticism has often followed his donations, especially when it involves institutions naming buildings after him.

Read the full story here:

Updated

Full story: Russia shells frontline positions as fighting focuses on Donbas city

Russian forces have shelled frontline positions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area as fighting becomes increasingly focused on Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukrainian forces after more than 11 weeks of war.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, of which Severodonetsk is part, said on Monday that Russian strikes had hit a hospital in the city over the weekend, killing two and injuring nine, including a child, and that several other locations had been targeted.

Ukrainian forces repelled 17 attacks on Sunday, he said, and destroyed 11 Russian armoured vehicles. The air force command said Ukrainians downed two helicopters, two cruise missiles and seven drones.

The Russians are gradually mounting an assault on Severodonetsk, an industrial city that had a population of 100,000 before the war, as the effort to complete a wider encirclement of Ukraine’s defending forces in the Donbas appears to have failed.

Overnight, the US Institute for the Study of War said it believed “Russian forces have likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian units from Donetsk City to Izium” in favour of capturing the remainder of the Luhansk region.

A smaller-scale encirclement of Severodonetsk also failed last week after Russian forces were defeated with heavy losses in a series of unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets River at Bilohorivka. The river is increasingly becoming a dividing line between the two sides in the Donbas – the name given collectively to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and around Kharkiv to the north.

Read the full story here:

Updated

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Monday he had discussed the need for financial support for Ukraine’s economy with the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva.

Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter:

The IMF is our important partner. We look forward to further fruitful joint work in maintaining financial stability of Ukraine.

Updated

Ukraine could get loans, grants and possibly the proceeds of seized Russian oligarch property to help pay the multibillion-euro bill of rebuilding its country after the ruinous war launched by Moscow, according to a leaked EU reconstruction plan.

Under the Rebuild Ukraine plan drafted in Brussels, the European Commission spells out that the Ukrainian government would have to take out loans to pay some of the costs of rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. Part of the reconstruction bill would be paid for by EU member states in the form of non-repayable grants to Kyiv.

The commission has also proposed borrowing money on international capital markets to finance loans to Kyiv to fund the “substantial” cost of rebuilding.

If agreed, it would be only the second time in its history that the EU has borrowed money as a collective, rather than as individual member states, following the agreement of the landmark €750bn Covid recovery plan in 2020.

The idea is floated in a Ukraine relief and reconstruction paper seen by the Guardian that the commission is expected to publish on Wednesday.

However, the amount of the EU’s proposed loans to Ukraine is left blank in the document, pending further discussions in Brussels.

Instead, the paper notes that the financial needs “are expected to be substantial” and the reconstruction effort would span more than a decade. It notes estimates that the overall damage caused by Russia runs to hundreds of billions of euros, with more than €100bn damage to physical infrastructure alone.

To pay the bill, the commission proposes a mix of grants and cheap loans for Ukraine. EU member states and non-EU countries could make contributions to Ukraine that would be channelled via the EU reconstruction programme, it is proposed. EU officials also suggest exploring the feasibility of using proceeds of Russian assets seized through sanctions.

Ukraine will need “significant short-term financial relief to sustain basic services”, provide humanitarian aid and fix essential infrastructure, the EU document states. To meet these urgent needs, the commission proposes loans at low interest rates with long repayment deadlines.

Updated

Full story: Sweden follows Finland in confirming it will apply to join Nato

The Swedish government has confirmed it intends to apply for membership of Nato, joining neighbouring Finland in a dramatic decision that marks one of the biggest strategic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to date.

“There is a broad majority in Sweden’s parliament for Sweden to join Nato,” said the prime minister, Magdalena Andersson. “This is the best thing for the security of Sweden and its people. We will inform Nato we want to become a member of the alliance.”

Andersson told reporters after a parliamentary debate on Monday that Sweden would be “in a vulnerable position” while the application was processed, but that ministers saw no direct military threat from Russia at present. She said she felt “confident there is support for this among the Swedish people”.

The Finnish government confirmed its intention to join Nato on Sunday, shortly before Andersson’s ruling Social Democrats abandoned decades of opposition to back a Swedish bid for membership, making Monday’s debate in the Riksdag a formality.

Andersson said Sweden’s Nato ambassador would formally hand over Stockholm’s request to the alliance headquarters in Brussels “within the next few days”, adding that the application would be submitted simultaneously with Finland’s.

The opposition Moderate party leader, Ulf Kristersson, told the same press conference that the decision was “historic – not about party politics, but taking joint responsibility for the country’s security interests. We will take responsibility jointly for this process.”

The decisions by the two governments, both of which have remained neutral or non-aligned since the end of the second world war, drew a sharp initial response from Russia, which described it as a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences.

Read more here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 16, 2022. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attends a meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) at the Kremlin in Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AP

Updated

Greenpeace protesters have blocked the entry of a Greek tanker into a southern English port due to its Russian fuel cargo, with police making arrests, the green group said on Monday, drawing condemnation from the British government.

Reuters reports:

Britain and the European Union have separately banned Russian-flagged vessels from their ports, with exemptions, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which the Kremlin describes as a “special military operation”.

The United Kingdom has said it will phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year, which has meant that foreign-flagged vessels carrying Russian cargoes are still able to call at ports for the time being.

Greenpeace said 12 activists occupied a jetty on Sunday evening in Navigator Terminals’ Thames site in Essex, where the Greek-flagged Andromeda oil products tanker was expected to discharge its cargo.

“Ministers have kicked a ban on Russian oil imports to the end of the year despite strong public support for it,” said Georgia Whitaker, oil and gas campaigner with Greenpeace UK.

A British government spokesperson said: “There is absolutely no excuse for Greenpeace*s disruptive actions, which are wholly unacceptable.”

In recent weeks, a number of ships carrying Russian cargoes have changed course after protests at both UK and EU ports.

Updated

The European Union and the United States have agreed closer cooperation to counter disrupted supply of commodities and food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to combat disinformation from Moscow.

Reuters reports:

EU and US officials convened at Paris-Saclay University on the outskirts of the French capital for the second trade and technology council, a forum initially seen as a transatlantic counterweight to China, but now also with a clear focus on Russia.

In a joint statement, the two allies said they would work to reduce over-reliance on certain trading partners for agricultural commodities and inputs to increase resilience of global food production.

Reduced grain shipments from Ukraine have led to price spikes, exacerbated now by India suspending wheat exports.

The European Union and the United States also condemned the Russian government’s undermining of freedom of expression, saying it had “repeatedly used the veil of disinformation” to obscure war crimes.

Updated

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out potential concessions to Russia that could lead to a ceasefire in the war and said the European Union faces “moral failure” if it doesn’t approve the nation’s candidacy for membership by June.

Speaking to Bloomberg Television in an interview in Brussels on Monday, Kuleba declined to comment on whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, urged his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to accept Kremlin demands if it meant achieving peace. But he dismissed any push to make an offer to Vladimir Putin in exchange for ending his invasion of Ukraine.

Kuleba said:

Looking for face-saving options for Putin is simply a false approach.

Let Putin himself find a face-saving option.

Ukraine’s ambition remained to restore full territorial integrity, Kuleba said. That would include areas of the eastern Donbas region controlled by Russian-backed forces before the invasion as well as the Crimean peninsula seized by Russia in 2014. The foreign minister, in Brussels to meet EU counterparts, expressed confidence that Ukraine would eventually win the war against Russia. “We want everything that belongs to us to be ours,” he said.

The diplomat also pushed wavering EU leaders on Ukraine’s bid to secure candidacy status next month, saying public opinion in the 27-member bloc was moving in his country’s favour and that this would send a message that the country was “one of us”. Some EU leaders have expressed concern that a fast-track route to membership could create false expectations for Kyiv.

Asked about the prospect of Ukraine’s candidacy being rejected, he said:

It will be a moral failure, which will be judged by history.

In between candidacy and membership, there is a long process of accession talks, reforms, transitions - many, many things can happen and they can be blocked at any stage.

Updated

Norway, Denmark and Iceland have issued a joint statement offering their support to Finland and Sweden in case the two Nordic nations were to come under attack during their Nato applications.

Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said:

Together with Denmark and Iceland, Norway stands ready to assist its Nordic neighbours by all means necessary should they be the victim of aggression on their territory before obtaining Nato membership.

Updated

There are some lines from Reuters on European responses to Finland and Sweden’s decision to join Nato, and Russia’s tense reaction.

  • The Élysée presidential office says that France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, fully supports Sweden’s decision.
  • The Danish prime ministry also welcomes Sweden and Finland’s decision and that Nordic Nato members, Iceland, Denmark and Norway are ready to support Sweden and Finland if they come under attack, by any means necessary. Preparations are now under way to be able to fulfil these assurances.

Updated

Speaking to the leaders of a Russian-dominated military alliance of former Soviet states, Vladimir Putin said the enlargement of Nato was being used by the United States in an “aggressive” way to aggravate an already difficult global security situation.

Russia, Putin said, had no problem with Finland or Sweden, so there was no direct threat from Nato enlargement which included those countries, Reuters reports.

Putin told the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan:

But the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke our response.

What that (response) will be – we will see what threats are created for us.

Problems are being created for no reason at all. We shall react accordingly.

Russia has given few specific clues about what it will do in response to the Nordic enlargement of Nato, the biggest strategic consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to date.

One of Putin’s closest allies, former president Dmitry Medvedev, said last month that Russia could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden joined Nato.

Nato, founded in 1949 to provide European security against the Soviet Union, ultimately outguns Russia in almost every military measure apart from nuclear weapons, though the backbone of the alliance’s military power is the US – whose forces are mostly deployed far from Europe

Updated

China on Monday gave a vague response to Finland’s accession into Nato, saying the move would inject a “new factor” into Chinese-Finnish relations.

Zhao Lijian, said at a regular press briefing:

China has noticed Finland’s proposal to join the Nato. Sino-Finnish relationship has always been friendly. Finland’s application to join the Nato will of course add new factor in the bilateral relations.

Zhao did not elaborate what he meant by “new factor”. But when pushed by a Finnish journalist to say more, Zhao added that China has been “very clear on Nato and Nato’s eastward expansion”. Beijing has consistently criticised Nato in recent years.

China’s Global Times, in a separate editorial, last week warned that Nato’s expansion “risks turning Europe into a new powder keg”.

Citing analysis, it wrote:

The move will result in, most directly, a boom in Nato’s power, forming a new acute challenge to Europe’s security order.

The sound of disapproval is almost audible in Beijing. Russia’s state-owned news agency, Tass, last week spoke to Zhang Guoqing, a research fellow of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Zhang warned that Finland and Sweden’s move would “fuel tensions in region”.

Updated

Putin warns Finland and Sweden any military expansion 'would demand a reaction'

Vladimir Putin said Russia had no issue with Finland and Sweden, but that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow, as the Nordic countries move closer to joining Nato.

Putin, speaking in Moscow at a summit of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), said Nato’s expansion was a problem for Russia and that it must look closely at what he said were the US-led military alliance’s plans to increase its global influence.

Updated

The Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has urged other members of a Russian-dominated military alliance to stand united, and accused the west of hoping to prolong the conflict in Ukraine to try to weaken Russia as much as possible, Reuters reports.

Lukashenko, speaking at a summit of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Moscow, said “hellish sanctions” against his country and Russia could have been avoided if the group had spoken with one voice.

Addressing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the leaders of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Lukashenko said in televised opening remarks:

Without a united front, the collective west will build up pressure on the post-Soviet space.

Updated

McDonald’s has initiated a process to sell its business in Russia after 30 years of operating its restaurants there, after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In March, McDonald’s closed its 850 restaurants in Russia including its site in Pushkin Square in the capital, which was the first in the country.

The Chicago-based company owns 84% of its restaurants in Russia, and has said its restaurants there and in Ukraine contributed 9% of its annual revenue, or around $2bn (£1.6bn).

As part of the exit, the company expects to record a non-cash charge of between $1.2bn (£980m) and $1.4bn.

More to follow here:

Updated

The European Commission is set to propose a new package of financial aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, including new loans to provide immediate liquidity to Kyiv and commitments for the long-term financing of the country’s reconstruction, officials said.

The size of the short-term financial support is still being defined but two officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters they expected it to roughly cover Ukraine’s financial needs for two months, largely through loans, Reuters reports.

A third official said the money would come from the EU budget and from EU governments, dismissing earlier talk that the funds could be raised in the market with the issuance of joint bonds backed by the EU budget.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated in April that Ukraine needed around $5bn a month for at least three months to plug the immediate financial shortfall caused by Russia’s invasion.

The fund’s chief, Kristalina Georgieva, has called for this support to come in the form of grants rather than loans.

The scale of EU support will depend also on how much G7 countries are willing to contribute. A meeting of finance ministers of the Group of Seven major economies is scheduled in the second half of this week, just after the commission is expected to unveil its proposals.

Updated

McDonald's to exit Russia and sell its portfolio of restaurants in the country

American fast-food giant McDonald’s will exit the Russian market and sell its business in the increasingly isolated country, the company said on Monday.

Many western businesses have pulled out of Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Earlier on Monday, the French automaker Renault announced it had handed over its Russian assets to the government in Moscow, marking the first major nationalisation of the economic disentanglement.

McDonald’s closed all of its 850 restaurants in the country, where it says it employs 62,000 people, in March.

But the company decided to take a step further, saying in a statement:

After more than 30 years of operations in the country, McDonald’s Corporation announced it will exit the Russian market and has initiated a process to sell its Russian business.

The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values.

It said it was looking to sell “its entire portfolio of McDonald’s restaurants in Russia to a local buyer”.

The company added that after the sale, the restaurants would no longer be able to use the McDonald’s name, logo, branding or menu.

Russia, where McDonald’s directly manages more than 80% of the restaurants bearing its name, accounts for 9% of the company’s revenue and 3% of its operating profit.

The McDonald’s chief executive, Chris Kempczinski, said in a statement:

We’re exceptionally proud of the 62,000 employees who work in our restaurants, along with the hundreds of Russian suppliers who support our business, and our local franchisees. Their dedication and loyalty to McDonald’s make today’s announcement extremely difficult.

However, we have a commitment to our global community and must remain steadfast in our values. And our commitment to our values means that we can no longer keep the Arches shining there.

Updated

Hungary has been accused of “holding the EU hostage” over its refusal to agree an oil embargo against Russia, as the bloc struggles to reach consensus on its latest sanctions aimed at eroding the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said:

Unfortunately the whole union is being held hostage by one member state.

He was referring to Hungary, which continues to block the oil embargo, despite being offered an extension on phasing out Russian crude until the end of 2024.

“Everybody expected this will be enough,” Landsbergis told reporters, reflecting the widespread view that Budapest would fall into line if it got more time to convert its energy system to accommodate non-Russian oil.

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said there were no guarantees the issue would be resolved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday.

He said:

We will do our best to unblock the situation. I cannot ensure this is going to happen because positions are quite strong.

Johanna Sumuvuori, Finland’s junior foreign minister, who said she would update her counterparts on Helsinki’s bid to join Nato, said on the oil ban:

It’s very important to do our utmost, so that we can make a strong statement as an EU.

Full story: Russia warns Finland and Sweden joining Nato would be ‘grave mistake’

Russia has told Finland and Sweden that their decision to join the Nato military alliance is a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences and that they should not assume that Moscow will not respond.

The Finnish government on Sunday confirmed its intention to join Nato while Sweden’s ruling party agreed to drop its longstanding opposition to the idea, paving the way for a joint membership application within days.

The decisions by the two governments, both of which have remained neutral or non-aligned since the end of the second world war, herald a historic redrawing of Europe’s security map prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

“The situation is, of course, changing radically in light of what is happening,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said on Monday. “The fact that Finland and Sweden’s security will not be strengthened as a result of this is very clear to us.”

Ryabkov added that the two Nordic nations “should have no illusions that we will simply put up with it”, warning that the move was “another grave mistake with far-reaching consequences” and the “general level of military tension will increase”.

Russia has repeatedly warned both countries against joining Nato, saying such a move would oblige it to “restore military balance” by strengthening its defences in the Baltic Sea region, including by deploying nuclear weapons.

Finland shares an 810-mile (1,300km) land border with Russia and Sweden a maritime border. Both countries have for decades considered that joining the 30-member, US-led Nato alliance would represent an unnecessary provocation of Moscow.

However, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February has led to a profound change in Nordic thinking, with public support for Nato accession in Finland more than trebling to about 75% and rising to between 50% and 60% in Sweden.

The Swedish and Finnish parliaments on Monday began debating the issue, with the session in Helsinki likely to last several days. While 85% of Finland’s 200 MPs back membership, 150 have requested to speak and a vote was not expected on Monday.

“Our security environment has fundamentally changed,” the prime minister, Sanna Marin, told parliament as she opened the debate on Monday. “The only country that threatens European security, and is now openly waging a war of aggression, is Russia.”

Read the full story from my colleagues Jon Henley and Jennifer Rankin here:

Updated

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said Russia was closely following Finland and Sweden’s bids to join the US-led Nato military alliance, and was convinced that their accession would in no way strengthen Europe’s security architecture, Reuters reports.

Earlier today, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying the west should not think Moscow would simply put up with the expansion of Nato, casting it as a mistake that would stoke military tension.

Updated

Summary

Here are the main developments in the Ukraine conflict from the past few hours:

Thanks for following, I’m handing over the blog to my colleague Nicola Slawson for the rest of the day.

Updated

Ukraine and Japan have signed an agreement on a $100m (£82m) loan intended primarily to help support vulnerable people in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian finance ministry said on Monday.

It said the loan was for 30 years and included a grace period of 10 years.

Updated

Reuters has some quotes from Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Russia’s response to the Nordic Nato expansion:

Ryabkov told the state RIA news agency:

They should have no illusions that we will simply put up with it – and nor should Brussels, Washington and other Nato capitals.

The general level of military tension will rise, predictability in this sphere will decrease. It is a shame that common sense is being sacrificed to some phantom provision about what should be done in this unfolding situation.

Russia has given few clues about what it will do in response to the Nordic enlargement of Nato, saying merely that there would be a “military-technical response”.

One of Putin’s closest allies said last month that Russia could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden joined Nato.

Updated

Some analysis from Reuters on Ukrainian officials’ claim that Ukrainian troops counterattacking against Russian forces in the country’s north-east have pushed them back from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia.

Reuters reports:

The developments, if confirmed, would signal a further shift in momentum in favour of Ukrainian forces nearly three months into a conflict that began when Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border into Ukraine on 24 February.

Fighting was reported near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Monday in what interior ministry adviser Vadym Denisenko said was “our counter-offensive”.

“It can no longer be stopped …Thanks to this, we can go to the rear of the Russian group of forces,” he said.

Kharkiv, lying about 30 miles (50km) from the border with Russia, had endured weeks of heavy bombardments from Russian artillery. The Russians’ routing from there follows their failure to capture the capital Kyiv in the early stages of the war.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Monday the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces had reached the border with Russia

“Together to victory!” it said.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov said the troops had restored a sign on the border.

“We thank everyone who, risking their lives, liberates Ukraine from Russian invaders,” Sinegubov said.

Reuters could not immediately verify Ukraine’s battlefield account and it was not clear how many troops had reached the Russian border or where.

If confirmed, it would suggest a Ukrainian counter-offensive is having increasing success in pushing back Russian forces in the north-east after western military agencies said Moscow’s offensive in two eastern provinces known as the Donbas had stalled.

Nonetheless, the governor of the Luhansk region in Donbas, Serhiy Gaidai, said the situation “remains difficult”, with Russian forces trying to capture the town of Sieverodonetsk.

He said leaders of the Lugansk People’s Republic, the territory in Luhansk controlled by Russian-backed separatists, declared a general mobilisation, adding it was “either fight or get shot, there is no other choice”.

In the south, fighting was raging around the city of Kherson and Russian missiles struck residential areas of Mykolayiv, the presidential office in Kyiv said. Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday Ukraine could win the war, an outcome few military analysts predicted when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Updated

EU foreign ministers sought to publicly pressure Hungary to lift its veto on a proposed oil embargo on Russia, with Lithuania saying the bloc was being “held hostage by one member state”.

Reuters reports:

The embargo proposed by the European Commission in early May would be the harshest sanction yet and includes carve-outs for EU states most dependent on Russian oil.

But Hungary, Moscow’s closest ally in the EU, has said it wants hundreds of millions of euros from the bloc to mitigate the cost of ditching Russian crude. The EU needs all 27 states to agree to the embargo for it to go ahead.

Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said on his Facebook page on 11 May that there was no solution in sight.

However, EU ministers ranging from Austria to Estonia said there would still be an oil embargo, even if it took longer to come to an agreement.

An oil embargo, already imposed by the United States and Britain and which would follow five rounds of earlier EU sanctions, is seen as the best way to reduce Russian income for its war in Ukraine.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, last week signalled that Monday’s meeting might have been the moment for a breakthrough. On Monday, he said he was doing his utmost to unblock the situation.

Some diplomats now point to a 30-31 May summit as the moment for agreement on a phased ban on Russian oil, probably over six months, with a longer transition period for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Updated

Russia has said its forces shot down three Ukrainian fighter jets, one near Snake Island in the Black Sea and the others in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, while its missiles continued to pound targets in the east of the country.

Reuters reports:

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces shot down Su-25 aircraft near the settlements of Yevhenivka in the Mykolaiv region and Velyka Komyshuvakha in Kharkiv, and a Su-24 near Snake Island, which achieved worldwide fame in the conflict’s first hours when Ukrainian border guards stationed there rejected a Russian warship’s demand for their surrender.

High-precision Russian missiles hit two command posts in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the ministry said, and also struck other targets including weapons depots and places where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated.

The ministry said it made similar strikes in the pro-Russian self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, also taking out drones.

The reports from the Russian defence ministry could not be independently confirmed.

A tweet in Ukrainian from Hromadske Radio, meaning public radio in Ukrainian, quotes the head of the Sumy region, Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, as saying:

Russian fighters tried to break through the border into the territory of Sumy region. The enemy opened fire on the border area with mortars, grenade launchers, machine guns and submachine guns. Border guards battled with the Russians, who retreated beyond the border.

The Kastus Kalinouski Battalion, comprising Belarusian volunteers fighting for Ukraine, has suffered its third loss, according to a tweet from Nexta, a Belarussian news channel.

Next quotes a tweet from the battalion, which said:

Today our Battalion suffered a huge loss. During the liberation of the Ukrainian village from Russian occupation, the commander of the detachment, a soldier of our Battalion Pavel “Volat”, was mortally wounded. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but it was [too] late.

Updated

A missile strike by Russian strategic aircraft in the Odesa region has damaged the region’s tourist infrastructure and injured two adults and a child, Interfax news agency in Ukraine reports.

The report cites Odesa city council’s Telegram channel as its source.

The message reads:

The enemy continues to attack the damaged and non-functioning bridge across the Dniester estuary. But it hits civilians. Previously, two adults were injured and a small child was seriously injured. Other information is being clarified.

Updated

Many forgotten women in Ukraine are living alone in dire conditions or are unable to care for themselves, and are among those least able to escape, writes Angelina Kariakina in Kyiv and Luba Kassova.

The Institute for the Study of War in the US has some analysis on Russia’s movements in Ukraine. Forces have probably abandoned the objective to encircle Ukrainian units in Donetsk and Izium, and are shifting focus to completing the seizure of Luhansk province, the institute writes.

The report adds:

Russian forces have likely run out of combat-ready reservists, forcing the Russian military command to amalgamate soldiers from many different elements, including private military companies and proxy militias, into ostensibly regular army units and naval infantry.

Russian forces are likely fortifying occupied settlements in southern Ukraine, indicating that the Russians are seeking to establish permanent control in the region.

Updated

The EU will impose a sixth sanctions package on Russia, but the bloc will need more time to find agreement.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told reporters on Monday ahead of a meeting with his counterparts in Brussels.

There really is no excuse not to get the package done.

Meanwhile, Austria’s foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, said:

I am confident that we will manage to get the sixth sanctions package done in the next days.

It is clear that there still is a certain need for discussion but I believe we should aim to have these discussions where they belong, at the council, in order not give an image of disaccord in public. Russia is watching us.

Updated

Sweden is sending diplomats to Turkey to try to overcome Ankara’s objections to its plan to join Nato, defence minister Peter Hultqvist has said.

Turkey has surprised its Nato allies by saying it would not view applications by Finland and Sweden positively, with President Tayyip Erdoğan saying: “Scandinavian countries are guesthouses for terrorist organisations.”

Defence minister Peter Hultqvist told public service broadcaster SVT:

We will send a group of diplomats to hold discussions and have a dialogue with Turkey so we can see how this can be resolved and what this is really about.

Turkey said it wanted the Nordic countries to halt support for Kurdish militant groups present on their territory, and lift bans on sales of some weapons to Turkey.

Nato and the US said they were confident Turkey would not hold up membership of Finland and Sweden.

Any decision on Nato enlargement requires approval by all 30 members of the alliance and their parliaments, but diplomats said Erdoğan would be under pressure to yield as Finland and Sweden would greatly strengthen Nato in the Baltic Sea.

Sweden’s parliament will hold a debate on its membership application on Monday, a formality as there is already a broad majority in favour. The government will take the formal decision to apply later in the day, Hultqvist said.

Updated

Turkey must maintain a delicate diplomatic balance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine so that it remains able to help facilitate an eventual negotiated end to the war, President Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesperson said in an interview.

Ibrahim Kalin, who is also Erdoğan’s chief foreign policy adviser, said that while Ankara has criticised Moscow’s invasion and actions on the battlefield it would do no good to take a more punitive stance against Russia.

Nato member Turkey, a Black Sea neighbour of both Russia and Ukraine, has good ties with both and has opposed western sanctions on Moscow. It has seen tens of thousands of Russians – and some oligarchs’ sanctioned yachts – arrive since war began.

Yet it has also supplied Kyiv with armed drones and blocked some Russian naval passage to the Black Sea, and stands alone as having hosted talks between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers and separately between their teams.

“We have opposed this war from the beginning” but also maintained contact with Moscow, Kalin said at the weekend.

Kalin told Reuters:

They need someone – a trusted partner, negotiator, facilitator, moderator – someone in some position to be able to speak to the Russian side as well as to the Ukrainian side.

We have been able to maintain this position since the beginning of the war and I think it is really in everybody’s shared interest that everybody maintains a balanced position.

Updated

There are some lines from Russia’s foreign ministry coming out on Sweden and Finland’s decision to join Nato, which is one of today’s big stories.

The deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabko, said the decision was a mistake with far-reaching consequences, which will radically change the global situation.

The Guardian’s full report on the Nordic nations’ decision, which represents a radical shift in foreign policy, is here:

Updated

Ukraine's Kharkiv governor says Ukrainian troops have reached Russian border

The governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region has said that Ukrainian troops defending Kharkiv have reached the state border with Russia.

Reuters said it could not independently verify the comments made by Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov on the Telegram messaging service. It was not immediately clear how many troops had reached the Russian border and where.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app that troops of the 227th Battalion had restored a sign on the state border.

“We thank everyone who, risking their lives, liberates Ukraine from Russian invaders,” Sinegubov said.

If confirmed, it would suggest a Ukrainian counter-offensive is having increasing success in pushing back Russian forces in the northeast after Western military agencies said Moscow’s offensive in the Donbas region had stalled.

Ukraine has been retaking territory in its north-east, driving Russian forces away from Kharkiv, the second-largest Ukrainian city.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a Facebook post that the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces had reached the border with Russia, adding: “Together to victory!”

Updated

Estonia’s foreign minister has said that Sweden and Finland joining Nato would increase the security of the Baltic region.

Eva-Maria Liimets told Reuters ahead of a Nato meeting in Berlin:

When we see that in our neighbourhood also other democratic countries belong to Nato, it would mean that we could have broader joint exercises and also … more defence cooperation.

We have seen some differences, but we have also seen a willingness of those countries to overcome the differences.

Liimets said she hoped Sweden, Finland and Turkey would overcome differences on the Nordic states joining the alliance, adding that the Berlin meeting atmosphere was very supportive.

Estonia appreciates Nato enforcing its presence in the Baltic region but would like the allies to move from enhancing their presence to enhancing their defence.

“It would mean that we would have more robust presence of land forces, but also air and maritime defence,” she added.

Sweden and Finland’s decision to join Nato has been promoted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland shares a 1,300km land border with Russia, while Sweden shares a maritime border.

Rachel Hall here taking over the blog for the morning. Please do send over any thoughts or tips to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.

Updated

I’ll hand over now to my UK-based colleague Rachel Hall, who will take you through the rest of the day.

Large-scale Nato drills, in planning months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are scheduled to begin in Estonia today.

One of the largest drills, codenamed Hedgehog, will take place in Estonia and involve 15,000 troops from 14 countries. It’s one of the largest military drills in the country since 1991.

There is also operation “Defender Europe” and “Swift Response”, which will involve 18,000 troops from 20 countries, and will take place in Poland and eight other countries.

In Lithuania, another drill codenamed Iron Wolf will involve 3,000 allied troops and 1,00 vehicles.

Nato spokesperson Oana Lungescu said on Friday:

Exercises like these show that Nato stands strong and ready to protect our nations and defend against any threat.

These are regular exercises, planned well before Russia’s brutal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, but they help to remove any room for miscalculation or misunderstanding about our resolve to protect and defend every inch of allied territory. Nato exercises are defensive, transparent, and in line with our international commitments.

Updated

Global wheat prices have risen to their highest level in two months after India banned the export of the crop.

India, the second largest producer of wheat in the world, announced the ban on Friday in an effort to control rising domestic prices, after a heatwave affected the local crop.

A notice in the government gazette by the directorate of foreign trade that a rise in global prices for wheat was threatening the food security of India and neighbouring and vulnerable countries.

Wheat prices have soared 60% this year, driven in part by the drop in wheat exports from Ukraine. Ukraine is the sixth biggest exporters of wheat but war has affected the harvest, with grain production forecast to be at least a third lower this year.

Updated

More on the Russian push for Donbas, via AFP.

Ukraine was preparing Monday for a new Russian push in the eastern Donbas region, as Kyiv said its army’s counterattack around Kharkiv had gained momentum.

Since failing to take the capital at the beginning of the invasion in late February, control of Donbas has become one of Moscow’s primary objectives – but western intelligence has predicted its campaign will stall amid heavy losses and fierce resistance.

“We are preparing for new attempts by Russia to attack in Donbas, to somehow intensify its movement in the south of Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

“The occupiers still do not want to admit that they are in a dead-end and their so-called ‘special operation’ has already gone bankrupt,” he added.

Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich told local television that Russian troops were being transferred in the direction of Donbas after withdrawing from Kharkiv following the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Kyiv’s troops have made so much progress in the northern region that they have almost reached the border with Russia, according to interior ministry adviser Vadim Denisenko, although air raid sirens still sounded in Kharkiv city early Monday.

Arestovich said the retreating Russian forces were being sent towards Lugansk.

“Their task is to take Severodonetsk,” he said. “Well, something is not working for them.”

Severodonetsk is the easternmost city still held by Ukraine, and its fall would grant the Kremlin de facto control of Lugansk, one of two regions - along with Donetsk – that comprise Donbas.

But Russia’s attempt to cross a river to encircle it had been repelled with heavy losses of equipment, according to Lugansk governor Sergiy Gaiday.

To further deter the attack, Russian-occupied railway bridges leading to Severodonetsk were blown up, the Ukrainian army said on its Facebook page late Sunday, posting a video of a huge explosion taken from above.

For its part, Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had struck four artillery munitions depots in neighbouring Donetsk.

Air strikes had also destroyed two missile-launching systems and radar, while 15 Ukrainian drones were downed around Donetsk and Lugansk, it added.

Updated

Here is a map via US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War showing Russian advances, particularly around Izium, Konstiantynivka and Donbas.

The institute’s latest summary, published on Sunday night, says that Russian forces have “likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian units from Donetsk City to Izyum in favor of completing the seizure of Luhansk Oblast”.

Updated

Russia attacked positions in eastern Ukraine as it tries to encircle Ukrainian forces in the Donbas and fend off a counteroffensive around the city of Izium, Reuters has reported.

The most intense fighting appeared to be around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium, where Russia said it had struck Ukrainian positions with missiles.

Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said its troops had repelled 17 attacks on Sunday and destroyed 11 pieces of Russian equipment. The command of Ukraine’s air force said Ukrainian forces downed two helicopters, two cruise missiles, and seven drones.

Russia continued to target civilian areas along the entire front line in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, firing at 23 villages and towns, the task force added.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the reports. Russia denies targeting civilians.

If Ukraine can sustain pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines, it will be harder for Moscow to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas.

Ukraine’s military also acknowledged setbacks, saying Russian forces “continue to advance” in several areas in the Donbas region.

In western Ukraine near Poland, missiles destroyed military infrastructure overnight on Saturday and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials said.

Another 10 civilians were wounded in the southern region of Mykolaiv, the regional council said, without providing details.

There was also no letup on Sunday in Russia’s bombardment of the steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell into Russian hands, the Ukrainian military said.

Brightly burning munitions were shown cascading down on the steel works in a video posted by a pro-Russian separatist commander.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “very difficult and delicate negotiations” were going on to save Ukrainians in Mariupol and Azovstal.

In port city, some residents ate and talked outside their burnt out apartment building, which was shelled and caught fire in early April.

“I was in the kitchen when the smoke appeared,” one resident named Natalya said. “I started carrying out my belongings, saving what I could.”

She said three neighbours had died in the fighting.

“We could not bury them because of the shelling. Each day we’ve been putting a person into a grave, but we could not cover it up with soil because of the shelling.”

'Russia's war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned', says Nato

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Russia’s offensive in Donbas had stalled and Ukraine could win the war, an outcome few military analysts predicted at the outset of the conflict.

Stolenberg told reporters on Sunday:

Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned.

It follows moves by Finland and Sweden to apply to join Nato. Both countries have maintained strict policies of neutrality then non-alignment since the end of the second world war, viewing Nato membership as a provocation of Moscow.

Nato and the United States said they were confident both countries would be accepted into the alliance and that reservations from Turkey, which wants the Nordic countries to halt support for Kurdish militant groups present on their territory, could be overcome.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Calla Wahlquist and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.

Here are some of the key developments overnight, including Sweden announcing its intention to follow Finland in applying to join Nato. Nato’s security chief, Jens Stolenberg, has said the alliance would look to provide both countries with interim security guarantees while the applications are processed.

  • Sweden has indicated it will follow Finland in applying for Nato membership. The two countries’ move abandons decades of military non-alignment triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and would redraw the security map of Europe.
  • In apparent retaliation, the Kremlin has pulled the plug on electricity supplies to Finland, with which it shares a 1,300km (800 mile) border.
  • Nato pledged open-ended military support for Ukraine on Sunday. At a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Berlin, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock said it would provide military assistance “for as long as Ukraine needs this support for the self-defence of its country”.
  • British intelligence revealed that Russia may have lost as much as a third of the invasion force, as more than 400 Russian soldiers were estimated to have been killed or wounded last week trying to cross the Donets river.
  • Ukraine’s joint forces task force said its troops repelled 17 attacks on Sunday and destroyed 11 pieces of Russian equipment. They reported the most intense fighting around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium.
  • Ukraine also said Russia fired on 23 villages and towns in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russia denies targeting the villages.
  • Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky has warned that the military situation in Ukraine’s south-eastern Donbas region is “very difficult” as analysts say Russian president Vladimir Putin has his sights on annexing southern and eastern Ukraine in the months ahead.
  • Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had carried out “high-precision” missile strikes on four artillery munitions depots in the Donetsk area in the east of Ukraine. The ministry also claimed airstrikes had destroyed two missile-launching systems and radar, and 15 Ukrainian drones around Donetsk and Lugansk.
  • The first Ukrainian battalion reached the Russian border in the Kharkhiv region on Sunday.
  • Ukrainian authorities are conducting at least 10 active rape investigations involving Russian troops, and are calling for other victims to come forward.
  • Kalush Orchestra, the band that won Eurovision last night for Ukraine, is auctioning off the statuette to raise funds for the Ukrainian army and Ukraine. The win has lifted spirits around Ukraine.
  • Zelenskiy has warned that the war in his country risks triggering global food shortages and has urged international intervention to prevent global famine. Before the invasion, Ukraine supplied 12% of the planet’s wheat, 15% of its corn and half of its sunflower oil.
  • A cyberattack on the Lviv city council website resulted in stolen data that ended up published in Telegram channels linked to Russia. This happened the same weekend Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups on the Eurovision song contest.
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