Here is the situation as it stands on Thursday, May 11, 2023:
Conflict
- A plan by Russian forces to relocate more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, will result in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company warns.
- Russian troops shelled Vovchansk city in the Kharkiv region, killing one person and injuring three people.
- Two armed drones attempted to attack a military facility in Russia’s Voronezh region but failed, the Russian regional governor said.
- Two Russian soldiers from Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East were sentenced to two-and-a-half years each in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, human rights group OVD-Info said.
- Russian Wagner mercenary force boss Yevgeny Prigozhin continued to complain that his fighters were not receiving enough shells from Russia’s defence ministry.
- The war in Ukraine will increasingly be a battle between large numbers of poorly trained Russian troops with outdated equipment and a smaller Ukrainian force with better Western weapons and training, said Admiral Rob Bauer, the chair of NATO’s military committee.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the German daily newspaper Bild that the international community should not think of Kyiv’s much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia as being the last such offensive.
- Tributes poured in for Agence France-Presse journalist Arman Soldin, who was killed by Russian rocket fire near Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. The 32-year-old is the 15th reporter killed in the Ukraine war so far.
"Hoping for the best but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip"@ArmanSoldin on his first trip to Donbass, April 2022 pic.twitter.com/sEEFeAym7i— Daphné Rousseau (@daphnerousseau) May 10, 2023
Diplomacy
- Turkey’s foreign minister said he thought the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal could be extended for at least two more months.
- European Union states held an initial discussion about proposed new sanctions that would target Chinese and Iranian firms linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine and would allow export curbs on third countries for ignoring trade restrictions on Moscow.
- China’s Director-General for European Affairs Wang Lutong tweeted: “While China is making every effort to promote peace which is in Europe’s interest, Europe gives a stab in the back in return, bullying China on economic issues. Can’t understand what Europe is up to.”
- Russia’s foreign ministry says Poland will receive “a strong protest with an appropriate response” for not preventing demonstrations that sought to disrupt the Russian embassy’s Victory Day commemorations in Warsaw this week.
- The Kremlin said Poland’s decision to rename the Russian city of Kaliningrad in its official documents was a “hostile act”. Poland said Kaliningrad would now officially be called Konigsberg (“Krolewiec” in Polish).
- Poland summoned the Russian ambassador after a Polish border patrol aircraft “narrowly avoided a collision” with a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea.
