Here is the situation as it stands on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.
Fighting
- Russia unleashed an overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv, the 15th Russian air raid on the capital this month. Officials said air defences shot down the incoming missiles.
- Ukraine said that work was under way to restore a runway and that five aircraft were taken out of service in the western region of Khmelnytskyi without elaborating. Russia said its military hit Ukrainian air bases in overnight strikes.
- Two people were killed and eight injured when Russia shelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Toretsk in the Donetsk region, according to the region’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
- Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesperson for the eastern group of Ukrainian forces, told Ukrainian television that Wagner mercenary units were being replaced in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut by Russian paratroops and motorised units.
- Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod, said that Ukrainian troops shelled several “frontier settlements” in the region. Four people were injured, he said.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation to allow elections in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories to take place this year.
- Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office said 483 children have died in Ukraine and more than 986 injured as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.
Diplomacy
- China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the war in Ukraine had reached a “critical juncture”, and that the Chinese government would “continue to contribute to a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”.
- The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he did not think Russia would negotiate while it is still trying to win the war in Ukraine, adding that he was “not optimistic” about what could happen in the conflict in the coming months.
- Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said a demilitarised zone should be established inside Russia along its border with Ukraine as part of a post-war settlement.
- Ukraine’s parliament approved a new sanctions package against Iran, which it accuses of sending weapons to Russia.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Kenyan leaders on a surprise visit to Nairobi, as Moscow and Kyiv both seek to bolster support from African nations.
- Russia’s interior ministry issued an arrest warrant for US Senator Lindsey Graham over comments in an edited video released after he visited Kyiv and met Zelenskyy.
Weaponry
- Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said her government would increase its military aid to Ukraine by $2.6bn during this year and 2024.
- Finland kicked off NATO air exercises involving more than a dozen countries and 150 aircraft weeks after the country joined the security alliance.
