Here is the situation on Thursday, May 23, 2024.
Fighting
- At least 10 people were injured in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, after a Russian-guided bomb destroyed a cafe and damaged a high-rise apartment block and a nearby trolleybus. Regional prosecutors said the bus driver had to have both legs amputated as a result of the attack.
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At least seven people were hurt after a Russian attack on the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region with S-400 missiles. The attack damaged a kindergarten building and a private home, according to the regional police.
- Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said one police officer was killed after a Russian drone dropped explosives on a police car as two officers were on their way to evacuate civilians from Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Klymenko did not say what happened to the other officer.
- One person was killed after Ukrainian shelling struck villages in Russia’s Belgorod border region, according to local authorities.
- At least two people were killed and four injured in Ukrainian shelling of Lysychansk in its eastern Luhansk region, according to the Russian-installed governor, Leonid Pasechnik. Moscow has been occupying Lysychansk, which is close to the eastern front, since mid-2022.
- Russian news agencies, quoting the Ministry of Defence, said Moscow’s forces had seized control of the village of Klishchiivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, close to the city of Bakhmut. Ukraine’s military said it had been repelling attacks in the village but the situation was under control. Ukraine reclaimed Klishchiivka from the Russians in September last year.
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Russian drones struck energy facilities in Ukraine cutting power to more than 500,000 people in the northern Sumy region, according to regional authorities. The attacks targeted the cities of Shostka and Konotop, northeast of Kyiv and near the Russian border.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, said he had met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and offered to send more fighters to Ukraine. Kadyrov said tens of thousands of “well-trained and equipped fighters from the reserves” were prepared to fight for Russia in Ukraine if such an order were given. A total of 43,500 soldiers had already served there, including 18,000 volunteers, he said.
- A Russian court is considering a prosecutor’s request to designate former Russian TV news anchor Alexander Nevzorov and his wife Lidia Nevzorova as an “extremist group”. Nevzorov, 65, runs a YouTube channel with nearly 2 million subscribers where he often criticises the war in Ukraine. He and his wife fled Russia in March 2022. Nevzorov was sentenced in absentia last year to eight years by a Russian court for spreading “fake news” about Moscow’s army.
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Russia handed six more Ukrainian children – aged from six to 17 – to Kyiv in a deal brokered by Qatar, Russia’s TASS news agency reported. Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia.
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Russian patriotic bloggers expressed anger over the arrest of Major General Ivan Popov, the former commander of Russia’s 58th army, who was detained for “large-scale fraud”. Popov was sacked last July after he criticised army leaders and raised concerns about the high casualty rate in Ukraine.
Weapons
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for upgraded defence systems, in particular, to protect against guided bombs, which he said were now Russia’s “main instrument” in its attacks on Ukrainian cities.
- The Swedish government agreed on additional military support to Ukraine totalling 75 billion crowns ($7.01bn) over three years. Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said Swedish-made weapons had “already proven themselves on the battlefield”.
- Ukraine has equipped some of its naval drones with multiple rocket-launching systems and used them to fire at Russian positions in combat, a Ukrainian intelligence source told the Reuters news agency. The source, who declined to be named, said some “Sea Babies”, a model of naval drones used by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), had been equipped with grad multiple-rocket launching systems.
- British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps accused China of providing or preparing to provide Russia with lethal aid for use in its war against Ukraine. Shapps said it was a “significant development” but did not provide evidence to support his claim.
