Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s headlines:
Ukraine’s military vowed on Tuesday not to give up the eastern city of Bakhmut as it prepares to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces. Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, underlined the importance Kyiv attaches to holding Bakhmut as preparations continue for a counterattack that it hopes will change the dynamic of the war.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said his country was inflicting heavy blows to Ukraine across the entire frontline, but that the supply of weapons was crucial to ensuring the success of what Moscow calls its “special military operation”. In a meeting with Russia’s top military officials, Shoigu said Russian forces were engaged in combat operations “along the entire line of contact” and were fighting not only Ukraine but also “unprecedented military assistance from the west”.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said German-supplied weapons were already being used in the Donbas region, which Russia has declared its own, a step that Ukraine and the west have dismissed as illegal. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Monday that Germany had insisted, like other Nato member countries, that the weapons it was supplying to Ukraine must not be used against Russian territory, Reuters reported.
Russia’s military has sustained 100,000 casualties in the past five months in fighting against Ukraine, mostly in the Bakhmut region, the White House has estimated. The national security spokesperson John Kirby said the figure, based on US intelligence estimates, included more than 20,000 dead.
Kirby did not detail how the US calculated Russia’s losses, but he said about half of those who died were fighting under the Wagner group rather than with the Russian military. They were being sent into battle without proper training or leadership, he said.
The Kremlin rejected the US assessment of Russian military casualties in Ukraine as having been “plucked from thin air” and said Washington had no way of obtaining the correct data.
All parties in the Black Sea grain initiative will meet for talks on Wednesday, according to a senior Ukrainian source. Additionally, the senior UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan is expected to travel to Moscow this week.
At least six Russian regions have scrapped 9 May Victory Day parades to mark the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany amid fear of Ukrainian strikes, with the governor of a region 400 miles from the border the latest to cancel. The governor of Saratov announced on Tuesday that its parade would not go ahead because of “safety concerns”. The string of cancellations act as a glaring admission of the country’s military vulnerability more than 14 months into the war.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that overnight three apartment buildings and a school were damaged in Kramatorsk in a strike by Russian S-300 missiles that caused one injury.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv, reported that a woman was injured in the shelling of the village of Petropavlivka, which is close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
Ukrainian forces shelled a village in Russia’s Bryansk region early on Tuesday, the local governor said in a social media post, a day after an explosion derailed a freight train in the region.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
The UK’s attention has “not been taken off the Wagner group at any point”, the government said, amid questions about whether the Russian mercenary outfit has had any involvement in Sudan’s uprising.
Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP who chairs the intelligence and security committee, asked of the Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell in the Commons:
Is there any evidence that the Wagner group’s links with the Rapid Support Forces had anything to do with the uprising, bearing in mind that the attention of our government and no doubt others has been taken away from the Ukraine crisis by this crisis?
And does he agree that if we don’t wish to see a flood of refugees coming into western Europe, such humanitarian aid we give must be focused on those surrounding countries nearer to where this crisis is playing out?
Mitchell replied:
Well, [Lewis] is entirely right on the final point.
I have nothing that I can say about the work of Russia and Wagner in Sudan, but I can assure him that our attention has not been taken off the Wagner group at any point.
Updated
