Summary
Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
Russian forces in Ukraine are so degraded they cannot mount any significant offensive moves and are focused for now on consolidating control of occupied territory, the US intelligence chief said. Avril Haines said Putin’s strategy is likely to be to prolong the conflict until western support for Kyiv wanes.
The White House denied any involvement in an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin. The spokesperson for its National Security Council John Kirby told MSNBC: “We had nothing to do with this.”
Moscow has accused Kyiv of attempting a drone strike on the Kremlin with the aim of killing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said two drones had been used in the attack but were disabled by Russian defences. In a statement on its website, the Kremlin said it considered the attack a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov blamed the US for the attack, saying “decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”. He said “Washington is definitely behind this attack, we are aware of this.”
Zelenskiy denied Ukraine was responsible. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” he said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US could not confirm Russian reports that Ukraine targeted Putin.
Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to The Hague, where the international criminal court (ICC) is based. “We all want to see a different Vladimir here in the Hague, the one who deserves to be sanctioned for his criminal actions here, in the capital of international law,” Zelenskiy said in a speech. “I’m sure we will see that happen when we win,” he said, adding: “Whoever brings war must receive judgment.”
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. No casualties were reported.
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country of that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”. It said, “In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast.”
Russian emergency services extinguished a fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, Tass news agency reported early on Thursday. TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, and that four drones were used. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Residents of the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson were stocking up on food and water after another night of heavy Russian shelling and before an announced 56-hour curfew due to begin on Friday evening. A number said they planned to stay indoors before the curfew and planned closure of the city, adding that they had slept in their clothes or gone to shelters because of the intensity of the Russian attack.
Finland has received a diplomatic note from Russia complaining over vandalism at a Russian consulate on the demilitarised Aland island located in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Zelenskiy handed out watches to wounded Ukrainian soldiers at a Dutch military base on Thursday as part of his surprise visit to the Netherlands, Reuters reports.
The Ukrainian president earlier met the king and prime minister and called for a new international tribunal to be set up in The Hague to try Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression over its invasion of Ukraine.
In his visit to the military base in Soesterberg, near Utrecht, the president met a handful of soldiers who are undergoing rehabilitation treatment in the Netherlands after suffering severe wounds in fighting against Russian forces.
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A US envoy has welcomed an upcoming trip by a senior Brazilian official to Ukraine, but said any negotiations should not “reward” Russia, AFP reports.
Closing a trip to Brazil, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said officials affirmed “their commitment to addressing this issue from both sides”.
We’re not telling Brazil not to engage on peace. What we have said is that engagement has to take Ukraine into account and it cannot be a negotiation based on rewarding Russia for taking Ukraine territory during their unprovoked war.
Brazil has sought to chart a balanced path on the Ukraine war, condemning the invasion but not sending weapons to Ukraine or joining sanctions on Russia.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, irritated the United States by saying on a visit to China last month that Washington was partly responsible for the war through its billions of dollars in weapons shipments to Ukraine.
Lula later said he opposed the invasion but favoured peace negotiations and would send to Ukraine a senior aide, Celso Amorim, whom Thomas-Greenfield met earlier Thursday at the presidential palace.
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US intelligence officials are still trying to determine who was behind the drone incident at the Kremlin, and are exploring various possibilities – including a false flag operation by Russia or that a fringe group with sympathies for Ukraine could have been involved, the Associated Press reports, citing a US official.
But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said intelligence officials don’t yet have any definitive answers. The official added that the Biden administration “certainly would not support the strike against Mr Putin”.
Zelenskiy’s top advisor, Mykhailo Podolyak, has claimed Russia had “staged” the alleged drone attack. He cited the delay in Russian state media reporting it and “simultaneous video from different angles” that appeared to show the aftermath of the alleged attack.
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Moscow's forces lack the strength to mount large-scale attacks, says US intelligence chief
Russian forces in Ukraine are so degraded they cannot mount any significant offensive moves and are focused for now on consolidating control of occupied territory, the US intelligence chief says.
According to the French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), the director of national intelligence Avril Haines has said Putin’s strategy is likely to be to prolong the conflict until western support for Kyiv wanes. She told a hearing of the Senate’s armed services committee:
Putin probably has scaled back his immediate ambitions to consolidating control of the occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and ensuring that Ukraine will never become a Nato ally.
But she said that, whatever the outcome of Ukraine’s offensive, Putin is unlikely to offer any concessions to advance peace talks.
The challenge is that, even as Putin may be scaling back his near-term ambitions, the prospect for Russian concessions to advance negotiations this year will be low unless domestic political vulnerabilities alter his thinking.
While western allies bolster Kyiv with arms, ammunition and training in advance of its planned offensive, Haines noted that Russian forces have “significant” shortfalls in ammunition and personnel.
Even if Ukraine’s counter-offensive is not fully successful, the Russians are unlikely to be able to mount a significant offensive operation this year.
We continue to assess that Putin most likely calculates that time works in his favour and that prolonging the war may be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing Russia’s strategic interests in Ukraine.
Russia’s administration may have portrayed a reported drone attack on the Kremlin as an attempt to assassinate Putin in the heart of Moscow, but the capital’s citizens appear more fatalistic, Reuters reports.
Anastasia, a woman in her 30s who – like others the agency interviewed in central Moscow – declined to give her surname, said:
We can’t do anything about it, can we? We live in an awesome country, the best protected country.
It can fly in from anywhere, and it’s not only here – it could be an earthquake, or a stone from a building site. We’ve been strolling by the Kremlin – it’s beautiful, wonderful, the sun is shining. What’s the point of trembling?
Some said that, if Kyiv was responsible, its aim would have been to demonstrate that even the distant Russian capital, preparing for the 9 May Victory Day celebrations, could not shut out the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the war seemed far from the minds of Muscovites out on streets no less animated than usual on a chilly spring day. Vladimir, 57, told Reuters:
There’s probably still more of a chance of being killed by a falling meteorite than a drone. So I’m not afraid in the slightest.
Nikita, in his early 30s, did see the incident as a failure of anti-aircraft and early-warning systems, but was still relaxed.
It’s the May holidays. By the time someone saw it, by the time they reported it, by the time they got through, by the time they made a decision, it was already too late. So what happened happened.
Zifa, in her 60s, thought the whole thing was an invention.
I don’t believe they got to the Kremlin. Our Putin is super. Nothing ever threatens him.
Updated
The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, has visited the American citizen Paul Whelan in the prison he has been held in Mordovia in eastern Russia, the US embassy says:
Today, Ambassador Tracy visited #PaulWhelan at IK17 prison in Mordovia. Paul has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than 4 years, and his release remains an absolute priority. The U.S. government will continue to engage Russian authorities on his case so Paul can come… pic.twitter.com/0DzL2falKk
— Посольство США в РФ/ U.S. Embassy Russia (@USEmbRu) May 4, 2023
Today, Ambassador Tracy visited #PaulWhelan at IK17 prison in Mordovia. Paul has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than four years, and his release remains an absolute priority. The US government will continue to engage Russian authorities on his case so Paul can come home as soon as possible.
Whelan, a former US marine, was arrested in December 2018, held for 18 months in Lefortovo prison in Moscow and jailed for 16 years in June 2020 on spying charges. He has denied the accusations.
The United States has designated Whelan as “wrongfully detained”, a term that effectively says the charges are bogus and the case is politically driven.
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Russia is “very unlikely” to use its nuclear weapons, Reuters quotes the top US intelligence official as saying, suggesting restraint by Moscow even as it takes heavy casualties in the war in Ukraine.
“It’s very unlikely, is our current assessment,” the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, has told the Senate’s armed services committee.
In recent weeks, western leaders have said they were preparing for Putin to use “whatever tools he’s got left” – including nuclear threats – as a Russian offensive slows and an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive comes into view.
British officials at the G7 foreign ministers’ summit in Japan said they were expecting Russia to retaliate and “must be prepared” for extreme tactics as it attempted to hold on to Ukrainian territory.
The hardline former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has previously said Moscow was ready for the Ukrainians to hit back, warning that his country would use “absolutely any weapon” if Kyiv attempted to retake Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
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An Israeli-designed missile detection system that would give Ukrainians more time to take shelter from Russian missile attacks is being tested in Kyiv and may be activated within two months, Reuters quoutes Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel as saying.
Israel, which has been honing its own air defences since coming under Iraqi Scud salvoes in the 1991 Gulf war, agreed to share technologies with Ukraine last year even though it held off on meeting Kyiv’s requests for weaponry.
One of those requests had been for the Iron Dome, a short-range interceptor that Israel uses to shoot down rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Mindful of their government’s efforts to maintain good relations with Moscow, Israeli officials have not provided details on the detection system being developed for the Ukrainians.
The ambassador Yevgen Korniychuk said the system, fed with data from Ukrainian radars, is now being tested in the capital. Referring to the air-shelter orders current being issued when under attack, he told Reuters:
It allows for identifying the different objects, including ballistic missiles, and calculates where they will go and basically that allows us to close certain parts of the country rather than the whole country.
When complete, the system will warn residents of areas about to be struck by Russian missiles or drones, either by sounding sirens nearby or with alerts on cellphones, he said.
The system would allow more precisely tailored messages that would sound the alarms in individual neighbourhoods under threat. “It will allow us to close Kyiv sectorially,” Korniychuk said.
Some residents will be told on their phones how much time they have to jump into their shelter, while in other parts of Kyiv people will be able to sit and have coffee.
What I know from our experts is that they have already started work and I do hope that, in accordance with our internal schedule, it will take another month or two to get it working in Kyiv.
He added that five other cities were likely to follow.
Updated
Talks on a potential donation of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine are progressing, Reuters quotes the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte as saying. Though, as we reported earlier, he has insisted that no decision has yet been made.
Answering a question at a press conference alongside the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo, Rutte said “On the F-16’s: no taboos.”
We are working closely with our partners Belgium, others, UK, Denmark, on getting that debate somehow to a conclusion. We are not there yet.
Earlier this week, in the Finnish capital Helsinki, Zelenskiy renewed his requests for the west to supply Kyiv with modern fighter jets and added he was “sure we will soon have aircraft”.
Rutte has previously said the Netherlands would consider any kind of military support for Ukraine as long as it would not trigger open conflict between Nato and Russia. He said on Thursday said that discussions on F-16s would “take time” – as did previous discussions on donating Leopard 2 tanks and armoured howitzers.
But at this moment the panzer-howitzers are in Ukraine, (and) the Leo 2s are being delivered to Ukraine. So we will work on this diligently, on the F-16s, and clearly there is support in parliament for this government to work on that.
Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutors have detained the mayor of Odesa, Hennadii Trukhanov, in connection with an investigation into suspected corruption, Reuters reports.
Trukhanov was elected mayor of the Black Sea port of Odesa in 2014 and has been under investigation since 2017 over embezzlement allegations, which he has denied.
According to Reuters, the prosecutors said on the Telegram messaging app that Trukhanov was set to be detained for 60 days for failing to pay 30,866,000 hryvnias (£664,615, $836,082) in bail.
Trukhanov faces charges of embezzling 92m hryvnias. He was acquitted of the charges in 2018 but an investigation into the purchase of an administrative building in an old industrial factory in Odesa was reopened in 2021.
Reuters said it was unable to reach Trukhanov for comment.
Fighting corruption is vital for Ukraine as it tries to join the European Union, and Zelenskiy has launched a crackdown on graft even though Russia has been waging war on Ukraine since its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Updated
Jennifer Rankin reports from Brussels for the Guardian on the implications of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the Netherlands for Ukraine’s ambition to join the EU:
During his visit to the Netherlands, Zelenskiy also met Vera Bergkamp, the speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, and Jan Anthonie Bruijn, the Senate president. The Ukrainian leader praised the Netherlands as “one of our key allies in protecting the values of freedom”, according to a transcript on the presidential website.
Zelenskiy voiced “special gratitude” to the Dutch parliament for supporting Ukraine’s candidate status for EU membership and stressed the importance of starting accession talks by the end of the year, according to the transcript.
The Netherlands was initially sceptical about Ukraine’s quest to become an EU member state, launched just days after the Russian invasion. But once France, Germany and Italy swung behind candidate status for Ukraine last summer, Mark Rutte’s government quickly fell in behind the idea.
The European Commission is due to inform the EU’s 27 member states in October on Ukraine’s progress in carrying out reforms, including the fight against corruption. A positive report could pave the way for opening membership talks, although their duration and final outcome remain uncertain.
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EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, warned Moscow on Thursday to not use an alleged drone attack that it said targeted the Kremlin to escalate its war in Ukraine.
“We call on Russia not to use this alleged attack as an excuse to continue the escalation of the war,” AFP reports Borrell told journalists as he went in to attend an EU ministers meeting in Brussels.
“This is what worries us: this can be used to justify more conscription of people, more soldiers, more attacks on Ukraine.”
Borrell said: “I listened to President Zelenskiy; President Zelenskiy said clearly Ukraine is not involved in the attacks, that they are defending their country, but they are fighting on their soil, that they are not attacking Russian soil.”
As far as the Russian Federation is concerned, nearly the entire battle within Ukraine is being fought on what Russia considers Russian soil, after it claimed to annex four partly occupied regions of Ukraine last year. Earlier this week the Kremlin accused Germany of allowing the weapons it supplied to be used on Russian soil because they were being used in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Updated
Berlin police said Thursday they would open an investigation after details of a possible trip by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to Germany attributed to the force appeared in the media.
Investigators had launched a probe “into a suspected betrayal of secrets … in relation to a possible visit by a state president”, AFP reports police said in a statement.
Local daily BZ on Wednesday reported that law enforcement in Berlin were readying for a visit by Zelenskiy to the German capital in mid-May.
Police confirmed the probe related to an article in BZ. The report contained “confidential details” police said. “At no time did the Berlin police officially provide any information that endangered the state visit,” it said in a statement.
“I find it unbearable that … a single employee is damaging the reputation of the Berlin police in such a shameful way nationally and internationally,” Berlin police president Barbara Slowik said in the statement.
Updated
Here is the video clip of the Ukrainian president saying his Russian counterpart should be brought to The Hague.
US denies involvement in claimed Kremlin drone attack
The White House denies any involvement in an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, with the spokesperson for its national security council, John Kirby, telling MSNBC:
We had nothing to do with this.
We reported earlier that the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had made the unsubstantiated claim the US was behind the incident. He said Russia knows “decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”.
He added that “Washington is definitely behind this attack, we are aware of this,” though he offered no evidence to back up his claims.
Kirby said:
Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.
He reiterated that Washington does not support or condone attacks by Ukraine outside its borders.
We’ve been clear with them publicly and we’ve been clear with them privately that we do not encourage nor do we enable them to strike outside Ukraine.
Updated
Russia is demoralised on the battlefield and Kyiv believes its planned counteroffensive to recapture occupied land will be successful, Zelenskiy insists. He has told reporters that foreign visits he has been making this week are focused on replenishing the strength of Ukrainian forces, and that the whole of Ukrainian society is preparing for the counteroffensive.
There are no taboos when it comes to military support for Ukraine, Rutte adds. Though he says the question of whether Nato might supply fighter jets to Ukraine has not yet been resolved.
Belgium is preparing a new package of military aid for Ukraine, De Croo says. Speaking to journalists alongside Zelenskiy, he has also said his government is examining how frozen Russian assets could be used to help Ukraine’s war effort.
And Rutte has promised the Netherlands will be unwavering in its support for Ukraine; adding that Russia cannot win the war and must be held accountable for what he terms crimes of aggression and other war crimes.
It is vital that western governments deliver weapons to Kyiv as quickly as possible, Zelenskiy says, as his nation continues to fight Russia’s invasion.
The Ukrainian leader has also told a joint news conference in The Hague with the Dutch and Belgian prime ministers Mark Rutte and Alexander De Croo that Ukraine was already a de facto Nato member, but should join the alliance de jure.
We reported earlier that the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had called for Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin to be brought to justice in The Hague. Here’s a little more detail.
Zelenskiy called for the creation of a war crimes tribunal separate to the international criminal court, Reuters reports, adding in his speech:
The aggressor must feel the full power of justice. This is our historical responsibility. Only one institution is capable of responding to the original crime, the crime of aggression: a tribunal. Not some compromise that will allow politicians to say that the case is allegedly done, but a true, really true, full-fledged tribunal.
An act of aggression is defined by the United Nations as the “invasion or attack by the armed forces of a state (on) the territory of another state, or any military occupation”. The ICC, which is based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant for Putin for suspected deportation of children from Ukraine.
But it does not have jurisdiction over alleged crimes of aggression. And the European Commission, among others, has already brought its support for the creation of a separate international centre for the prosecution of the crime of aggression in Ukraine, that would be set up in The Hague.
Major legal and practical questions remain around how such a court would be legitimised, either by a group of countries supporting it or with approval from the UN General Assembly. Russia is not a member of the ICC and already rejects its jurisdiction.
Updated
The Kremlin says it is not aware of any detailed peace plans from the Vatican, after Pope Francis claimed he was carrying out a secret “mission” to stop the fighting that has been raging since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The pontiff has offered to act as a broker between Moscow and Kyiv and has called for peace on practically a weekly basis. On Thursday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said:
We know that the pontiff is constantly thinking about peace, and we know that the pontiff is thinking about how this conflict can be ended. But we are not aware of any detailed plans that have been proposed by the Vatican in this context.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to The Hague, where the international criminal court (ICC) is based. “We all want to see a different Vladimir here in the Hague, the one who deserves to be sanctioned for his criminal actions here, in the capital of international law,” Zelenskiy said in a speech. “I’m sure we will see that happen when we win,” he said, adding: “Whoever brings war must receive judgment.”
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. No casualties were reported.
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country of that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”. It said, “In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast.”
Russian emergency services extinguished a fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, Tass news agency reported early on Thursday. TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, and that four drones were used. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Moscow has accused Kyiv of attempting a drone strike on the Kremlin with the aim of killing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said two drones had been used in the attack but were disabled by Russian defences. In a statement on its website, the Kremlin said it considered the attack a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov blamed the US for the attack, saying “decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”. He said “Washington is definitely behind this attack, we are aware of this.”
Zelenskiy denied Ukraine was responsible. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” he said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US could not confirm Russian reports that Ukraine targeted Putin.
Residents of the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson were stocking up on food and water after another night of heavy Russian shelling and before an announced 56-hour curfew due to begin on Friday evening. A number said they planned to stay indoors before the curfew and planned closure of the city, adding that they had slept in their clothes or gone to shelters because of the intensity of the Russian attack.
Finland has received a diplomatic note from Russia complaining over vandalism at a Russian consulate on the demilitarised Aland island located in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Updated
Moscow blames Washington for Kremlin drone incident
While the president of Ukraine has been in The Hague, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has been giving his daily press briefing in Moscow and Reuters and Tass have some key lines.
Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reaction to the drone incident at the Kremlin was “calm”. Tass quotes Peskov saying “You know that the president always maintains calmness, composure, clarity in the assessments and commands that he gives out in difficult, extreme situations. Nothing new has happened in this regard. The usual, working environment. Everyone is working, everyone is in their places.”
He added that a security council meeting on Friday was planned, and not a response to what appeared to be the drone attack, saying “According to the plan, the president has an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council tomorrow, on Friday. It was planned, it will take place. Of course, we can assume with a high degree of confidence that this topic will be touched upon.”
Peskov made no comment when asked by the media if Russia now considered Volodymyr Zelenskiy a legitimate military target.
Peskov added that Russia knows that “decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”. He said “Washington is definitely behind this attack, we are aware of this.”
Zelenskiy on ICC visit: 'We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague'
Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to The Hague, where the international criminal court (ICC) is based, Reuters reports.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in the Hague, the one who deserves to be sanctioned for his criminal actions here, in the capital of international law,” Zelenskiy said in a speech.
“I’m sure we will see that happen when we win,” he said, adding: “Whoever brings war must receive judgment.”
In his first official visit to the Netherlands, the Ukrainian president visited the ICC for just under an hour.
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC and rejects its jurisdiction, denies committing atrocities during its conflict with Ukraine, which it terms a “special military operation”.
Updated
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that four drones were used in an attack on the Ilsky oil refinery in the Seversky district of Krasnodar in Russia.
It says: “Four unmanned aerial vehicles were used. One of the drones did not explode, and a controlled detonation will be carried out, emergency services of the southern federal district told Tass.”
Additionally, Tass reports that “the fire at the enterprise occurred at about 3am on 4 May, and the area was 400 sq metres. There were no injured or dead. The fire was extinguished.”
Updated
We have formal pictures arriving of Volodymyr Zelenskiy with the Dutch senate president, Jan Anthonie Bruijn, and Dutch House of Representatives president, Vera Bergkamp, before their meeting in The Hague today.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has arrived at the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague where he is due to hold meetings.
The ICC is investigating alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the children’s ombudsman, over claims Russia has been forcibly deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. The Kremlin has strongly denied the claims.
Updated
Here is Peter Beaumont’s latest report from Ukraine for the Guardian:
Residents of the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson were stocking up on food and water after another night of heavy Russian shelling and before an announced 56-hour curfew due to begin on Friday evening.
A number said they planned to stay indoors before the curfew and planned closure of the city, adding that they had slept in their clothes or gone to shelters because of the intensity of the Russian attack.
Others said they had sent some family outside the city or moved to safer locations further from the river, as they said they were anticipating “something big” over the coming days as Ukrainian forces also stepped up their shelling of Russian positions.
The violence in Kherson has increased markedly this week, with 23 people killed by Russian strikes on Wednesday in the region, including a deadly bombardment of a supermarket in the city on Wednesday which killed eight people.
The latest shelling of Kherson comes amid mounting speculation about the timing of the long-anticipated Ukrainian spring counteroffensive which officials have suggested may be imminent.
Read more here: Ukraine residents prepare for curfew after night of heavy shelling
Finland has received a diplomatic note from Russia complaining over vandalism at a Russian consulate on the demilitarised Aland island located in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Finland’s foreign ministry said the incident is “regrettable” and that the damage consists of the consulate mailbox being torn down, and a window being broken after a bottle of beer was thrown at the consulate.
There continues to be intermittent air alerts in Ukraine. Kherson oblast has just declared another one.
Tamara Cohen, political correspondent at Sky News, has tweeted that she has spoken to a senior UK defence source about the Kremlin drone incident. She reports they told her:
Anything is possible, but there is no benefit to Ukraine doing it, there is no military advantage, everyone knows Putin doesn’t stay in the Kremlin and the motives are all really in Russia’s favour – the public to rally round; excuse for more random and reckless bombardments; trying to gain sympathy for Russia over Ukraine.
Zelenskiy to have meeting at ICC in The Hague
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will have a meeting at the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague during a visit to the Netherlands on Thursday, the court has said without giving further detail, Reuters reports.
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for alleged deportation of children from Ukraine, a war crime.
Zelenskiy arrived in the Netherlands overnight after his visit to Helsinki yesterday.
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The Guardian reporter Peter Beaumont is in southern Ukraine and visited Kherson on Tuesday. Today he managed to talk to two residents in the city who described a night of very heavy shelling. Peter says:
When we were in Kherson on Tuesday there was intermittent shelling. Because the city fell without a fight at the beginning of the war, most of the damage you see has been from Russian shelling since the liberation on 11 November.
To give a sense of what it’s like, the most dangerous areas have been close to the Dnieper River, which has recently been in a red zone forbidden to journalists and non-locals.
While there were people moving around the city on Tuesday, that’s changed with residents telling us they plan to stay indoors even before the strict weekend long curfew that starts tomorrow night. If people are going out at all it is to stock up on food and water.
Some people told us they were sleeping in their clothes to be ready to go to the shelters.
Andriy Vanin, 54, is a local camera operator, although he has been unemployed since the war started. Here’s what he had to say.
We live in the north of the city, as far from the river as you can get. We couldn’t sleep last night. Until 1am it was very noisy with a lot of shelling. After 1 there was a break and we tried to sleep, then at 4.30 m the Ukrainian artillery started shelling the Russian positions on the left bank.
Yesterday I had to go out around city I drive along city. I was near one of the places that was shelled. It felt like walking on a razor blade. Now I don’t want to leave the house.
From tomorrow night we’ll be under a strict curfew announced by the authorities. First thing is safety but we assume this has something to do with the counter offensive.
Right now it’s quiet in my district. We are going out to buy drinking water and bread. There’s a couple of small markets nearby but we are going do it fast, like in half an hour, because of the shelling.
I also spoke to Kateryna Symonova, who owned a bar before the war, and now works at the technical university.
It was really loud. We heard a lot bombing. Big and close and we could hear it all the time. It was bad enough that the whole apartment was shaking. We went down to basement for a time after it started at 10pm.
We assume they’ll start again today. Now they’re closing the city and I guess it means something big is coming. We have enough food and water and I’ve sent my parents out of Kherson, so it’s just me my husband.
Now even though the curfew doesn’t start until tomorrow evening, most people have decided to stay at home. It’s really scary to go outside. But it’s also really scary staying at home.
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Anton Gerashchenko, the former deputy minister of internal affairs and a current adviser to the interior ministry, has posted to social media what he claims is a video clip of air defences in Ukraine being launched against the overnight drone attack.
Russia attacked Kyiv and Ukraine with drones last night - the fourth massive attack on Ukrainian cities in the past week.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) May 4, 2023
Air defense shot down all drones targeted at Kyiv and 12 out of 15 drones targeted at Odesa. Three of them hit a university dorm in Odesa. Thankfully, no one… pic.twitter.com/dzPwnjXFL8
The Guardian has not independently verified the location and timing of the video.
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Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass has published overnight quotes from Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US. It quotes him as saying:
How would the Americans react if a drone hit the White House, the Capitol or the Pentagon? The answer for any politician, and even the layman, is obvious: the punishment will be tough and inevitable. Russia will respond to a daring and arrogant terrorist attack.
In criticism of the US response to the incident, he said Washington “did not find it possible to recognise the obvious – a terrorist act planned by the regime of Zelenskiy and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation”.
Putin is not thought to have been in the Kremlin at the time of the incident.
Antonov went on to say:
Blasphemous and deceitful were the theses that this terrorist attack was allegedly an ‘operation under a false flag’. That is, it was Russia itself that organised the provocation against the heart of our statehood?
The world remembers how, in 2001, the Russian president was the first to reach out to the American people, who were then subjected to a terrorist attack. Everything is forgotten. Today, the US defends Kyiv criminals.
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Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, has this report on its Telegram channel for the partly occupied Donetsk region:
On the night of 4 May, the Russian military launched a rocket attack on Kramatorsk, damaging the building of the educational institution and nearby residential buildings. There are no dead or injured, reported the head of the Donetsk region Kirylenko.
Also, Avdiivka came under fire from artillery – the city was also hit by an air missile – houses and the territory of the enterprise were damaged.
During the past day, the Russian military shelled Kurakhivska, Kostyantynivska and other communities of Donetsk region. On 3 May, two residents were killed and nine others were injured in Donetsk region.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires, showing Ukraine’s border guards in military exercises.
Drones hitting Odesa had 'for Moscow' and 'for the Kremlin' scrawled on them
There’s been another night of substantial Russian missile attacks and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, which has become something of a pattern in the last week or so after a period of relative calm. In the aftermath of Russia’s claims that Ukraine targeted the Kremlin with its own drones and tried to assassinate Vladimir Putin, Moscow launched a wave of kamikaze drones mainly targeting Kyiv and Odesa.
While all of the 18 drones launched against the Ukrainian capital were reported shot down, three drones landed in the area of a school dormitory building in Odesa although there were no casualties reported. Tail fragments for two of the drones had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” scrawled on them.
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Summary
If you’re just joining us, this is what happened overnight in Ukraine:
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. No casualties were reported.
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country of that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”. It said, “In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast.”
Russian emergency services extinguished the fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, TASS news agency reported early on Thursday. TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Dutch media are reporting that Zelensky arrived at Amsterdam’s airport late Wednesday, with a trip to the international criminal court in The Hague on his agenda. Zelenskiy is expected to deliver a speech in The Hague entitled “No peace without justice for Ukraine”, according to public broadcaster NOS.
Zelenskiy has denied Russian claims that Ukraine was involved in a drone attack on the Kremlin that was intended to kill the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president said on Wednesday: “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory and defend our towns and cities.” The Kremlin said on Wednesday that two drones had been used in the attack, but that they had been disabled by Russian defences. It has vowed to take retaliatory measures.
Zelenskiy denies Moscow claim of Kremlin drone attack
The Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer and Dan Sabbagh reported earlier that Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denied Russian claims that Ukraine was involved in a drone attack on the Kremlin that was intended to kill the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian president said on Wednesday: “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory and defend our towns and cities.”
“We leave it to the tribunal,” he added.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that two drones had been used in the attack, but that they had been disabled by Russian defences. It has vowed to take retaliatory measures.
The Kyiv city administration says that the only damage done by drones in the capital last night was to cars from falling debris.
“Debris fell on various streets around approximately 10 buildings. As a result of falling debris, parked cars (quantity to be determined) and road surface were partially damaged,” the administration wrote on Telegram.
More on this morning’s drone strikes, from Reuters:
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday.
In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed.
“The Russians have attacked Kyiv using Shahed loitering munitions and missiles, likely the ballistic type,” the administration said.
Out of 15 Shahed kamikaze drones fired at the Black Sea coastal city of Odesa, air defences destroyed 12, while three struck a university compound. There were no casualties, the Ukrainian southern military command said.
Russia has regularly bombarded Ukraine since October last year, striking at a variety of targets. The latest blasts were reported less than 24 hours after Kyiv said 21 people died in a Russian strike on the city of Kherson.
Ukrainian forces shot down 18 of the 24 drones launched at the country overnight, according to Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration.
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In case you’re just joining us, a drone attack set ablaze parts of an oil products reservoir at a refinery in southern Russia, Reuters reports, but emergency services said they extinguished the fire just over two hours later, TASS news agency reported early on Thursday.
TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region.
A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
“A second turbulent night for our emergency services,” Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, adding that tanks with oil products were on fire at the Ilsky refinery.
BBC Ukraine correspondent Myroslava Petsa shared a video of the fire on Twitter:
The third oil reservoir gets attacked by drones in Russia in less than a week.
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) May 4, 2023
This time the facility on fire is in Ilsky, Krasnodar Krai.
All three recent fires directly target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet capabilities, making it difficult for RU to fill up tanks. pic.twitter.com/S9uZCBpiEl
There were no casualties, he said, citing preliminary reports and he did not say how the fire started.
Ukraine rarely claims responsibility for what Moscow says are frequent drone strikes against infrastructure and military targets, particularly in regions close to Russia.
Moscow blamed Ukraine for an attack on 29 April that set fire to an oil depot in Sevastopol. Kyiv’s military says undermining Russia’s logistics is part of preparations for a long-expected counteroffensive.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has told the BBC that attacking Moscow made no sense for Ukraine but would help Russia justify attacks on civilian targets.
The statement from Putin’s office pointed to a significant response. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said it was time to “physically eliminate Zelenskiy and his clique”, while parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the use of “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime”.
According to the ISW, influential nationalist bloggers have called on Moscow to escalate the war, while criticising the Kremlin for allowing Ukraine to cross multiple Russian “red lines” with no adequate retaliation.
However, the thinktank’s analysis also shows that bloggers with closer Kremlin affiliations have been advocating against military escalation.
“This messaging from pro-Kremlin milbloggers could support the assessment that the purpose of this false-flag attack was to justify increased mobilisation measures rather than any sort of escalation,” the ISW says.
In response to the Kremlin drone attack a number of experts have accused Russia of staging a false-flag event, an operation carried out with the intent of blaming an opponent for it.
The strike comes at a potential turning point in the war, as Ukraine prepares to mount a long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Western analysts have said Moscow’s response in the aftermath of the strike was highly coordinated, and questioned why no reports of explosions emerged prior to the Kremlin’s official announcement, 12 hours after the explosion was said to have taken place.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US thinktank, said Russia likely staged the attack in order to emphasise the existential threat to Russia’s citizens and to prepare for wider mobilisation.
Here is what we know about the Kremlin drone strike.
Zelenskiy has said his only concern is to defend Ukraine’s own cities and villages against the Russian invasion. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” Ukraine’s president said.
In the past, Ukraine has launched drone strikes inside Russia and Crimea, although it typically does not claim responsibility for them. A strike on the Kremlin would be its most audacious to date.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the president was not in the Kremlin at the time of the attack. Mick Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence and CIA officer, told the BBC that Ukraine tracks Putin’s movements closely so it was likely they knew he was not in the Kremlin at the time.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said anything coming from the Kremlin should be taken with a “very large shaker of salt”.
Russia and China founded the SCO in 2001 as a counterweight to US alliances across east Asia to the Indian Ocean. The group includes the four Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where Russia enjoys economic and political sway.
“Moscow would have a strong interest in ensuring that it continues to play a big enough role in the SCO so it doesn’t risk losing ground in one of the few regional groupings where it can comfortably engage with other member states,” Kugelman told the AP.
The SCO countries have either voted to abstain or not vote at all in past UN resolutions condemning Russia. Both India and China have offered to contribute towards peace efforts in Ukraine, but have stopped short of directly accusing Moscow.
Russia is unlikely to face backlash over its war in Ukraine at an upcoming meeting of Central Asian foreign ministers, the Shanghai cooperation Organization, and instead could flex its influence with the regional group, AP reports.
India won’t have to contend with an East-West split over the war in Europe, which caused frustration for New Delhi as the chair for this year’s meetings of the Group of 20 leading economies, and the country will be looking to secure its own interests in the region, especially as Russia relies more deeply on India’s rival China.
“Russia needs friends. And in the SCO, it finds no enemies and quite a few friends,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.
No casualties in Kyiv in Thursday morning attack
Kyiv’s city state administration has posted a summary of this morning’s attacks on Telegram, saying that there were no casualties or “destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure”.
Another air attack in Kyiv. For the capital, it is already the third of four days in May! Our city has not felt such a dense intensity of attacks since the beginning of this year! Tonight, the aggressor again carried out a complex airstrike on the capital. (In the capital, the alarm lasted for more than 3.5 hours.) The Russians attacked Kyiv with the use of Shahed-type barrage ammunition and missiles, probably of the ballistic type. (The final type of missiles used will be determined only after the examination of the remains). According to preliminary information, in the airspace of Kyiv by our air defense forces, all enemy missiles and UAVs were destroyed! The data is being verified. According to operational reports, there were no casualties among the civilian population and no destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure.
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'All clear' in Kyiv - city officials
City officials in Kyiv have given the “all clear”, several hours after air raid sirens first started sounding.
“Air siren all clear! Please keep an eye on reports and return to shelter if the siren sounds again,” Kyiv city’s state administration wrote on Telegram.
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In case you missed it, here is our full report on the Kremlin drone strike:
Cherkasy’s air raid alarms have ceased, according to local authorities.
Oil refinery fire extinguished
Emergency services say they have extinguished the fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, TASS news agency reported early on Thursday.
TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region.
A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
“A second turbulent night for our emergency services,” Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, adding that tanks with oil products were on fire at the Ilsky refinery.
There were no casualties, he said, citing preliminary reports and he did not say how the fire started.
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The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, says that Moscow may use the Kremlin attack, which it says Russia “likely” staged itself, to limit or cancel 9 May Victory Day events, “actions that would probably augment the information effort framing the war in Ukraine as directly threatening Russian observance of revered historical events”.
The ISW said in its latest update:
The Kremlin may use the strike to justify either canceling or further limiting May 9th celebrations, actions that would probably augment the information effort framing the war in Ukraine as directly threatening Russian observance of revered historical events. ISW has previously assessed that Russia is employing an array of measures to frame the war in Ukraine as existential to Russia’s domestic audience and to prepare for wider societal mobilization.”
The #Kremlin may use the strike to justify canceling or further limiting May 9th celebrations, actions that would likely augment the information effort framing the war in #Ukraine as directly threatening #Russia's observance of revered historical events. https://t.co/TLr6LL5vq3 https://t.co/oDgqitSJo9
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) May 4, 2023
The Kyiv independent reports that the regions that heard air raid alarms ringing early this morning include, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia.
Air raid alarms have ceased in southern Ukraine, the defence force says on Telegram, but, “Anxiety remains in the north-central part of Ukraine.”
Kherson has stopped its air raid alarm, according to the region’s state administration on Telegram.
Zelenskiy has arrived in the Netherlands – local media
Dutch media are reporting that Zelensky arrived at Amsterdam’s airport late Wednesday, with a trip to the international criminal court in The Hague on his agenda.
Dutch news agency ANP said Zelensky, making his first visit to the Netherlands, landed at Schiphol airport after attending a Nordic summit in Helsinki.
ANP published a dark photo of an aircraft, claiming it was the Dutch government plane probably carrying the Ukrainian leader.
The Ukrainian president is expected to deliver a speech in The Hague entitled “No peace without justice for Ukraine”, according to public broadcaster NOS.
Russia 'likely staged' Kremlin drone attack, says Institute for the Study of War
The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War says that the drone attack on the Kremlin was “likely staged” by Russia and that “several indicators suggest that the strike was internally conducted and purposefully staged”.
Russia blamed the attack on Ukraine, an assertion Zelenskiy was quick to deny.
The ISW says that among the indicators are that:
Russian authorities have recently taken steps to increase Russian domestic air defense capabilities, including within Moscow itself, and it is therefore extremely unlikely that two drones could have penetrated multiple layers of air defense and detonated or been shot down just over the heart of the Kremlin in a way that provided spectacular imagery caught nicely on camera.
And that:
The Kremlin’s immediate, coherent, and coordinated response to the incident suggests that the attack was internally prepared in such a way that its intended political effects outweigh its embarrassment.
The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, has just tweeted saying, “Russia’s next attacks on Ukrainian cities right now, after yesterday’s terrible attack on the civilian population in Kherson. As @SecBlinken said, Ukraine is under daily attack, and not only its incredibly courageous armed forces, but its citizens – men, women and children – are under daily attack, being bombed in their own homes, apartments, in the middle of the streets, killing children, uniting families.”
More Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities right now after yesterday’s horrific strike on civilians in Kherson. As @SecBlinken said, Ukraine is under daily assault, and not just its incredibly courageous military forces, but its citizens – its men, women, and children – being…
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) May 4, 2023
Explosions reported in Zaporizhzhia
Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reports explosions in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Yuri Malashko, the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram that anti-aircraft defences were at work.
Here is a map showing air raid sirens are sounding this morning across most of eastern Ukraine.
Big boom in Kyiv just now. Air raid alert sounded about 15 minutes ago, at 0221. Air defenses working. Usually there’s more time between alert sounding and sounds if booms if it’s a Shahed Doodlebug flying bomb attack. But threat just now said to be just doodlebugs, not missiles. pic.twitter.com/j4nZ18PE4D
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) May 3, 2023
Black Sea oil refinery ablaze in Russia
Here is more on the oil refinery attack from Tass and Reuters.
Part of an oil refinery in southern Russia is on fire after it was hit by a drone attack, Tass news agency cited local emergency services as saying early on Thursday.
Tass said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. It cited a source as saying a fuel reservoir was on fire but gave no details.
Ukraine rarely claims responsibility for what Moscow says are frequent drone strikes against infrastructure and military targets, particularly in regions close to Russia.
Last June the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region, bordering Ukraine, suspended operations after two unmanned aerial vehicles attacked its facilities.
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Euromaidan has released what it says is footage of the drone strike on a Russian oil refinery – the Guardian has not verified this independently.
Apparent CCTV footage of the UAV attack on the fuel facility in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. The narrator claims the first drone was shot down by a s2a missile and another missile didn't catch up with the second drone that hit an oil tank.
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) May 4, 2023
📹Footage emerged on multiple TG channels pic.twitter.com/bTqiZQvoU4
Euromaidan reports that there are currently drones over Odesa, Kyiv and Cherkasy:
Situation as of now: 2 russian drones over Odesa, one over the Kyiv oblast and one over the Cherkasy oblast.
— Ukraine Front Lines (@EuromaidanPR) May 4, 2023
Ukraine’s armed forces have now confirmed the refinery is the Ilsky oil refinery. It was hit by a drone, they said.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
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Russian oil refinery on fire – Ukraine armed forces
Ukraine’s armed forces have just said on Telegram that an oil “depot” in Krasnodor, southern Russia, “was hit”. Unconfirmed reports on social media say it is the Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodor Krai – a different oil depot from the one hit yesterday, which was also in Krasnodor, in the village of Volna.
Ilsky is one of southern Russia’s largest refineries, according to its website.
US embassy in Kyiv warns US citizens of 'ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks'
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”.
The warning, issued late on Wednesday, says:
In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast. The US embassy urges US citizens to observe air alarms, shelter appropriately, follow guidance from local authorities, and refer to additional safety information.”
Melinda Simmons, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine, is in Kyiv, where she says she was “jolted awake by booms of air defence”.
This is the fourth night in seven days that Russia has launched strikes on Kyiv.
Jolted awake by booms of air defence, again. Once that happens it’s hard to sleep again - ears stay tuned for the next noise. Time to recite movie plots, favourite poems, whatever calms the head.
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) May 4, 2023
Ukraine Armed Forces report explosions in Odesa, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk
Ukraine’s armed forces have just posted on Telegram saying, “explosions in Odesa, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.”
It is unclear at this stage whether the explosions are the air defences working, or because Russia has managed to bypass air defence systems and strike.
Air raid sirens sound in several regions as explosions reported in Odesa
Russia is launching drone strikes on multiple regions Ukraine, including in Kyiv, where it is 3:30 am on Thursday morning.
Ukraine’s armed forces are reporting the attacks on Telegram, as air raid sirens sound in regions across most of the country’s east.
Ukraine’s armed forces reported that there were explosions in Odesa, and that Russia had launched shahed drones.
People were urged to remain in shelters.
The attacks are ongoing – we will bring you the latest as it happens.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Air raid sirens are sounding in Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine, as Ukraine’s armed forces report that there are explosions in Odesa.
The early morning Russian attack comes as Moscow accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on the Kremlin, an assertion Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has denied.
Elsewhere:
Moscow has accused Kyiv of attempting an overnight drone strike on the Kremlin with the aim of killing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said two drones had been used in the attack but were disabled by Russian defences. In a statement on its website, the Kremlin said it considered the attack a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy denied Ukraine was responsible. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” he said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US could not confirm Russian reports that Ukraine targeted Putin.
Russian shells killed 21 civilians in Ukraine’s Kherson region on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said, including hitting a hypermarket, a railway station and residential buildings.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would soon start a counteroffensive on its own soil against Russian forces. “This is why I am sure we will soon have aircraft. Because we will soon conduct an offensive, and after it I am sure we will be given planes,” he said.
Russia launched its third nightly round of attacks on Kyiv in six days, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said on Wednesday, with a drone hitting a building in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine’s air force command said its forces destroyed 21 of the 26 Iranian-made Shahed drones, while Kyiv officials said air defence systems eliminated those sent over the city, with no initial reports of casualties or destruction.
A fuel storage facility near a key bridge in Russia’s south-western region of Krasnodar was on fire in the early hours of Wednesday, the regional governor said, but there were no reports of casualties. Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency has reported that the fire at an oil facility in Volna was caused by “the fall of a drone”. Smoke from the fire can be seen from across the Kerch Strait in occupied Crimea.
Zelenskiy has said the White House did not advise him about the leak of highly classified US intelligence documents that received widespread attention around the world last month. The failure to brief him was “unprofitable for us”, he said. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”
A group of Nordic countries have backed Ukraine to become a member of Nato and the EU after a joint statement during Zelenskiy’s visit to Finland. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland issued a joint statement in which they said: “The Nordic countries will continue their political, financial, humanitarian and military support for as long as it takes.”
Zelenskiy is due to make a visit to the Netherlands on Thursday, where he will deliver a speech and will have meetings with the prime minister, Mark Rutte, and members of parliament, according to the Dutch government.
German police said Zelenskiy would travel to Berlin on 13 May though a security source later said public disclosure of the visit was premature and it was now unclear if it would go ahead.
Ukraine and the EU have reached an agreement to continue their “economic visa-free” deal for another 12 months. The initial deal was struck last year after the outbreak of war. It means that Ukrainian businesses will be able to continue to sell goods to the EU without any quotas, export duties or tariffs.
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