Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s headlines:
Washington is looking into reports that American vehicles were used by Ukraine inside Russia, the White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. He said the US has been clear with Kyiv that it does not support any such use of US-made equipment.
It came as the Kremlin said the use of US-made military hardware by pro-Ukraine fighters who conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week was testament to the West’s growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked the Russian border region of Belgorod with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.
Ukraine will not be able to join Nato as long as the war is going on, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday. “I think that everyone realised that, to become a member in the midst of a war, is not on the agenda,” Reuters reports he said at an event organised by the German Marshall Fund of the US in Brussels. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that the police evacuated a family of four children and three adults from Toretsk in Donetsk after the latest round of shelling. The children’s mother says that they have already come under fire five times and run under mines. Suspilne says they lived 300 metres from the frontline and about 800 metres from the positions of the Russian army, but now plan to go to stay with relatives in Vinnytsia.
The Russian private army Wagner lost more than 10,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, according to the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He said about 20% of the 50,000 Russian prisoners recruited to fight in the 15-month war had died in the eastern Ukrainian city, Reuters reported. The figure was in stark contrast with claims from Moscow that it has lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979 and 1989.
The World Health Organization assembly passed a motion on Wednesday condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including attacks on healthcare facilities. The motion passed by 80 votes to nine, with 52 abstentions and 36 countries absent, Reuters reported.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) expects to spend €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in Ukraine next year in support of infrastructure and the economy, a senior source at the bank has said. It comes on top of €3bn already projected for 2022 and the remainder of 2023. The funds have helped the economy continue to function and ensure that there was no run on banks and that civil servants continued to be paid.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, has accused Washington and London of thwarting efforts to reach a settlement over the conflict in Ukraine and of turning a blind eye to what he said was increasing “terrorism and violence” visited on civilians by Ukraine. Reuters reports that in remarks at a security forum outside Moscow attended by foreign security officials, Naryshkin expressed satisfaction that most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America had not imposed sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, despite what he called colossal pressure to do so from Washington.
The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday. The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg’s city court on 1 June, the court said on its website.
The Netherlands wants to give Ukrainian pilots F-16 training as soon as possible, the Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, said on Wednesday in a letter to parliament. The training would be coordinated with Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and other countries could join, Ollongren added.
Russia has announced that a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don will try five foreign men, including three British nationals, accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Moscow. The trial will begin on 31 May on terrorism-linked allegations and other charges. The men are believed to face trial in absentia.
Ukraine’s main Orthodox church said on Wednesday it had decided to switch to a calendar in which Christmas is celebrated on 25 December, a move that distances it from Russia. Ukrainian Christians, a majority of whom are Orthodox, have traditionally celebrated Christmas on 7 January alongside other predominantly Orthodox Christian countries.
Germany will buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, a member of the parliamentary budget committee that approved the purchase on Wednesday told Reuters. The tanks order will come to €525.6m (£457m) while the howitzers have a price tag of €190.7m; all of them are to be delivered by 2026 at the latest, said the finance ministry documents meant for the parliament.
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is in Beijing, where, before signing bilateral agreements with China, he said: “Today, relations between Russia and China are at an unprecedented high level.” He said Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March was further evidence of the “special” nature of bilateral relations between the two countries. It is expected that Vladimir Putin will visit China later this year.
Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and more than 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion into Belgorod by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Russian region.
Gladkov also announced two more incidents, stating a drone attack over Novaya Tavolzhanka failed when the explosive device dropped did not detonate, and that shelling in Terezovka has injured one person who has been hospitalised as a result.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is reporting some quotes from Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, who has said that the situation for Russian forces on the flanks of Bakhmut has stabilised.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
As Russian militias opposing the Kremlin readied a daring cross-border raid into the Belgorod region this week, a man with slicked-down hair, in full camouflage and holding an automatic rifle stared into a camera lens.
“We are Russians just like you,” the man said in the video, later posted online. “We are people just like you. We want our children to grow up in peace and be free people so they can travel, study and were just happy in a free country. But this has no place in modern Putin’s Russia, rotten through and through from corruption, lies, censorship, restrictions on freedoms and repression.”
That man was Maximillian Andronnikov, the self-proclaimed commander of the Freedom of Russia Legion, a paramilitary group that, until this week, was chided for its outsized internet and media activity. Under the nickname “Caesar” he has also served as a media spokesperson for the group, which has sought to largely act in the shadows and keep its membership a secret.
But with the raids into southern Russia this week, the spotlight has been turned on both the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, another group composed of Russians who now say they are fighting against Putin.
The Netherlands wants to give Ukrainian pilots F-16 training as soon as possible, Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Wednesday in a letter to parliament.
The training would be coordinated with Belgium, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, and other countries could join, Ollongren added.
On Tuesday, Nato’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said training Ukrainian pilots on western F-16 fighter jets would not make Nato a party to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
A day earlier, senior Russian diplomats said the transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine would raise the question of Nato’s role in the conflict, Reuters reported.
Germany will buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, a member of the parliamentary budget committee that approved the purchase on Wednesday told Reuters.
The tanks order will come to €525.6m (£457m) while the howitzers have a price tag of €190.7m; all of them are to be delivered by 2026 at the latest, said the finance ministry documents meant for the parliament.
The purchase includes an option for another 105 tanks for about €2.9bn, Reuters reported.
Germany has supplied 18 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine since the Russian invasion last year and has said it intends to plug the gap with new tanks as soon as possible.
The 12 howitzers are part of defence ministry plans signed off by the German parliament in March to buy up to 28 howitzers as replacements.
Updated
Washington investigating reports American vehicles used in raid inside Russian border
Washington is looking into reports that American vehicles were used by Ukraine inside Russia, the White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.
He said the US has been clear with Kyiv that it does not support any such use of US-made equipment.
It came as the Kremlin said the use of US-made military hardware by pro-Ukrainian fighters who conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week was testament to the West’s growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked the Russian border region of Belgorod with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.
It said it had destroyed four armoured vehicles and five pickup trucks to repel what was one of the largest incursions on to Russian soil from Ukraine since Moscow launched what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine 15 months ago.
Footage of some of the destroyed vehicles released by the Russian defence ministry showed US-made military hardware such as Humvee military trucks.
Reuters was able to confirm the location of damaged vehicles and surrounding details shown in the video, though could not verify the date it was filmed.
The United States, Ukraine’s biggest military supplier, initially played down reports that American-made military hardware was used in the raid.
Updated
Russia has announced that a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don will try five foreign men, including three British nationals, accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Moscow.
The trial will begin on 31 May on terrorism-linked allegations and other charges. The men are believed to face trial in absentia.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said the three British men, a Swedish national and a Croatian man had been accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces – including the Azov regiment, which battled Russian forces during the siege of the southern port city of Mariupol.
The Britons have been identified as John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy. The Swedish national has been named as Mathias Gustafsson and the Croatian as Vjekoslav Prebeg.
They face several charges including undergoing training to carry out “terrorist activities”.
Updated
Members of the Russian Volunteer Corps are seen in Ukraine, close to the Russian border earlier today.
Ukraine’s main Orthodox church said on Wednesday it had decided to switch to a calendar in which Christmas is celebrated on 25 December, a move that distances it from Russia.
Ukrainian Christians, a majority of whom are Orthodox, have traditionally celebrated Christmas on 7 January alongside other predominantly Orthodox Christian countries.
“This question arose with new impetus as a result of Russian aggression,” the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) wrote in a Facebook post announcing the change away from the Julian calendar.
“Nowadays, the Julian calendar is perceived as connected with Russian church culture,” it said.
Ukraine’s main Catholic church, which considers about one in 10 Ukrainians to be worshippers, announced a similar change in February.
Reuters reports the OCU said it would use the revised Julian calendar from 1 September, the start of the liturgical year. It said parishes would have the option to celebrate according to the old Julian calendar if they wished.
Updated
Russian ministry of defence: Ukraine made unsuccessful attack on Black Sea fleet reconnaissance ship
Russia’s ministry of defence has said that Ukraine mounted an unsuccessful drone attack on one of its Black Sea fleet ships, the Ivan Khurs.
In a statement it said:
Today at 05:30am, the Ukrainian armed forces made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Ivan Khurs ship of the Black Sea fleet with three unmanned speedboats. [The Ivan Khurs] is performing tasks to ensure the safety of the operation of the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream gas pipelines in the exclusive economic zone of the Republic of Turkey.
All enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the standard armament of a Russian ship 140km northeast of the Bosphorus. The ship Ivan Khurs of the Black Sea fleet continues to fulfill its tasks.
The Ivan Khurs is a reconnaissance ship.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, has accused Washington and London of thwarting efforts to reach a settlement over the conflict in Ukraine and of turning a blind eye to what he said was increasing “terrorism and violence” visited on civilians by Ukraine.
Reuters reports that in remarks at a security forum outside Moscow attended by foreign security officials, Naryshkin expressed satisfaction that most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America had not imposed sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, despite what he called colossal pressure to do so from Washington.
He also accused what he called the “Euro-Atlantic elite” of refusing to voluntarily surrender their leadership while doing everything they could to stop what he called alternative centres of power from rising.
“Turbulent periods are essentially a test of the extent to which nations and peoples have preserved their true foundations,” said Naryshkin. “Our countries, unlike the west, have preserved a significant margin of strength and strategic depth in this respect,” he said.
“I mean a connection with the spiritual dimension of existence, traditions which in the US and Europe long ago gave way to positivism, the cult of material success and outright satanism,” said Naryshkin.
Stoltenberg says Ukraine joining Nato during the war 'not on the agenda'
Ukraine will not be able to join Nato as long as the war is going on, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday.
“I think that everyone realised that, to become a member in the midst of a war, is not on the agenda,” Reuters reports he said at an event organised by the German Marshall Fund of the US in Brussels. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to attend the next Nato summit in person in Vilnius in July, and has previously said that it would be a timely moment for a political statement about the prospect of Ukraine’s Nato membership.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that the police evacuated a family of four children and three adults from Toretsk in Donetsk after the latest round of shelling. The children’s mother says that they have already come under fire five times and run under mines.
Suspilne says they lived 300 metres from the frontline and about 800 metres from the positions of the Russian army, but now plan to go to stay with relatives in Vinnytsia.
There are an estimated 5.4 million people who have been internally displaced in Ukraine, and the UN has recorded 8.2 million people who have fled the country to other European countries.
Updated
The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday.
The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg’s city court on 1 June, the court said on its website.
He and two colleagues at the same Siberian institute, the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), have all been arrested on suspicion of treason in the past year.
The case is marked as “top secret” and will be closed to the media and public, the court said. It said Maslov’s custody was extended until 10 November in a closed hearing on Wednesday.
Maslov was detained last June in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia and one of Russia’s main science hubs.
Maslov’s lawyer Olga Dinze told Reuters that she declined to comment on the case, saying that “the situation is extremely difficult.”
Details of the accusations against the three men are classified, but the news portal of the science city where they are based said Maslov was suspected of handing secrets to China.
Two sources have told Reuters that Shiplyuk, the director of ITAM, is suspected of passing secrets to China at a conference there in 2017. They said he denies the charge, saying the information in question was publicly available online.
Prigozhin says Wagner group lost 10,000 fighters in battle for Bakhmut
Russian private army Wagner lost more than 10,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, according to the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
He said about 20% of the 50,000 Russian prisoners recruited to fight in the 15-month war died in the eastern Ukrainian city, Reuters reported.
The figure was in stark contrast with claims from Moscow that it has lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979 and 1989.
Ukraine has not said how many of its soldiers have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• This post was amended on 24 May 2023 to correct the number of Wagner group fatalities cited by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Updated
Japan held a ceremony on Wednesday marking its planned donation of about 100 military vehicles to Ukraine, as Tokyo seeks to provide equipment that can be of broader military use than its earlier shipments of helmets and hazmat suits.
In a ceremony at the defence ministry at which two half-tonne trucks were on display, Japanese vice-defence minister, Toshiro Ino, handed a document to Ukrainian ambassador, Sergiy Korsunsky, listing the three types of vehicles included in the donation, AP reports.
“We hope the invasion ends as soon as possible and peaceful daily lives return,” Ino said. “We will provide as much support as we can.”
The donation, which also includes 30,000 food rations, comes as Japan’s government is seeking to ease its military equipment transfer policy under a new national security policy that allows its military a greater offensive role, in a major break from its post-second world war self-defence-only principle.
While other countries have provided Ukraine with tanks, missiles and fighter jets, Japan has limited its donations to non-lethal equipment because the transfer policy prohibits the provision of lethal weapons to countries at war.
Japan has provided Ukraine with bulletproof vests, helmets, gas masks, hazmat suits, small drones and food rations since Russia’s invasion began last year.
Updated
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) expects to spend €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in Ukraine next year in support of infrastructure and the economy, a senior source at the bank has said.
It comes on top of €3bn already projected for 2022 and the remainder of 2023.
The funds have helped the economy continue to function, ensure there was no run on banks and civil servants continued to be paid.
Last year the bank, which is founded in 1991 as a post cold-war era institution to support eastern Europe, deployed €1.7bn with significant expenditure on rebuilding gas and rail networks.
It also helps Ukraine with the government payroll and making loans available to SMEs to ensure the economy bounced back after the invasion by Russia last February.
“The Ukraine economy has proved very resilient. Everything is functioning. Banks are functioning, there has been no bank run. There was a huge shock at the beginning with a minus 30% [in GDP]. But not the situation has stabilised. This resilience is due to the amazing resilience of the people and their capacity to find a solution and continue doing their business and relocate and so forth. So very very impressive,” said Odile Renaud-Basso, president of the bank.
The World Bank has estimated that it will take €11bn for critical and priority reconstruction and recovery investments in 2023.
Updated
WHO condemns Russia's aggression in Ukraine
The World Health Organization assembly passed a motion on Wednesday condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including attacks on healthcare facilities.
The motion passed by 80 votes to 9, with 52 abstentions and 36 countries absent, Reuters reported.
The western-led motion, put forward at the UN agency’s annual meeting, also called for an assessment of the impact of Russia’s aggression on the health sector.
There was no immediate reaction from Russia, although it had submitted a counter-proposal recognising the health emergency in Ukraine, but making no mention of its own role in the war.
That motion was rejected by the assembly immediately after the first, by 62 votes to 13, with 61 abstentions and 41 countries absent.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that reports that pro-Ukrainian fighters who crossed into Russia earlier this week had used western-made military hardware were consistent with the west’s growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was no secret that the Ukrainian armed forces were receiving more and more equipment from the west.
The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked a Russian border region with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.
Images of some of the destroyed vehicles broadcast on Russian state media showed US-made military hardware.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is in Beijing, where, ahead of signing bilateral agreements with China, he said: “Today, relations between Russia and china are at an unprecedented high level”. He said Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March was further evidence of the “special” nature of bilateral relations between the two countries. It is expected that Vladimir Putin will visit China later this year.
Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and over 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion into Belgorod by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian region.
Gladkov also announced two more incidents, stating a drone attack over Novaya Tavolzhanka failed when the explosive device dropped did not detonate, and that shelling in Terezovka has injured one person who has been hospitalised as a result.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is reporting some quotes from Denis Pushilin, Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, who has said that the situation for Russian forces on the flanks of Bakhmut has stabilised.
The Russian-built Crimea Bridge linking the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian region of Krasnodar was reopened on Wednesday after being closed for several hours for “exercises”, an official from Crimea’s Russian-imposed administration said.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that 2,000 people have been left without electricity in Putyvl in Sumy oblast. It cites the regional energy authority claiming it was due to Russian shelling.
The chief executive of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy business, Rosatom, discussed security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi. Alexey Likhachev was attending a meeting in Beijing.
Older people have suffered and died at a disproportionately high rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a UN report showed on Wednesday, with some perishing because they were barred from fetching medicines or leaving basements. The report compiled by UN human rights monitors showed that about a third of the civilians killed in the first year of the war were over 60. The UN found older people were hit exceptionally hard by power outages due to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure trapped many in their upstairs apartments. Others had to be evacuated in haste, sometimes in wheelbarrows because there was no time to fetch their mobility devices. Many were left behind.
Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Wednesday his country is plannning to launch a submarine purchase programme this year.
US popular support for Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Norc shows.
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has told a defence conference in London that Ukraine’s western allies are prepared to support the country in the war “for years”, the FT reports.
Older people have suffered and died at a disproportionately high rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a UN report showed on Wednesday, with some perishing because they were barred from fetching medicines or leaving basements.
The report compiled by UN human rights monitors showed that about a third of the civilians killed in the first year of the war, or 1,346 of 4,187 documented victims, were over 60.
Reuters reports the UN found that older people were hit exceptionally hard by power outages due to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure since October 2022 that trapped many in their upstairs apartments when their elevators broke down. Others had to be evacuated in haste, sometimes in wheelbarrows because there was no time to fetch their mobility devices. Many were left behind.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. The UN has recorded at least 18,500 casualties (including more than 6,660 killed) on territory controlled by the Kyiv government since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The Russian-built Crimea Bridge linking the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian region of Krasnodar was reopened on Wednesday after being closed for several hours for “exercises”, an official from Crimea’s Russian-imposed administration said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted to his social media channels to say:
The peace of our parents’ generation is the peace that was left as a legacy by those who defeated the penultimate great aggression in Europe. And the peace of our children’s generation is the peace we are gaining right now in the battles against the last aggression in Europe.
The peace of our parents' generation is the peace that was left as a legacy by those who defeated the penultimate great aggression in Europe. And the peace of our children's generation is the peace we are gaining right now in the battles against the last aggression in Europe. pic.twitter.com/WFTaaV0H3l
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 24, 2023
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that 2,000 people have been left without electricity in Putyvl in Sumy oblast. It cites the regional energy authority claiming it was due to Russian shelling. The claims have not been independently verified.
The chief executive of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy business, Rosatom, discussed security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi. Alexey Likhachev was attending a meeting in Beijing, Reuters reports the firm said on Wednesday.
The ZNPP, which is Europe’s largest plant, has been occupied by Russian forces since the earliest days of the war. Rival forces have accused each other of endangering nuclear safety by firing at the plant.
Updated
Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Wednesday his country is plannning to launch a submarine purchase programme this year.
Reuters reports Poland has increased military spending since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the government pledging to double the size of the army and spend 4% of GDP on defence in 2023.
Updated
Reuters has a quick snap that the Russian-installed governor of Crimea has said the Crimea Bridge is closed due to drills.
The bridge that links Crimea to the Russian region of Krasnodar Krai was attacked in October last year. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Updated
There have been reports of the sounds of explosions in the Sumy region, but the regional authority has told Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, that the noise is the result of military exercises.
Meanwhile an alert has been declared warning of artillery fire on Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
Updated
In Russia’s Belgorod region, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has announced two more incidents, stating on Telegram that a drone attack over Novaya Tavolzhanka failed when the explosive device dropped did not detonate, and that shelling in Terezovka has injured one person who has been hospitalised as a result. The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports in its morning news bulletin that Kherson and Sumy regions were shelled overnight, with no casualties.
It said that yesterday two people died and three others were injured after the Kherson region was hit 64 times, and that 11 people were injured in the Donetsk region by shelling. One of those injured, it reports, is a child born in 2020.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is reporting some quotes from Denis Pushilin, who has said that the situation for Russian forces on the flanks of Bakhmut has stabilised.
Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, is quoted as saying on the Solovyov Live TV channel:
The peak of anxiety, when there was the most active phase, when the enemy tried to attack on the flanks and surround the guys in Bakhmut itself, has passed, according to my information.
I was talking with the guys who are there, including with Wagner, and they also say that combat-ready units have approached there, and this work is being done.
Pushilin also said that from today the ministry of internal affairs of the Russian-imposed local occupying authority would be present in Bakhmut, and that employees of the ministry of emergency situations would be arriving to assess the volume of demining, and the materials and personnel needed to carry it out. He said every building and “every metre of the territory” needs to be checked.
Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and over 500 people remain displaced after the incursion into Belgorod on Monday, according to a new status update from Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian region.
In a message posted to Telegram, he said:
The night was not entirely peaceful. There have been a large number of drone attacks. Most of the air defence systems coped, but there are damages in Belgorod: cars, private houses, office buildings. The most important thing is that there are no casualties at all.
A gas pipeline was damaged in the Grayvoron District, a small fire is going on. Also, the restoration of electrical networks, which were damaged during the entry of the sabotage and reconnaissance group, is under way. All work to restore power supply in the Grayvoron district will be completed today. After that, water supply and cellular communications will be restored.
There are nine people in hospitals: three people are in intensive care in a serious condition.
There are more than 550 people in temporary accommodation centres. I also hope that as soon as the security forces complete the cleansing of the territory and allow it, you will be able to return to your homes. The overall calculation of damage over the past few days in the Grayvoron district has not been completed.⠀
I also received additional information from the Yakovlevsky district. At night, explosive devices were dropped twice from drones in the village of Tomarovka on two administrative buildings. There were no fires, deaths or injuries.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, citing the regional authority head, has reported that a Shahad drone strike on a village in the Kharkiv region has left “a school building, a cultural centre and office premises on fire”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Russian PM says relations between China and Russia at 'unprecedented high level'
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is in Beijing, where, ahead of signing bilateral agreements with China, he said: “Today, relations between Russia and china are at an unprecedented high level.”
Reuters reports that he said Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March was further evidence of the “special” nature of bilateral relations between the two countries.
Updated
US popular support for Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Norc shows.
The Associated Press reports that the survey found half of the people in the US support the Pentagon’s ongoing supply of weapons to Ukraine for its defence against Russian forces. That level is nearly unchanged in the past year, while about a quarter are opposed to sustaining the military lifeline that has now topped $37bn.
Big majorities among both Democrats and Republicans believe Russia’s attack on Ukraine was unjustified, according to the poll, taken last month.
And about three out of four people in the US support the United States playing at least some role in the conflict, the survey found.
Mark Galeotti, head of the London-based Mayak Intelligence consultancy and author of several books on the Russian military, has told Reuters that the two groups involved in the fighting in Belgorod are made up of anti-Kremlin Russians ranging from liberals and anarchists to neo-Nazis. The Guardian has not verified this claim independently.
“They’re hoping that in some small way they can contribute to the downfall of the Putin regime. But at the same time, we have to realise that these are not independent forces ... They are controlled by Ukrainian military intelligence,” he said.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak repeated Kyiv’s position that it had nothing to do with the operation.
The United States says it does not “enable or encourage” Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, but that it is up to Kyiv to decide how it conducts military operations.
Reuters has put together interesting analysis of what Belgorod means for Russia’s military operations.
A two-day incursion from Ukraine into Russia’s western borderlands could force the Kremlin to divert troops from front lines as Kyiv prepares a major counteroffensive, and deal Moscow a psychological blow, according to military analysts interviewed or quoted by the agency.
Though Kyiv has denied any role, the biggest cross-border raid from Ukraine since Russia invaded 15 months ago was almost certainly coordinated with Ukraine’s armed forces as it prepares to attempt to recapture territory, the experts said. The Guardian has not verified this.
“The Ukrainians are trying to pull the Russians in different directions to open up gaps. The Russians are forced to send reinforcements,” said Neil Melvin, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Ukraine says it plans to conduct a major counteroffensive to seize back occupied territory, but Russia has built sprawling fortifications in its neighbour’s east and south in readiness, Reuters reports.
The incursion took place far from the epicentre of fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and around 100 miles (160 km) from the front lines in the northern Kharkiv region.
“They’ll have to respond to this and put troops there and then have lots of troops all along the border area, even though that may not be the way the Ukrainians are coming,” Melvin said.
Russia’s military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked its western Belgorod region with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.
West prepared to support Kyiv ‘for years’, says Sunak
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has told a defence conference in London that Ukraine’s Western allies are prepared to support the country in the war “for years”, the FT reports.
He added that Russia’s strategy of “waiting it out . . . for people [in the west] to get tired, bored . . . is not going to work”, the paper reported.
“We are now leading a conversation with allies about what longer-term multilateral and bilateral security agreements we can put in place with Ukraine.”
Beijing and Moscow to cooperate at ‘new level’
Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday that China was willing to work with Russia to promote their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and take it to a “new level” Reuters reports.
Pragmatic cooperation between China and Russia has shown a “good” development trend, and the scale of investment between the two is also continuously seeing an upgrade, Li told Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin during a meeting in Beijing.
Mishustin was the highest ranking Russian official to visit the Chinese capital since Moscow sent thousands of its troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Our top stories this morning: the Chinese premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday that China was willing to work with Russia to promote their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and take it to a “new level”.
His comments come as Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, visits Beijing, where he is expected to sign bilateral agreements with China.
And the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has told a conference in London that Ukraine’s western allies are prepared to support the country “for years”, the FT reports. Sunak also said that Russia’s strategy of “waiting it out . . . for people [in the west] to get tired, bored . . . is not going to work” and that the UK was “leading a conversation with allies about what longer-term multilateral and bilateral security agreements we can put in place with Ukraine.”
We’ll have more on these stories shortly.
Here are the other key recent developments in the war:
Moscow claims to have repelled an attack led by Ukraine-aligned militias that led to a series of chaotic battles in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, over the past two days. The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said late Tuesday measures put in place to stop terrorism after the crossborder attack had been lifted. It came only a few hours after Moscow claimed to have pushed the fighters back over the border. Gadkov said Russia’s defence ministry and security agencies were still engaged in a “mopping up” campaign.
Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet president Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade.
The training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. He told a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels: “I am happy that finally the training of the pilots for the F-16 has started in several countries. It will take time, but the sooner the better … For example, in Poland.”
Borrell also said EU countries had provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles to Ukraine since March. Member states are discussing raising Europe’s military budget by another €3.5bn, €1bn of which would be earmarked for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi has halted operations because Russia is not allowing ships to enter it, in effect cutting it out of a deal allowing safe Black Sea grain exports, a Ukrainian official said.
A Moscow court extended the detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on espionage charges at the end of March. During a brief hearing, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported. The US called for Gershkovich’s immediate release.
US president Joe Biden has chosen a new leader for the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, a joint position that oversees much of America’s cyber warfare and defence. If confirmed, air force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh will take charge of highly influential US efforts to bolster Ukraine’s cybersecurity and share information with Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian forces still controlled the south-western edge of the city of Bakhmut and fighting in the city itself has decreased, deputy Ukrainian defence minister Hanna Maliar claimed on Tuesday. She wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Kyiv’s forces had made some progress “on the flanks to the north and south of Bakhmut” and that Russian forces, which say they have taken the city itself, were continuing to clear areas they control.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited marines on the Vuhledar-Maryinka defence line in the Donetsk region, as part of celebrations for the national day of Ukrainian marines.
Ukraine’s general staff said that on Monday Russia carried out 20 missile strikes against Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv oblasts, using cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and S-300 anti-aircraft missiles over the past day. It also claimed that Russia launched 48 airstrikes using Shahed drones, and targeted both civilian and military targets with up to 90 strikes using multiple-launch rocket systems.
A top Russian official who faces sanctions in the west over Moscow’s war on Ukraine has visited Saudi Arabia and held talks with his counterpart in the kingdom. Russian interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev’s visit to Riyadh came days after Zelenskiy addressed an Arab League summit held in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
Germany is looking into options to support a coalition of countries that plan to train Ukrainian pilots in flying F-16 fighter jets, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said. He added that any potential German contribution could be minor only, as Germany itself does not own any of the US-built jets.
Ukraine is investigating the alleged role of Belarus in the forced transfer of children from Russian-occupied territories, the office of the Ukrainian prosecutor general told Reuters. The announcement came in response to a report by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.
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