Summary
The training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. It came after the United States gave its green light. 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.”
Moscow claimed to have pushed back the fighters it said launched a cross-border attack from Ukraine to the Belgorod region. Reuters reported that the claim could not immediately be independently verified. Russia subsequently opened a terrorism investigation.
The governor of Belgorod Vyacheslav Gladkov said the measures Russia claimed were in place to stop terrorism after the crossborder attack had finally been lifted. It came only a few hours after Moscow claimed to have pushed the fighters back over the border.
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 United States called for Gershkovich’s immediate release. The White House’s national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN: “He shouldn’t be detained at all. Journalism is not a crime. He needs to be released immediately. We’re still going to work very, very hard to see if we can get him home with his family where he belongs.”
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.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited marines on Tuesday on the Vuhledar-Maryinka defence line in the Donetsk region, as part of celebrations for the national day of Ukrainian marines.
The Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi halted operations because Russia was not allowing ships to enter it, a Ukrainian official said. This, in effect, cut it out of a deal allowing safe Black Sea grain exports, they said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has reported that the city of Toretsk was struck without casualties.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that there has been an interruption in power supplies in Kherson as a result of Russian military action.
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.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet with President Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade
A top Russian official who faces sanctions in the west over Moscow’s war on Ukraine visited Saudi Arabia early Tuesday 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 on Tuesday. He added that any potential German contribution could be minor only, as Germany itself does not own any of the US-built jets.
Three villages in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine are without power after a drone dropped explosives on an electrical substation, the region’s governor says. Roman Starovoit said on Telegram:
Repair crews are currently carrying out restoration work. None of the residents were injured.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, border regions have repeatedly reported drone strikes on their civilian infrastructure. Moscow says Kyiv is directly responsible for attacks inside its territory but Ukraine denies this.
The families of Ukrainian soldiers killed by the Russians are being awarded the “hero’s cross”. This order was awarded to 70 soldiers from the 24th separate mechanised brigade named after King Danylo. The hero’s cross is a posthumous order.
Updated
We reported earlier that Russia claims to have pushed back the militants who attacked the border region of Belgorod. Here’s an update on the claims from the Russian defence ministry, which says its forces surrounded the fighters and defeated them with “airstrikes, artillery fire and active action by border units”.
According to Reuters, it claims that – alongside the more than 70 militants who were killed – four armoured vehicles and five pick-up trucks were destroyed.
The remnants of the nationalists were pushed back to Ukrainian territory, where they continued to be hit by gunfire until they were completely eliminated.
The Belgorod regional governor said one civilian had been killed “at the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces”. Reuters has been unable to verify any of the assertions.
One of the two fighting groups – the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) – said on social media: “One day we’ll come to stay.”
Moscow has blamed Kyiv, but – while Ukraine’s government has said it is watching the situation – it insists it has “nothing to do with it”.
Updated
European Union countries have provided 220,000 artillery shells to Ukraine under a landmark scheme launched two months ago to ramp up supplies of ammunition to Kyiv to help fight off Russia’s invasion, the EU foreign policy chief says.
According to Josep Borrell, EU states have also given 1,300 missiles under the scheme and are on track to hit a target of supplying 1m pieces of ammunition within a year, even though some EU countries have avoided endorsing that goal as feasible. He has told reporters:
The next days, weeks and months are going to be strategically decisive in the war in Ukraine.
EU governments agreed the ammunition scheme in March after Kyiv warned it was in desperate need of artillery rounds as Russia’s invasion descended into an intense war of attrition, with thousands of shells fired daily.
US calls for Evan Gershkovich's immediate release
The United States is calling for Gershkovich’s immediate release. The White House’s national security spokesman John Kirby has told CNN:
He shouldn’t be detained at all. Journalism is not a crime. He needs to be released immediately. We’re still going to work very, very hard to see if we can get him home with his family where he belongs.
US officials are still pressing for consular access to Gershkovich directly with the Russians, Kirby said.
There is no grounds for denying consular access... We really want to get that consular access going.
Updated
Moscow court extends detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich
A Moscow court has 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 on Tuesday, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies report. His pre-trial detention was initially set to expire next week. He is being held in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow and could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Gershkovich, 31, is the first American journalist to be detained in Russia on spying charges since the end of the cold war. He was detained in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg while there on a reporting trip at the end of March.
Russia’s FSB security service has claimed he was collecting state secrets about Russia’s military industrial complex. Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges. An open letter to Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, signed by more than 300 foreign correspondents who have worked in Russia, read:
We have no doubt that the only purpose and intention of his work was to inform his readers about the current reality in Russia.
It has been widely speculated that Russia arrested Gershkovich with the hope of trading him for Russian intelligence officers or other persons of interest to Moscow arrested in western countries, but so far there appears to have been little progress in discussions over a possible exchange.
Last month, Joe Biden praised the “absolute courage” of Gershkovich and said he was “working like hell” to secure his release.
Updated
'Anti-terrorist' measures imposed on Belgorod region following cross-border attack inside Russia lifted, says governor
The governor of Belgorod says the measures Russia claimed were in place to stop terrorism after the crossborder attack from Ukraine have now been lifted. This comes only a few hours after Moscow claimed to have pushed the fighters back over the border.
According to Reuters, Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on the Telegram messaging app:
A decision has been taken to rescind the judicial anti-terrorist operation regime on the territory of the Belgorod region.
Updated
Russia’s embassy in Norway has criticised a planned visit by a US aircraft carrier to Oslo as an “illogical and harmful” show of force, AFP reports.
The 337-metre (1,106-foot) USS Gerald R Ford is scheduled to dock in the Norwegian capital this week. The Russian embassy spokesman Timur Chekanov has told the agency:
There are no issues in the North that require a military solution, nor issues that require outside intervention. Considering that Oslo admits that Russia poses no direct military threat to Norway, such shows of force seem illogical and harmful.
The first-in-class aircraft carrier is a nuclear-powered ship with a displacement of more than 100,000 tonnes.
The US Navy announced in early May that the ship had departed Norfolk on its “first combat deployment”, following a shorter two-month deployment in the autumn of 2022. The Norwegian defence minister Bjorn Arild Gram told the news agency NTB:
The fact that a new aircraft carrier is now making its first visit to Norwegian waters is very positive for our cooperation with the Americans.
Relations between the Nato member Norway and Russia – with which the Scandinavian country shares a border – have deteriorated sharply in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
• This post was amended on 23 May 2023. It originally made erroneous reference to the USS General Ford rather than the USS Gerald R Ford. This has been corrected.
Updated
The Czech state-run Mero energy firm says it has signed a deal to end the country’s dependence on Russian oil, AFP reports, more than a year into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mero will finance a $73m (£58.74m) expansion of the Transalpine oil pipeline (TAL), which supplies oil from the Italian port of Trieste to central Europe.
The Czech Republic’s TAL capacity will now double to an annual 8m tonnes of oil starting 2025. Mero’s chief executive Jaroslav Pantůček has told reporters:
This deal is our future, it will sever us from Russia after a long 60 years and help us achieve independence, freedom and sovereignty in energy supplies.
The EU member of 10.5 million people already weaned itself off Russian gas earlier this year, AFP reports. The Czech Republic’s two refineries received 7.4m tonnes of oil last year - 56% of it from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline.
The EU banned most oil imports from Russia in May 2022; three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, but the Druzhba pipeline was exempted. The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, said that gave Prague time to negotiate the TAL deal.
He hailed the agreement as “a major step, a milestone for our energy independence from Russia”.
Updated
EU countries have provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles for Ukraine under a plan agreed by ministers in March, Reuters reports the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the media on Tuesday.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that a 33-year-old resident of Vovchansk in Kharkiv was injured and hospitalised as a result of shelling by the Russian Federation.
Updated
Ukrainian official: Pivdennyi port has halted operations because Russia is not allowing ships to enter
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 on Tuesday.
The UN, which together with Turkey, brokered the deal and its extension, had expressed concern on Monday that Pivdennyi – near Odesa on the Black Sea – had not received any ships since 2 May under the deal.
“Formally, the port of Pivdennyi is in the initiative, but in fact it hasn’t been there for a month. It has no incoming fleet,” Ukrainian deputy renovation minister Yuriy Vaskov told Reuters.
“[Russia] has now found an effective way to significantly reduce grain exports by excluding the port of Pivdennyi, which handles large tonnage vessels, from the initiative,” he said in written comments.
Vaskov called the move a “gross violation” of the agreement. He said that Tuesday’s inspections plan showed Russia had included only three of the 13 ships that had been submitted. All ships bound for Pivdenniy had been excluded, he said, as well as some meant to go to Odesa and Chornomorsk.
Russia’s team had inspected only nine ships in all from 19 May to 21 May, Ukrainian officials said.
“The grain initiative has been formally unblocked, but it is not working as it should. Russia continues to slow it down as much as possible,” he said.
Updated
Video footage posted online by one of the groups of Russian “partisans” who launched a cross border raid from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod region appear to show US manufactured military vehicles were involved in the raid, including Humvees and what appeared to be International Maxxpro 1224 mine resistant vehicles.
The footage, released by the RDK group, apparently prior to their incursion with members of the Freedom of Russia Legion, appeared to show the vehicles in a convoy ahead of the cross border raid, marked with white crosses, the same symbol used by the Ukrainian military as a friendly forces marking.
Some of the members of the group involved in the incursion wore yellow identifying arm bands similar to those used by some Ukrainian units.
While Ukrainian officials have been coy about the raid, suggesting that it involved Russian citizens fighting against Putin, it seems certain to raise questions over where the vehicles involved in the raid came from, and what prior knowledge the US in particular had of the planned incursion which saw continued fighting for a second day in villages close to the border.
Following the first day of fighting, Russia claimed to have captured one of the MaxxPro vehicles, although that could not be independently verified.
Images of the vehicles posted online appeared to have the same distinctive slatted crew windows shaped like a parallelogram.
On Monday, a US state department official reiterated the US policy that it did not support military action by Ukraine beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“We have made very clear to the Ukrainians that we don’t enable or encourage attacks outside Ukraine’s borders, but I do think it’s important to take a step back and remind everyone, and remind the world, that it – of course it is Russia that launched this war,” said Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson.
“It is Russia that continues to launch attacks on civilians in Ukraine. It is Russia that’s targeted schools and hospitals and civilian infrastructure. So, it is up to Ukraine to decide how they want to conduct their military operations, but it is Russia that has been the aggressor in this war.”
If confirmed that the vehicles were US made MaxxPros, there will be intense interest in how the armed group – some of whom have neo-Nazi and far right links – secured them.
Last October, the US announced it was supplying 200 MaxxPros to Ukraine with vehicles beginning to arrive in Ukraine not long afterwards.
MaxxPros seen by the Guardian in service with the Ukrainian military appeared, however, to be painted a lighter colour than those seen in the footage posted online.
Ukraine’s western allies – the US foremost – have been acutely sensitive about supplying weapons systems that could be used by Ukraine to target Russia, with the US declining to supply Ukraine with longer range rockets to use in the HIMARS rocket artillery system.
The US has also been resisting sending F-16s to Ukraine for the same reason, with the Ukrainian president, Volodmyr Zelenskiy, promising during his visit to the G7 summit in Hiroshima at the weekend that Kyiv would not use the jets to go into Russia.
The US President, Joe Biden, said on Sunday he had received a “flat assurance” from Zelenskiy that he would not use western-provided F-16 fighter jets to go into Russian territory.
Updated
Belarus has taken part in the illegal deportation of children from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, according to a preliminary report compiled by exiled Belarusian opposition leaders.
The National Anti-Crisis Management, a group of political opponents to the government of the president Alexander Lukashenko, said 2,150 Ukrainian children – including orphans aged six to 15 – were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.
Reuters, which carries the news, says it has not received answers to questions sent to Lukashenko’s office.
Ukraine’s former top prosecutor told the news agency last year there were cases of forced deportations of Ukrainians to Russia and Belarus. Ukrainian prosecutors did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The news agency says that Ukraine alleges roughly 20,000 children have been illegally transferred to Russia since the full-scale invasion started, with some being put up for adoption.
In March, the International criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Russian president Vladimir Putin and his ombudsman for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova for two counts of war crimes for moving hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Yulia Ioffe, an assistant professor at University College London and a specialist in children’s rights law, said that if the allegations against the Belarusian government were substantiated, the country would “highly likely” be violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The actions of Belarus may also amount to the crime against humanity of ‘deportation or forcible transfer of population’ under the Rome Statute of the ICC, provided there is sufficient evidence of forcible transfers being widespread or systematic.
Belarus in any case cannot be considered a neutral country to where children could legally be evacuated because there is no indication Ukraine has granted consent.
Updated
Hungary’s far-right prime minister, seen as much closer to Moscow than his EU allies, has claimed Ukraine cannot win the war – and that Washington must step in to end the conflict.
According to AFP, Viktor Orbán, who has blocked EU aid for Ukraine in the past, reaffirmed calls for a ceasefire and argued that the United States and its European partners must seal a new security accord with Russia.
The veteran Hungarian leader, who has not condemned Putin, told the Qatar Economic Forum the Russian invasion was the result of a “failure of diplomacy”. He added: “It’s obvious that the battlefield solution does not work,” insisting that Ukraine could not win.
Looking at the reality, looking at the figures, looking at the surroundings, looking at the fact that Nato is not ready to send troops, it’s obvious that there is no victory for poor Ukrainians on the battlefield. That’s my position ... Escalation should be stopped and we should argue in favour of peace and negotiations.
Orbán said that, after a ceasefire, there would have to be a new European security accord with Russia.
As a state, Ukraine is of course very important but in the longer term, strategically thinking, what is at stake is the future security of Europe.
It is obvious that, without the United States, there is no security architecture for Europe. And this war cannot be stopped... unless the Russians can make an agreement with the United States. As a European, I am not happy with that. But it is the only way out.
Updated
The events of the past 48 hours appear to confirm assessments in US intelligence documents – leaked by US airman Jack Teixeira to Discord – that Ukraine has trained and armed Russian volunteers with Nato equipment. One document claimed:
Ukraine provides comprehensive support to Russian volunteers ready to liberate Russian territories from President Putin’s tyranny by armed means.
Such detachments are equipped with various qualitative types of Nato weapons; the personnel has passed respective training for usage of such weapons and has successful combat experience from various parts of the frontline in Ukraine.
The reporting speaks of volunteers’ infiltration operations into Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod oblasts being planned for March-April 2023 in order to seize control over territories and declare newly created states. It is also planned to begin formation of a larger military component based on volunteers to create a civil war front in Russia.
Updated
Moscow claims to have pushed back fighters it says launched cross-border attack
Moscow claims to have pushed back the fighters it says launched a cross-border attack from Ukraine to the Belgorod region, Reuters reports, noting that the claim could not immediately be independently verified.
There has been little clarity about who ordered the attack. Russia has claimed it was carried out by “Ukrainian militants”, dismissing reports they had self-identified as an ethnic Russian, anti-Kremlin militia. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said there were many ethnic Russians inside Ukraine, but that this did not mean they were not Ukrainian militants.
Kyiv has disavowed any connection to the Russian partisan fighters, saying they act independently and are not subject to military control.
Russia’s defence ministry claims that remnants of the units it blamed for the attack have now been forced back into Ukrainian territory. In its daily briefing, the ministry said more than 70 attackers were killed. Reuters was unable to verify that report.
Updated
The Associated Press (AP) has some more detail on Borrell’s comments about the training of Ukrainian pilots in Poland on the sophisticated F-16 fighter jet. He has told the meeting of EU defence ministers the move creates an inexorable momentum that will inevitably bring the fighter jets to the Ukrainian battlefield.
Citing the example of the long debate and initial opposition to the dispatch of advanced Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, he has said:
You know, it’s always the same thing, we discuss, at the beginning everybody is reluctant. And, at the end with the Leopards, with the F-16 at the end, the decision comes to provide this military support because it is absolutely needed.
No decision on actually delivering fourth-generation fighter jets has been taken yet, but training pilots now — a process that takes several months — will help speed up battle readiness once a formal decision is taken.
It emerges that Poland is not the only country where training for Ukrainian pilots is starting. The AP quotes the Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren as saying:
We can continue and also finalise the plans that we’re making with Denmark and other allies to start these trainings. And of course, that is the first step that you have to take.
Both the AP and AFP report that Warsaw is yet to officially confirm its role, though the latter says the news has been confirmed unofficially by a European diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.
Updated
Reuters reports that the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has told the state-owned news agency RIA that, the more destructive the weapons Ukraine receives from its western backers, the higher the risk of “nuclear apocalypse”.
RIA quoted Medvedev, now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council and a hardliner on the country’s invasion of Ukraine, as saying Kyiv’s denial of involvement in the armed incursion in the Russian border region of Belgorod was “lies”.
Updated
Ukrainian pilots begin F-16 training in Poland, senior EU figure reveals
The training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, as saying, after the United States gave its green light. He has 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.
A European diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, confirmed the training had started in Poland. The defence ministry in Warsaw declined to comment.
The move comes after the US president, Joe Biden, gave the go-ahead last week for Kyiv’s pilots to be trained on the American-made jets that Ukraine says it needs to fight off Russia’s invasion.
Poland, a neighbour to Ukraine and one of its staunchest supporters, has said for months it is ready to train Ukrainian pilots on the jets, AFP reports. The country has been a key hub for training Ukraine’s soldiers and supplying weaponry to Kyiv.
According to AFP, the Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren told the EU meeting training would be the “first step” towards the eventual supply of western aircraft to Kyiv.
We will continue discussing with our allies and with countries that might have F-16s available about that next step, but that’s not on the table right now. That is in the next phase.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Russia has opened a terrorism investigation over the events in Belgorod, where an anti-Kremlin militia claimed to have overrun a Russian border settlement. Fighting broke out along the Russian border with Ukraine after self-described Russian partisan forces launched a cross-border raid, claiming to have overrun a border settlement for the first time in the war. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that “Ukrainian militants” were still active in the region.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov warned resident against returning to their homes, saying that “The cleaning of the territory by the ministry of defence together with law enforcement agencies continues”. He confirmed that residents of nine settlements had been resettled as a result of the fighting.
Ukrainian forces still control 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.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited marines on Tuesday on the Vuhledar-Maryinka defence line in the Donetsk region, as part of celebrations for the national day of Ukrainian marines.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has reported that the city of Toretsk was struck without casualties.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that there has been an interruption in power supplies in Kherson as a result of Russian military action.
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.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet with President Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade
A top Russian official who faces sanctions in the west over Moscow’s war on Ukraine visited Saudi Arabia early Tuesday 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 on Tuesday. He added that any potential German contribution could be minor only, as Germany itself does not own any of the US-built jets.
Kremlin: 'Ukrainian militants' still active in Belgorod
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that “Ukrainian militants” were still active in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, a day after local authorities declared a counter-terrorism operation there to repel what they called a sabotage group from Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine had been launched to prevent such incursions. Reuters reports he said that more efforts were needed from the Russian side to prevent such incidents.
The group involved appeared to have self-identified as an ethnic Russian anti-Kremlin militia. Asked about this, Peskov said that there were many ethnic Russians inside Ukraine, and the attackers are still “Ukrainian militants”.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said that residents from nine settlements in the region have been resettled due to the incident.
Updated
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has issued an update on the situation there via Telegram. In it, he repeats that a counter-terrorism order is in place and that “cleaning up the area from the consequences continues”.
He claims that numerous settlements have been under “mortar and artillery fire”, writing:
MLRS worked on residential buildings and civilians, explosive devices were dropped from quadrocopters. As a result, there are 12 injured civilians, damage was recorded in 29 private houses and three cars. There is currently no electricity in 14 settlements, we will start restoration work when the operational situation allows.
Earlier, he issued a video statement warning residents to stay away from the affected area.
Updated
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that further pledges of miliary aid to Ukraine by western countries would not change the situation on the front.
Reuters reports than in his regular daily call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said supplying Ukraine with modern F-16 fighter jets came with “obvious risks”.
Updated
Amy Hawkins is the Guardian’s senior China correspondent:
Russia’s prime minister, on a visit to China, said that bilateral trade could reach $200bn (£160bn / €185bn) this year, up from $190bn last year. Already in the first three months of this year, trade between the two countries reached $53.8bn, a near 40% increase on the same period in 2022.
Mikhail Mishustin said that Russia would continue exporting energy to China and could increase agricultural exports. This month, China’s customs authorities added Russia’s Vladivostok to its list of transit ports, effective from 1 June. That will be the first time that the Chinese have had access to Vladivostok since the territory was ceded from the Qing dynasty 163 years ago.
Updated
Orbán: relations between Hungary and Sweden must improve before Nato ratification
Political relations between Hungary and Sweden must improve before the Nordic state’s bid for Nato membership is approved, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.
“The political relations between Hungary and Sweden are awfully wrong,” Reuters reports he said. “We don’t want to import conflicts into Nato.”
Hungary ratified Finland’s entry into the alliance in March, but delayed making a decision on Sweden’s bid.
At the time, one of Orbán’s advisers said: “Some Hungarian MPs feel uncomfortable because they have seen how Swedish ministers have made a habit of questioning democracy in Hungary. They have repeatedly insulted Hungarian voters and politicians and thus the whole of Hungary.”
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just posted a video clip of his visit to marines on the frontline today, revealing that the location was the Vuhledar-Maryinka defence line in the Donetsk region.
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
Russia opens terrorism investigation into Belgorod incident
Russia has opened a terrorism investigation over the events in Belgorod.
In a statement, authorities said:
The investigative committee of Russia initiated a criminal case on the grounds of crimes under articles 205, 317, 105, 167, 222, 222.1 of the criminal code of the Russian Federation (terrorist act, encroachment on the life of law enforcement officers, attempted murder, intentional destruction or damage to property, illegal circulation of weapons and explosives).
According to the investigation, on 22 May 2023, representatives of the Ukrainian armed formations attacked the Graivoronsky district of the Belgorod region. Residential and administrative buildings, and civilian infrastructure facilities were subjected to mortar and artillery shelling. Several civilians were injured as a result of these criminal acts.
Currently, investigative and operational measures are being carried out aimed at establishing the identity of the attackers and all the circumstances of the incident.
Updated
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has reported that the city of Toretsk has been struck this morning. He wrote:
This morning, the Russians struck Toretsk – fortunately, without casualties. The school in which the point of invincibility is located, an extension to the temple and a high-rise building within a radius of 100 metres from the epicenter were damaged. According to preliminary information, the enemy used aerial bombs.
Сьогодні зранку росіяни завдали удару по Торецьку — на щастя, без постраждалих.
— Павло Кириленко (@Pavlo_Kyrylenko) May 23, 2023
Пошкоджено школу, в якій розташовано Пункт незламності, прибудову до храму і багатоповерхівки в радіусі 100 метрів від епіцентру.
За попередньою інформацією, ворог застосував авіабомби.#StopRussia pic.twitter.com/zreEfch97y
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
23 May is celebrated as a national day for Ukrainian marines, and the president has posted some images of himself meeting service personnel on his social media channels. In a post, Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote:
Our defenders. Frontline. Today I am here to congratulate our warriors on the day of the Ukrainian marines. Glory to everyone who defends Ukraine!
Updated
Richard Dannatt, former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces has been appearing on Sky News in the UK. He told viewers that he felt there was a good chance that Russian morale in the army could crack if a Ukrainian counteroffensive started with gains. He told viewers:
They shouldn’t launch it before they’re ready. Quite rightly, they’re integrating the weapons and the advice and the equipment and the training that the west has been giving them.
But I’m quite certain that at the moment of their choosing, and I think the time is getting quite close now, and at a place of their choosing, and that’s entirely up to them, I think they have the chance, if they can strike some decisive blows on the Russians, that they could have significant effect.
Now, that doesn’t mean to say the war is going to be over in a few days and weeks. D-day on 6 June 1944 was the start of the Normandy campaign, but it lasted for quite some time.
But I think we will see some decisive strikes, which could be potentially spectacularly successful. Because, think of it from the Russian soldiers point of view. Most of them don’t want to be there. They are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly clothed, poorly led. Frankly their morale could crack, and that’s what the Ukrainians really need to achieve. Because once a soldier, once an army thinks it’s beaten, frankly, it is beaten.
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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 on Tuesday.
Reuters reports he added that any potential German contribution could be minor only, as Germany itself does not own any of the US-built jets.
Ukrainian forces still control 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.
Reuters reports 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.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that there has been an interruption in power supplies in Kherson as a result of Russian military action. Citing the head of the city region, Roman Mrochko, it writes:
In Kherson, electricity supply was temporarily stopped in Korabel microdistrict. Energy workers are repairing the reserve line damaged by the shelling of the Russian troops. Water supply interruptions are possible. After the completion of the works, electricity will be supplied stably.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of defence, has been speaking to Times Radio in the UK, and has said Ukraine is confident that the incident in Belgorod will not be the last time insurrection is seen within Russian borders. He told listeners:
It is quite surprising to us that it has taken so long for Russian insurgents and Russian partisans to become more active in terms of trying to get rid of the terrorist regime which is inflicting death and destruction on Ukraine, which is isolating Russia internationally. Over 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. Apparently the breaking point has been reached.
Why is it happening now? Because Ukrainian armed forces have exposed that Russia is a paper tiger. We have exposed that Russia can and should be beaten on the battlefield. This is what we are doing in Ukraine.
And we are confident that this has encouraged Russian partisans and those Russian citizens who hope to change something, and don’t want to be part of this crime of aggression.
Russians who don’t want to be associated with this terrorism. Who don’t want their children to, you know, live with this eternal shame and disgrace because of what a group of people in the Kremlin are doing to Ukraine and the world.
Sak distanced Ukraine from direct involvement with the partisans, but said they shared similar aims:
I think the objective of those activities has been articulated yesterday by the people who have committed them. They have said they want to demilitarise that part of Russia. They want the war to go away from their territory.
And this is in line actually with our objectives. Because we believe that for Ukraine to be safe and for Europe to be safe, after we defeat Russia on the battlefield we will need to all establish a demilitarised zone of some form in parts of Russia.
Ukraine’s general staff has issued its situation update, claiming that Russia struck three regions of Ukraine yesterday with missiles. It writes:
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.
Furthermore, Russia launched 48 airstrikes using Shahed drones, and targeted both civilian and military targets with up to 90 strikes using multiple-launch rocket systems
Shellings resulted in a yet unspecified number of injuries among civilians, as well as damages to residential buildings, kindergartens, and other civilian infrastructure.
There were over 30 combat engagements with the Russian military in the directions of Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka.
Ukraine’s defences downed four cruise missiles Kh-101/Kh-555, one Mi-24 attack helicopter, 25 Shahed drones, and nine reconnaissance drones.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted an update to Telegram on the wounded civilians caught up in the fighting inside Russia’s border after Monday’s incursion. He wrote:
The couple was taken to the city hospital No 2. The woman has shrapnel wounds of the lower extremities, the state of traumatic shock is severe. The man with abdominal wounds is in a state of moderate severity. Now they are in the emergency department under the close supervision of doctors. All necessary medical assistance is provided.
The claims have not been independently verified. Earlier the governor urged residents to stay away, stating that works to clear the scene were ongoing.
Here is a little more detail from the most recent update on the situation in Belgorod, via governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. It appears authorities have still not gained control of the situation. About two hours ago, Gladkov urged residents not to return to the area, writing on Telegram:
On the situation in the Grayvoron district. The cleaning of the territory by the ministry of defence together with law enforcement agencies continues. We will immediately notify residents, and I will publish on my social networks, when it is safe [to return].
Unfortunately, a woman born in 1941 died yesterday during evacuation measures. Most sincere condolences to loved ones. Anything you need, of course, we will help. I understand that no one can bring back a loved one.
There is information that in those settlements that the enemy entered, there are two wounded civilians. So far, the security forces have not been able to reach them. That is the top priority this morning. I hope that we will be able to evacuate them as soon as possible and deliver them to a medical facility.
The UK Ministry of Defence has published its daily update, in which it says, “Between 19 and 22 May 2023, Russian security forces highly likely clashed with partisans in at least three locations within Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, near the Ukrainian border,” and that, “The identity of the partisans remains unconfirmed, but Russian anti-regime groups claimed responsibility.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 23 May 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 23, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/sl1BP3Jp3b
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/MuK0eYueQa
Russia's sanctioned interior minister visits Saudi Arabia
A top Russian official who faces sanctions in the west over Moscow’s war on Ukraine visited Saudi Arabia early Tuesday and held talks with his counterpart in the kingdom, AP reports, citing Saudi state media.
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 on Friday. The visits underline how the kingdom and Gulf Arab states, traditionally the security clients of the US, have been maintaining their relations with Moscow amid the Ukraine war.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency said Kolokoltsev met with Saudi interior minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud.
“During the session, they discussed ways to enhance security cooperation paths between the two countries’ ministries of interior, in addition to discussing a number of issues of common interest,” the report said, without elaborating.
Russian media did not immediately report on the visit.
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Reuters reports that the US State Department on Monday said Russia’s Wagner Group is trying to obscure its efforts to acquire military equipment for use in Ukraine, adding that Washington has been informed the mercenary force is seeking to move those acquisitions through Mali to aid Russia in its war.
Wagner is willing to use false paperwork for such transactions, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing.
“There are indications that Wagner has been attempting to purchase military systems from foreign suppliers and route these weapons through Mali as a third party,” Miller said.
“We have not seen as of yet any indications that these acquisitions have been finalized or executed, but we are monitoring the situation closely.”
Miller said Washington has imposed sanctions on a number of people and entities that support Wagner’s military operations, and said the United States would have more to share soon.
Reuters could not immediately reach Mali’s government for comment.
The Institute for the Study of War has taken a look at the response to the attacks in Belgorod among Russian war bloggers.
“While the majority of milbloggers responded with relatively varied concern, anxiety, and anger, the information space did not coalesce around one coherent response, which indicates first and foremost that the attack took Russian commentators by surprise,
the US think tank writes.
Russian PM arrives in China
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet with President Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade, AFP reports.
Mishustin arrived late Monday in Shanghai, the ministry said, where he was greeted at the airport by Moscow’s ambassador to China Igor Morgulov and Beijing’s top diplomat to Russia Zhang Hanhui.
He will take part in a Russian-Chinese Business Forum and visit a petrochemical research institute in Shanghai, the Kremlin said, as well as hold talks with “representatives of Russian business circles”.
Mishustin will then travel to Beijing, where he will meet with Xi and Premier Li Qiang, Russian state media TASS has said.
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Belgorod governor urges Grayvoron residents not to return yet
Belgorod governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has just posted an update on Telegram. He has urged Grayvoron residents not to return to their homes – “It is not worth it yet”, he says.
Gladkov added that there have been “no civilian deaths” as a result of the attacks.
“There are no civilian deaths to date. All necessary actions on the part of law enforcement agencies are being carried out. We are waiting for the completion of the counter-terrorist operation that was announced yesterday,” he wrote.
Fighting broke out along the Russian border with Ukraine on Monday after self-described Russian partisan forces claimed to have overrun a border village within Russia for the first time in the war.
The Freedom of Russia Legion, which describes itself as an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, said it had crossed the border and overrun the settlement of Kozinka, while sending units into the town of Grayvoron in Russia’s Belgorod region.
Footage of the raid, purportedly from a border checkpoint in Grayvoron, showed casualties including a Russian officer lying face down in a pool of blood next to Russian passports and other documents scattered on the floor. The video also showed armoured vehicles appearing to overrun the post.
The Belgorod governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said eight people were wounded after Grayvoron came under Ukrainian artillery fire, news agencies reported. Most residents had left the area but the situation remained “tense”, he said.
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'Saboteurs’ in Belgorod being driven out, says Kremlin
Fighting has broken out along the Russian border with Ukraine after self-described Russian partisan forces claimed to have overrun a border village within Russia for the first time in the war.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had been informed and work was under way to drive out the “saboteurs”, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The Freedom of Russia Legion, which describes itself as an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, said it had crossed the border and overrun the settlement of Kozinka, while sending units into the town of Grayvoron in Russia’s Belgorod region.
Another anti-Kremlin militia, the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is led by a prominent Russian nationalist, also said it had taken part in the raid. Late on Monday it released video footage showing what it said was a fighter inspecting a captured armoured vehicle.
The growing chaos in the Belgorod region, where local authorities announced a “counterterrorist regime” on Monday evening, was a rare case where Russian villages have come face-to-face with a conflict that their army has unleashed across Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukrainian officials have confirmed fighting at the border.
Our full story is here:
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Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: After fighting broke out along the Russian border with Ukraine – with self-described Russian partisan forces claiming to have overrun a border village within Russia for the first time in the war – Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had been informed and work was under way to drive out the “saboteurs”, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.
And Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit in which he will meet with President Xi Jinping and ink a series of deals on infrastructure and trade.
Here are the other key recent developments:
Twelve northern European countries met to discuss stepping up deterrence and security on Nato’s eastern flank and strengthening Ukraine’s defences. Defence ministers from the Northern Group met in Poland on Monday where talks described as “very good” by the Polish defence minister were focused on coordinating ways of providing security to countries in the group.
At least eight people were wounded and scores of buildings were damaged in a Russian air attack on Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram, “The attack was carried out by 16 different types of missiles and 20 Shahed-136/131 strike drones,” adding that air defences brought down 20 Russian drones and four cruise missiles.
Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer both reaffirmed their support for Ukraine in the UK’s House of Commons on Monday. The Labour leader also noted that Labour “[welcomes] the decision by our partners on F-16 fighter jets” and said “whichever party is in power in the UK, there will be no letup in Britain’s resolve. We will continue to support Ukraine’s military and its people in its quest for freedom, peace and justice.”
The United Nations expressed concern on Monday that Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Pivdennyi had not received any ships since 2 May under a deal allowing the safe wartime export of grain and fertiliser. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric did not say who was to blame for the lack of ships travelling to the port, near Odesa.
Russia’s ambassador to the US appears to have warned Washington that any strike on Crimea could be considered a strike on Russian territory by Nato after the US president, Joe Biden, said he would support training for Ukrainian pilots on US F-16 fighter jets.
The EU’s top diplomat will propose further sanctions against Russia, following a promise by G7 leaders to intensify western restrictions on Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage war on Ukraine. Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said he hoped to soon present “concrete proposals to implement the decision of the G7 on new kinds of sanctions against Russia”.
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