Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s news:
Long-range Storm Shadow missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain have been used, the British defence minister, Ben Wallace, said on Thursday. “All I can say is it is my understanding that it has been used since we announced its deployment to Ukraine, but I’m not going to go into further details,” Wallace said at a joint press conference with Norway’s defence minister, Bjørn Arild Gram. Meanwhile, Gram said Norway donating F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine was not on the agenda at the moment.
There is no doubt Russia has “the intent and the ability” to target the west’s underwater energy and communication lines, the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said. At a press conference alongside his Norwegian counterpart at the Northwood military base on Thursday, Wallace said Moscow has submarines and spy ships “specifically designed” to “potentially sabotage or attack critical national infrastructure belonging to its adversaries”.
Ukraine said it had repelled a day of Russian attacks in and around the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut on Thursday and made gains of a kilometre in some places while buying time for “certain planned actions”. While Russia boosted its forces in the city, attacked the suburbs to the north and engaged in fierce fighting in the southern suburbs, Ukraine’s forces advanced 500 meters in the north and in some areas in the south by one kilometre, deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said on her Telegram channel.
The Russian defence ministry said on Thursday that it had struck Ukrainian military targets using high-precision missiles. The claim comes a day after a major wave of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, the Russian state-owned news agency Tass has reported.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, on Thursday accused regular Russian army units of pulling back 570 metres north of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, leaving his own fighters’ flanks exposed. Reuters was unable to verify his assertion and there was no immediate comment from the defence ministry.
The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, told reporters that he and the US president, Joe Biden, have agreed to continue sanctions against Russia and support Ukraine as the two leaders met in the Japanese city of Hiroshima today, Reuters reported. Kishida also appeared to confirm that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, would not be visiting Japan in person for the G7 summit being held from 19 to 21 May. Zelenskiy is set to join a G7 session on Sunday via teleconference.
The Black Sea grain corridor designed to ensure the safe supply of Ukrainian food to world markets has not yet resumed operation despite statements by Turkey and Russia on extending the agreement, a senior Ukrainian official said on Thursday. The deal has been extended for two more months, in what the UN secretary general, António Guterres, hailed on Wednesday as “good news for the world”, a day before Russia could have quit the pact over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports, Reuters reported.
The Pentagon overvalued US equipment it sent to Ukraine by about $3bn, a Senate aide and a defence official said on Thursday, an error that opened up the possibility of more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defence against Russian forces. The error was the result assigning a higher than warranted value on weaponry that was taken from US stocks and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defence officials said.
The former British prime minister Boris Johnson described Emmanuel Macron as “nauseating” for travelling to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin, a former UK government aide has said. Johnson also described Macron as “Putin’s lickspittle”, Guto Harri told the latest edition of Unprecedented, his podcast about his time at No 10.
Russia launched missiles overnight at Kyiv again, with falling debris causing a fire at a business building, authorities reported. It was the ninth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the capital, a clear escalation after weeks of lull and ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. The attack was carried out by strategic bombers from the Caspian region, probably using cruise missiles, and Russia later deployed reconnaissance craft over the capital. According to preliminary information, all enemy targets were destroyed, Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv Military Administration said in a Telegram post.
A person has been killed in Russian missile strikes on Odesa, the military administration spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk has said on Telegram. Two people were injured. “Most of the enemy’s missiles were shot down over the sea by the air defence forces. Unfortunately, an industrial object was hit: one person died, two were injured,” he wrote.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that on the night of 18 May, the Russian army shelled Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region, and one person was killed.
Rail traffic has been suspended between Simferopol, capital of the Crimean peninsula, and the city of Sevastopol, after a freight train carrying grain derailed, the region’s Russian-installed leader said on Thursday. The derailment was caused by “interference by outsiders”, Crimean railways confirmed in a statement. Russian-imposed governor Sergei Aksyonov said that wagons loaded with grain had derailed and no one was injured.
The Black Sea grain deal has been extended for two more months, in what the UN secretary general, António Guterres, hailed as “good news for the world”. It comes a day before Russia had said it would quit the pact over what it claims are obstacles to its own grain and fertiliser exports.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that a delegation from African countries hoping to present their initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine would visit Moscow. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow would be ready to listen to “any proposals” that help resolve the conflict.
Court documents show that Jack Teixeira, the US air national guard member charged with being behind the so-called Pentagon leaks of highly classified military documents, was warned repeatedly over his mishandling of classified material. The leaked documents appear to detail US and Nato aid to Ukraine and show real-time details from February and March of Ukraine’s and Russia’s battlefield positions and precise numbers of battlefield gear flowing into Ukraine from its allies.
Moldova is no longer using Russian natural gas or electricity after cutting its dependence since war started in Ukraine, prime minister Dorin Recean said on Thursday.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
Ukraine says it has repelled Russia attacks in Bakhmut
Ukraine said it had repelled a day of Russian attacks in and around the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut on Thursday and made gains of a kilometre in some places while buying time for “certain planned actions”.
While Russia boosted its forces in the city, attacked the suburbs to the north and engaged in fierce fighting in the southern suburbs, Ukraine’s forces advanced 500 metres in the north and in some areas in the south by one kilometre, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said on her Telegram channel.
“The defence of Bakhmut and its outskirts is meeting its military objectives,” she said. “As of now, we control the south-western part of Bakhmut.”
She said Russia had attacked Bakhmut all day, having “significantly strengthened” its grouping in Bakhmut by bringing most of its reserves there.
“All the attacks were repelled by our defenders,” she added.
Updated
