Evening summary
The time is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s stories:
Ukraine’s foreign minister told a top Chinese envoy at talks in Kyiv on Wednesday that Kyiv would not accept any proposals to end the war with Russia that involved it losing territory or freezing the conflict, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said. Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs and former ambassador to Russia, visited Ukraine on 16-17 May and met Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, the ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi has claimed on television that the country had made new advances on Wednesday in heavy fighting near the fiercely contested eastern city of Bakhmut. Reuters quotes Cherevatyi saying: “We are successfully conducting a defensive operation, counterattacking and during this day our units have penetrated up to 500 metres in some parts of the Bakhmut front.”
Britain can support Ukraine’s military by enabling other countries that wish to supply fighter jets and other military equipment to Ukraine to do so, the British defence minister has said. “What we can, obviously contribute, is training and support, again, within limits, because we don’t have F16 pilots,” Ben Wallace said at a press conference in Berlin with his German counterpart when asked about international plans to send jets to Ukraine.
The Dutch foreign minister said there was no progress to report in international talks on the possible delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. “We haven’t reached a solution yet,” Wopke Hoekstra said on Wednesday in response to questions about earlier announced talks of the Dutch with the UK, Denmark, Belgium and other partners to possibly deliver F-16’s to Ukraine.
The Ukraine Black Sea grain deal has been extended for two more months, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, one day before Russia could have quit the pact over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports. Erdogan’s comments, made in a speech to officials of his ruling AK Party, came after the last ship left a Ukrainian port under the deal, which allows for the safe export via the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain and was due to expire on Thursday.
UN secretary-general António Guterres on Wednesday welcomed the extension of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain for another 60 days, noting that outstanding issues remain that Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN will continue to discuss. “The continuation is good news for the world,” Guterres told reporters.
The German government is looking into mechanisms to secure war damages for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the possibility of using Russian assets to compensate the country, a government spokesperson said. Chancellor Olaf Scholz was among European leaders who agreed to set up a register of damages for the Ukraine war during a meeting in Reykjavik this week, Reuters reported.
Hungary will block the next tranche of European Union military support for Ukraine and any new sanctions package against Russia unless Kyiv removes Hungarian bank OTP from its list of war sponsors, Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said. Hungary did not approve the disbursement of the next tranche of military support for Ukraine provided under the EU’s European Peace Facility (EPF), a government spokesperson’s office said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Belarus, one of Russia’s closest allies, has partially restored controls on its border with its neighbour, Belarusian foreign minister Sergei Aleinik said Wednesday. This is the first time in 28 years that there have been checks at the 770-mile border, AP reported. According to Aleinik, the introduction of border controls aimed to avoid the entry of third-country nationals into Belarus, ahead of the implementation of an intergovernmental agreement on the mutual recognition of visas.
The number of Kazakhs who believe neighbouring Russia may invade the former Soviet republic has doubled over the past six months as the war in Ukraine continues, an opinion poll by Kazakh researchers showed on Wednesday. The central Asian nation of 20 million has close historical, economic and security ties with Moscow, but has maintained neutrality in the Ukrainian conflict, refusing to recognise Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine’s territory, Reuters reported.
Ukraine denied on Wednesday that a Russian hypersonic missile had destroyed a US-made Patriot missile defence system during an airstrike on Kyiv. Russia’s defence ministry made the assertion on Tuesday after an overnight air attack on the Ukrainian capital. Two US officials later said a Patriot system had probably suffered damage but that it did not appear to have been destroyed. “I want to say: do not worry about the fate of the Patriot,” Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television. He ruled out the possibility of a Russian “Kinzhal” missile knocking out a Patriot system.
Ukraine had said it had neutralised the Kremlin’s most potent hypersonic weapon, shooting down six out of six Kinzhal missiles launched at Kyiv during a sweeping and “exceptionally intense” night-time attack. It was the first time Ukraine has claimed to have struck an entire volley of Kinzhals, and if confirmed would demonstrate the effectiveness of Kyiv’s newly deployed western-supplied air defences.
The attack on Kyiv was one of the biggest since the 2022 invasion and followed Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s three-day trip to Europe. During meetings in London, Berlin, Paris and Rome, Ukraine’s president secured promises of more military assistance, including long-range attack drones from the UK.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had identified six residents of Kyiv who filmed the work of the Ukrainian air defence forces and posted photos and videos on social networks. The SBU said it had also blocked webcams that automatically broadcast in real time from Kyiv, which had captured images of the air defence in action.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region, has posted to Telegram to say there have been civilian casualties in the area this morning after Ukrainian shelling.
Suspilne reports that overnight Russian troops launched a rocket attack on Mykolaiv and one person was injured. A shopping centre, a car showroom and an industrial facility were partially destroyed; residential buildings and shops were damaged. It said that Wednesday morning the Russian Federation shelled a hospital in Beryslav, Kherson region. There is damage, but no one was hurt.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said the war in Ukraine may end due to the US abandoning its allies, as he said it had done before in Afghanistan.
Bank accounts of Finland’s embassies in Russia have been frozen, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
China has notified several foreign missions in Beijing not to display “politicised propaganda” on their buildings, diplomats told Reuters, adding the request appeared aimed at Ukrainian flags they have displayed since Russia’s invasion.
The Kremlin said it would not enter into “hypothetical discussions” on what Russia will do if the Black Sea grain deal lapses on Thursday.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Belarus, one of Russia’s closest allies, has partially restored controls on its border with its neighbour, Belarusian foreign minister Sergei Aleinik said Wednesday.
This is the first time in 28 years that there have been checks at the 770-mile border, AP reported.
According to Aleinik, the introduction of border controls aimed to avoid the entry of third-country nationals into Belarus, ahead of the implementation of an intergovernmental agreement on the mutual recognition of visas.
However, human rights activists think the border checks will target Russian men trying to avoid mobilization into the Russian army.
Aleinik said that checks on people crossing the Belarusian-Russian border are carried out by Belarusian border guards in close cooperation with their Russian counterparts. “It’s not really control, it’s more like monitoring the situation on the border,” Aleinik told reporters in Moscow.
