Evening summary
The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s stories:
In a tweet, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has thanked the British prime minister Rishi Sunak for the provision of long-range cruise missiles. Yesterday, the UK defence secretary Ben Wallace confirmed that the UK would send long-range cruise missiles.
Two Russian pilots were killed on Friday when a Russian Mi-28 military helicopter crashed in the annexed peninsula of Crimea, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry. The defence ministry said it believed the reason for the crash was equipment failure, the TASS news agency reported.
Russia’s defence ministry has said some of its troops fell back “to more advantageous defensive positions” near a reservoir north-west of the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The statement on Friday was the first admission by Moscow that Ukraine was successfully recapturing ground around Bakhmut, a largely destroyed city with a prewar population of about 70,000 that Russia has been trying to conquer for more than 10 months.
Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose troops have done the bulk of the fighting in and around Bakhmut, said via his press service that what the defence ministry had described was in fact a “rout” which had seen troops flee. He said Ukraine had been able to completely regain control of a crucial supply road that links Bakhmut with the town of Chasiv Yar and had seized useful higher ground, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive to win back territory occupied by Russia has a good chance of success but may bring high casualties if Russia uses its prepared defences well, Czech president and former Nato general Petr Pavel said on Friday. Pavel, 61, said in an interview that Ukraine needs support for Nato and European Union entry but joining either will be a lengthy process, though talks on the EU accession could start this year, Reuters reported.
Police in the Russian city of St Petersburg have created an anti-drone unit to detect unmanned drones after a suspected attack on the Kremlin earlier this month, Reuters reports. The unit launched on 9 May during the annual the second world war victory day celebrations on St Petersburg’s Palace Square, the city’s interior ministry said.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow had never refused the “diplomatic track” to resolving the conflict in Ukraine in a phone call with his South African counterpart, the Kremlin said. Putin said he supported South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposal to involve African leaders in talks regarding a peace process for Ukraine, according to the Kremlin’s readout of the call.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that Ukrainian forces carried out “offensive operations” on Thursday along the entire line of contact near Soledar, the ministry’s official Zvezda news outlet reported. More than a thousand troops and up to 40 tanks were used in the assault, it said, adding that the attacks were “repulsed”.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi plans to present an agreement with Russia and Ukraine on protecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the UN security council this month, indicating a deal is close, four diplomats have told Reuters. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Grossi has been trying for months to secure an agreement to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear accident from military activity like shelling at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, which is in Ukraine and has been occupied by Russia for more than a year.
A Russian defeat in Ukraine will not derail China’s rise, while relations between Beijing and the EU will be “critically affected” if Xi Jinping does not push Vladimir Putin to withdraw his forces, European ministers have been told. The message comes in a paper drawn up by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who is meeting the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Friday in Stockholm to discuss how the bloc should “recalibrate” its policy towards Beijing.
Russia’s defence ministry has denied reports that Ukrainian forces had broken through in various places along the frontlines and said the military situation was under control. Moscow was reacting after Russian military bloggers, writing on the Telegram messaging app, reported apparent Ukrainian advances north and south of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, with some suggesting a long-awaited counteroffensive by pro-Kyiv forces had started. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had earlier said the offensive had yet to start.
Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, has said that parties to the Black Sea grain initiative are approaching an extension. Akar’s comment was released by his ministry in a statement on Friday, after talks in Istanbul.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko says Kyiv’s backers understand that a counteroffensive “may not result in the complete eviction of Russian troops and the definitive defeat of Russia in all occupied areas”. “We have to be ready for the war to continue into next year - or it could end this year,” Musiyenko told Ukrainian NV Radio. “It all depends on how the battles develop. We can’t guarantee how the counter-offensive will develop.”
The Russian-imposed mayor of occupied Donetsk has reported on Telegram that one person was killed by Ukrainian shelling of the city overnight.
The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has said its defences are being tightened amid a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting its home base, the Crimean port of Sevastopol. V-Adm Viktor Sokolov told Friday’s edition of the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda: “In connection with the threat of attacks by robotic surface and underwater systems, we have increased the technical defences of the fleet’s main base and of the ships’ anchorages”. Sokolov said the Black Sea Fleet, whose flagship, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk by Ukraine in April 2022, would receive four new ships in 2023.
China’s foreign ministry has announced that its special representative of Eurasian affairs will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia from Monday in what it calls “an effort to promote peace talks”,
US President Joe Biden and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez will discuss Ukraine, defence cooperation, and migration on Friday during a meeting at the White House. While Madrid agrees with Washington on the illegality of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Sánchez will convey the divergent views of China and Brazil and propose giving greater weight to the views of non-Nato nations hurt by the war, a Spanish diplomatic source told Reuters.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine war live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi plans to present an agreement with Russia and Ukraine on protecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the UN security council this month, indicating a deal is close, four diplomats have told Reuters.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Grossi has been trying for months to secure an agreement to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear accident from military activity like shelling at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, which is in Ukraine and has been occupied by Russia for more than a year.
With Ukraine preparing a counteroffensive in the area, there is a risk that fighting near the plant and its six reactors will intensify. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling that has repeatedly downed power lines vital to cooling the reactors and preventing a nuclear meltdown.
“It looks promising,” one diplomat said about securing an agreement. Others said Ukraine, which long opposed the plan, now backed it while Russia’s position was less clear.
