Summary of the day
Here are all the key developments from the Russia-Ukraine war today:
The Ukrainian military said it had stopped Russian forces from moving further near the village of Lukyantsi to the north in the Kharkiv region where they had a “partial success”.
Four people were killed by strikes in the eastern Lugansk region of Ukraine, which is occupied by Moscow and a Russian border region, local officials said on Monday.
The Ukrainian commander responsible for the northeastern Kharkiv frontline was replaced during the Russian offensive, a military command said on Monday. No reason was given.
Russian forces were attacking the border of Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region in small groups in an attempt to stretch the front line, the region’s governor said.
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Acting Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that if the west wants to fight for Ukraine on the battlefield, Russia is prepared for it. He added that Ukraine’s upcoming peace summit represents an ultimatum to Moscow.
Thanks for following the blog. We’re closing it for the rest of the day, but we’ll be back tomorrow to keep you updated.
The European Union has drawn up pledges of long-term security support for Ukraine, assuring Kyiv of more weapons, military training and other aid for years to come, according to a draft document.
The draft, first reported by Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper over the weekend, sets out EU security commitments to Ukraine, which officials hope to conclude in June or July.
In the event of “future aggression”, the document says the EU and Ukraine intend to consult within 24 hours on Kyiv’s needs and “swiftly determine” next steps in line with the commitments.
Ukraine says Russian troops had 'partial success' near one village in Kharkiv region
The Ukrainian military said on Monday it had stopped Russian forces from moving further near the village of Lukyantsi to the north in the Kharkiv region where they had a “partial success”.
The general staff said on Telegram that Russian troops continued offensive actions, and Ukraine would proceed with building up its forces in the area depending on the situation.
Updated
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic has expressed support for Ukraine in its war against Russia after meeting Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday, but stopped short of committing to sanctions against Moscow.
Reuters reports:
Serbia has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but its refusal to join international sanctions has soured relations with Kyiv.
Kuleba’s two-day visit to Belgrade with first lady Olena Zelenska is his first trip to Serbia since the war started.
Vucevic said in a statement:
Serbia is committed to respecting international law and the territorial integrity of United Nations member states, including Ukraine ... We are open to friendly discussions on all issues and at all levels.
Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, is trying to strike a balance between the country’s candidacy for the European Union and traditional ties with Russia and China.
Germany has not done enough in its support for Ukraine, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has said at a security policy conference in Berlin on Monday, adding that “others can also do more”.
AFP has some analysis on the significance of Putin’s new political appointments.
President Vladimir Putin’s nomination of top economic official Andrei Belousov as defence minister is a sign of the importance the Russian leader places on the war economy in gaining the upper hand in what he expects will be a long conflict against Ukraine, analysts say.
It is unclear if outgoing defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s move to head the national security council is a demotion, while the future of its previous chief Nikolai Patrushev, a shadowy but powerful figure and an ardent hawk, is also murky.
Andrei Belousov has since 2020 occupied the post of deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. Like his immediate predecessors as defence minister he has no background in the military but also no past in the Russian security services.
His priority at a time when Russia is planning to ramp up the defence budget to account for some 30% of total government spending will be to fine tune procurement and boost the domestic defence industry to win success on the battlefield.
Putin “needs to shift even further to a war economy and efficient military spending - and Andrei Belousov is one of his most trusted economic officials,” Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London, told AFP.
“Putin’s goal is to enhance arms production effectiveness and optimally meet military needs,” wrote Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik consultancy. “In this context, Belousov is a logical choice.”
Analysts said that the appointment indicates that the Kremlin is preparing Russia for a years-long war against Ukraine where the balance in weapons supplies and production may determine who emerges triumphant.
“The main takeaway is that Vladimir Putin is hunkering down for a long confrontation with the West,” said Noble.
Russian-language news site The Bell quoted a source as saying that Belousov is an eager believer in the doctrine that Russia is encircled by a “ring of enemies” and the only figure among Putin’s top economic team to support the 2014 annexation of Crimea which was followed by severe sanctions.
A figure who rarely speaks in public, Patrushev has always been regarded as a significant player and one of the biggest proponents within the Russian elite of the “ring of enemies” doctrine.
In a striking development, his son Dmitry, formerly agriculture minister, has been promoted deputy prime minister in charge of natural resources and agriculture in the same reshuffle.
Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov appeared eager to create a deliberate ambiguity around the future of Patrushev, saying he had been relieved of his current duties “in connection with taking on a new job” which would be revealed in the “next days.”
With Belousov an economist with no military experience, the decision further distances the defence ministry from battlefield decision making and reinforces the power of the military general staff.
Ukraine said it thwarted a Russian operation to set off a series of bomb attacks in builder’s markets and near a cafe in the capital of Kyiv on 9 May.
Reuters reports:
Two Russian military agents were detained on suspicion of involvement in the alleged plot and 19 explosive devices were seized, the prosecutor general’s office wrote on the Telegram app.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement that four bombs had been intended for detonation in the capital on 9 May, the day when Russia celebrates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The agency said on Telegram:
According to the plan of the Russian special service, the explosives were supposed to detonate during the supermarkets’ peak hours to cause maximum damage to the civilian population.
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
In Kyiv, the explosives intended for builder’s markets were disguised as packages of tea, while a bomb was placed in a car for an explosion near the cafe, according to the SBU.
A separate Lviv attack was also meant to happen last February, the SBU said. An unidentified defence enterprise was the target, according to prosecutors.
Ukraine regularly says it has thwarted attacks away from the front line planned by Russian security services, detaining agents it says are working for Moscow.
Updated
Russian oil giant Lukoil’s LKOH.MM Volgograd refinery was partly shut down after being hit by a drone attack on Sunday, two sources familiar with the matter said, the second such attack this year on the largest refinery in southern Russia.
Reuters reports:
The attack caused a fire at the 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery but it was put out quickly and there were no casualties, the head of the Volgograd region Andrei Bocharov said.
Ukraine has been firing drones at Russian oil facilities during its war with Russia and a drone attack on the Volgograd facility in February was by Ukraine, a source in Kyiv told Reuters at the time.
The CDU-1 unit, the plant’s biggest unit, was damaged by Sunday’s attack, causing an emergency shutdown and was still offline on Monday, sources familiar with the matter said.
Lukoil declined to comment on the fire.
New Russian government appointments show that Moscow will try to scale up its war effort and is seeking to reconfigure its economy for its defence needs, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Monday.
More than two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin tapped civilian economist Adrei Belousov as his surprise new defence minister on Sunday.
Podolyak said on the Telegram messaging app:
Russia is finally isolating itself and will try to scale up the war, expand its formats while reconfiguring the economy...
Strikes kill four in occupied Ukraine, Russian border region
Four people have been killed by strikes in a Russian-held part of eastern Ukraine and a Russian border region, local officials said on Monday.
The Russian-installed leader of the eastern Lugansk region of Ukraine, which is occupied by Moscow, said rockets had hit an industrial zone in the territory, AFP reports.
“We already know of three killed and four wounded” in the attack on Krasnodon, which is known as Sorokyne in Ukrainian, the official, Leonid Pasechnik, said on social media.
Separately, regional authorities in the Kursk border region of Russia said one woman had been killed and three others wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on several cars.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba made a surprise visit to Russia-friendly Serbia on Monday, together with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in a sign of warming relations between the two states.
On his first visit to Serbia since the start of the Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2022, Kuleba met Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic and new Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic, whose government includes several pro-Russian ministers, including two who have been under US sanctions.
A statement issued by the prime minister’s office after the talks said that “Serbia is committed to respecting international law and the territorial integrity of every member state of the United Nations, including Ukraine.”
Although Serbia has condemned the Russian aggression on Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow and has instead maintained warm and friendly relations with its traditional Slavic ally.
Serbia has proclaimed neutrality regarding the war in Ukraine, and its authorities repeat that Serbia does not supply weapons to any parties. However, there are reports that Serbia has delivered weapons to Ukraine through intermediary countries.
The visit by Kuleba and Zelenska, who toured the Serbian capital with Serbian first lady Tamara Vucic on Sunday, was met with criticism in Moscow. Comments by readers in the Russian state-run media such as “shameful” were published by RIA Novosti.
Updated
A Russian court on the annexed peninsula of Crimea has handed down prison sentences of up to 16 years to five Ukrainian citizens accused of sharing military intelligence with Kyiv, state media has reported.
AFP reports:
The men were charged with treason and espionage after sharing information on the location and movements of Russian army units that helped the Ukrainian army target aerial strikes, the FSB security service alleged.
The information “was used by paramilitary formations in Ukraine to adjust their artillery and rocket strikes on Russian army positions,” the FSB said in a statement cited by state news agencies.
They were handed prison sentences of between 11 and 16 years, the FSB said.
Russian authorities, including in parts of Ukraine under their control, have arrested dozens of people for allegedly collaborating with Kyiv since the start of the two-year conflict.
The FSB said separately on Monday it had arrested a man who used to work for Russian technology giant Yandex over sending money to a Ukrainian charity that bought equipment and weapons for its armed forces.
The agency said it “suppressed the illegal activities of a former Yandex employee in the Nizhny Novgorod region, who was involved in committing treason in the form of providing financial assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces,” Russian state media reported.
The state-run TASS news agency published an FSB video showing masked agents running to detain a man, pushing him to the floor and handcuffing him.
In an interview where his face was blurred and voice changed, he said he had transferred funds to a Ukrainian charity and that he had a “negative” opinion of the Russian authorities.
Zelenskiy says Ukraine troops in 'fierce' border battles with Russians
Ukrainian troops are locked in intense battles with the advancing Russian army in two border areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
Associated Press reports:
Zelenskiy said “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive.
Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address Sunday:
Defensive battles are ongoing, fierce battles, on a large part of our border area.
Ukraine’s general staff said late Sunday that Russian forces had conducted at least 22 attacks over the previous 24 hours in two parts of the Kharkiv region and had “tactical success.” The statement did not elaborate.
The Kremlin’s forces are aiming to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses before a big batch of new military aid for Kyiv from the US and European partners arrives on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months, analysts say. That makes this period a window of opportunity for Moscow and one of the most dangerous for Kyiv in the two-year war, they say.
The Kharkiv incursion may be an attempt to create a “buffer zone” to protect Belgorod, an adjacent Russian border region battered by frequent Ukrainian attacks — to the Kremlin’s embarrassment.
Yevgeny Poddubny, a usually well-connected military correspondent for Russia’s state TV corporation VGTRK, said in a recent Telegram post that the Kharkiv assault marked the beginning of “a new phase.”
He said:
We’re pushing the enemy back from the border, destroying the enemy in order to deprive the Kyiv regime of the opportunity to use relatively cheap rockets to attack Belgorod.
Updated
Ireland is considering making cuts to state support for asylum seekers and refugees, including those who arrived from Ukraine, in a bid to bring the system more in line with other European countries, Prime Minister Simon Harris has said.
Just over 100,000 Ukrainians have fled to Ireland since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Harris told Newstalk radio ahead of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting:
It certainly is my intention that we will see changes in a number of areas that do inject what I think Irish people believe has been lacking, which is that common sense approach.
We need to look at welfare consistency. We need to look at the contribution that people who have (refugee) status should make to accommodation. We need to look at making sure that anybody at work is working legally, that there are more workplace inspections.
Harris said specifically that there should be a consistency of approach to people who come from Ukraine and that the support should not be based on when they arrived.
Updated
Russia’s new defence minister Andrei Belousov has said that soldiers need better access to housing, hospitals and welfare benefits.
Reuters reports:
Belousov, an economist who previously served as deputy prime minister, underlined the need to take better care of Russia’s soldiers in comments to a parliamentary committee, his first since Putin named him on Sunday to replace Sergei Shoigu in a surprise move.
State media quoted him as saying there was too much bureaucracy surrounding the payment of benefits to military personnel. There were also issues with housing and medical treatment.
The comments by Belousov, who has no military background, appeared aimed at demonstrating to members of the armed forces that he understands their concerns and will work to improve their conditions.
Germany has rejected a no-fly zone over Ukraine enforced by the Nato military alliance and has not changed its stance, a government spokesperson said on Monday, after recent domestic calls for such a move by a cross-section of German lawmakers.
The spokesperson said:
We rejected that at the time and I think the same applies to the different requests that are now being made.
The Russian army has improved the tactical position of its troops near four settlements in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region - Vesele, Neskuchne, Vovchansk and Lyptsi, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.
Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield reports. Russia says it has already seized at least nine villages in Kharkiv region, opening a new northeastern front in the war.
Updated
Ukraine replaces commander for northeastern Kharkiv frontline
The Ukrainian commander responsible for the northeastern Kharkiv frontline was replaced during the Russian offensive, a military command said on Monday.
Nazar Voloshyn told RBC-Ukraine media that the decision to appoint Brigadier General Mykhailo Drapatyi to the position was taken on 11 May. He gave no reason.
Russian forces have, in recent days, made small but significant gains right along the border in the Kharkiv region, according to BBC reporting.
Their advances are only a few miles deep but have swallowed up around 100km (62 miles) of Ukrainian territory. In the more heavily defended east of Ukraine, it has taken Russia months to achieve the same.
Russia claims its forces have now entered the border town of Vovchansk, which Ukraine disputes.
The town has come under heavy bombing in recent days, and several thousand residents have been evacuated.
Updated
Russian forces attacking border in northern Kharkiv region, Ukraine says
Russian forces are attacking the border of Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region in small groups in an attempt to stretch the front line, the region’s governor said on Monday.
Oleh Syniehubov told local TV:
The enemy is trying to deliberately stretch it (front line), attacking in small groups, but in new directions, so to speak.
He added that Ukrainian forces were holding Russian troops back but there was a real threat that the fighting could spread to new settlements.
Updated
Here are the latest images coming out of Ukraine:
Russia ready if west wants to fight for Ukraine on battlefield, Lavrov says
If the west wants to fight for Ukraine on the battlefield, Russia is prepared for it, acting Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by the state-run RIA new agency on Monday.
The Kremlin said last week that sending Nato troops into Ukraine would potentially be extremely dangerous, and that Moscow was closely watching a Ukrainian petition calling for such an intervention.
Lavrov, who has served two decades as foreign minister, was speaking at a parliamentary hearing on his renomination to the post in a new government being formed after Putin started a fresh six-year term this month.
RIA also cited him as saying that peace talks on Ukraine due to take place in Switzerland next month without Russia’s participation amounted to an ultimatum to Moscow.
He compared the situation to “a reprimand for a schoolchild” whose fate was being decided by teachers while he was out of the room, the agency said.
He said:
You can’t talk to anyone like that, especially to us.
The conference... boils down to restating an ultimatum to Russia.
Updated
Drones launched by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) caused fires at an oil depot and power substation in Russia’s Belgorod and Lipetsk regions, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters on Monday.
The attack damaged “Oskolneftesnab” oil depot near the city of Staryi Oskol in Russia’s Belgorod region and “Yeletskaya” power substation in the Lipetsk region.
The intelligence source said:
Russian industry which works to wage war with Ukraine will remain a legitimate target for the SBU. Measures to undermine the enemy’s military potential will continue.
Ukraine is planning record electricity imports from five European countries on Monday after reporting significant energy infrastructure damage following Russian strikes, the energy ministry has said.
Imports are expected to rise to 19,484 megawatt hours (Mwh), beating the previous record high of 18,649 Mwh recorded at the end of March after the first wave of Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector.
Opening summary
Welcome to our latest live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
This morning Ukraine time, two people were killed in shelling of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to its Russian-installed mayor, Alexei Kulemzin.
Here’s a snapshot of the latest key developments.
Ukraine’s top military commander admitted on Sunday that the situation in the north-eastern Kharkiv region was “difficult” as Russia continued an assault in the area. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi denied that the Russians had made a significant breakthrough, but said his forces were on the back foot. “[We] are fighting fierce defensive battles. The attempts of the Russian invaders to break through our defences have been stopped,” he wrote on Telegram.
At least 15 people were killed and 20 injured on Sunday when part of a Russian apartment block collapsed after being struck by fragments of a missile, launched by Ukraine and shot down by Russia, Russian officials said. In one of the deadliest attacks to date on the region of Belgorod, Russian officials said Ukraine launched an attack involving at least 12 missiles, including Tochka ballistic missiles and Adler and RM-70 Vampire multiple launch rocket systems. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv has previously said targeting Russia’s military, transport and energy infrastructure undermines Moscow’s war effort. Belgorod lies close to the border and is considered a vital stop for Russian supply lines. Russia’s defence ministry called Sunday’s salvo a “terrorist attack on residential areas”. Online footage showed rescuers searching for survivors among the remnants of the building’s stairwell, then fleeing the scene as part of the roof crashed to the ground.
The Russian defense ministry said on Sunday that its forces had captured four villages in Kharkiv, in addition to five villages reported to have been seized on Saturday. Ukraine did not confirm the claims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that fighting was going on in a string of villages in the Kharkiv region. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy also noted fierce battles in various parts of Donetsk region to the south-east. He said “defensive battles” were taking place along large sections of the border in Kharkiv.
The town of Vovchansk, among the largest in the north-east with a prewar population of 17,000, emerged as a focal point in the battle. Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said on Sunday afternoon that Russian forces were on the outskirts of the town and approaching from three directions. “Infantry fighting is already taking place,” he said.
Tymoshko said Russian tactics in Vovchansk mirrored those used in the battles for Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, in which heavy aerial attacks were accompanied by droves of infantry assaults. “Now the Russians are simply wiping it [Vovchansk] off the face of the earth and advancing with the scorched earth method. That is, they first scorch a specific area and then the infantry comes in, and they always advance in this way,” he said.
At least 4,000 civilians have fled the Kharkiv region since Friday, when Moscow’s forces launched the operation, Gov Oleh Syniehubov said in a social media statement
Russian President Vladimir Putin removed his longtime ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister in the most significant reshuffle to the military command since Russian troops invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. In a surprise announcement, the Kremlin said Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, will replace Shoigu. Putin proposed that Shoigu take the position as head of Russia’s powerful security council.
Lithuanians voted on Sunday in a presidential election expected to hand a new term to incumbent Gitanas Nauseda, a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its two-year war with Russia, after a campaign focusing on security concerns in the Baltic states. Across the region, voters are worried the former Soviet republics that make up the Baltics, now members of the Nato military alliance and the European Union, could be the targets of Russian aggression in the future.
We’ll be keeping you updated on everything you need to know throughout the day.
