Thank you for following today’s coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We will be closing this liveblog but you can catch all the latest developments on our new blog launched below.
US first lady Jill Biden is set to visit Romania and Slovakia on Thursday for five days to meet with US service members and embassy personnel, displaced Ukrainian parents and children, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers, her office has said.
On Sunday, celebrated as Mother’s Day in the United States, Biden will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their homes because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, her office said according to Reuters.
The wife of president Joe Biden will meet with US military service members at Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in Romania on Friday, before heading to Bucharest to meet with Romanian government officials, US embassy staff, humanitarian aid workers, and teachers working with displaced Ukrainian children.
The trip also includes stops in the Slovakian cities of Bratislava, Kosice and Vysne Nemecke, where Biden will meet with government officials, refugees and aid workers, her office said.
Biden’s visit is the latest show of support for Ukraine and neighbouring countries that are helping Ukrainian refugees by top US representatives.
South Korean ambassador Kim Hyung-tae has returned to Kyiv along with some embassy staff, the news agency Yonhap has reported citing the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.
The South Korean embassy was evacuated at the beginning of the Russian invasion and staff had been working at a temporary office in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi since March.
The ministry said Kim would start working from Kyiv on Monday and that it was considering the phased return of remaining staff in accordance with the future security situation there.
[They] plan to carry out tasks on diplomatic affairs and protecting [South Korean] nationals under closer cooperation with the Ukrainian government.
More than 20 embassies, including those of the EU, UK, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, have already reopened in the Ukrainian capital.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said US diplomats would gradually begin returning to the country during a visit to Kyiv last week.
Associated Press has filed a story saying that the Ghost of Kyiv, an unnamed fighter pilot who was praised for supposedly shooting down several Russian planes, is in fact a myth.
Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth.
“The Ghost of Kyiv is a super-hero legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!” Ukraine’s air force said in Ukrainian on Facebook.
The statement came after multiple media outlets published stories wrongly identifying Major Stepan Tarabalka as the man behind the moniker. Tarabalka was a real pilot who died on March 13 during air combat and was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said last month.
But he was not the Ghost of Kyiv, the force said in Saturday’s statement. “The information about the death of the The Ghost of #Kyiv is incorrect,” Ukraine’s air force wrote in a separate post Saturday on Twitter. “The #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region.”
Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, has told CNN “it’s only a matter of time” before US president Joe Biden visits Ukraine.
I have to think that a presidential visit is something under consideration, but only a question of how soon that will be feasible.
On Sunday US House speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking US official to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv since the start of Russia’s invasion at the end of February.
The House delegation had discussed Zelenskiy’s priorities for the next phase of the war, which is concentrated in the east of the country after Russian forces withdrew from around the capital, and Biden’s request for a $33bn aid package for Ukraine, Schiff said:
We wanted to discuss with him, within that really vast sum, what is the priority in terms of what weapons that he needs, what other assistance that he needs,” Schiff said. “We went through a detailed discussion of the next phase of the war. It’s moving from a phase in which Ukrainians were ambushing Russian tanks -- it was close-quarters fighting -- to fighting more at a distance using long range artillery, and that changes the nature of what Ukraine needs to defend itself.
Report: Russia's top uniformed officer visited Ukraine last week
Russia’s top uniformed officer, General Valery Gerasimov, visited dangerous frontline positions in eastern Ukraine last week in a bid to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there, the New York Times has reported citing Ukrainian and US officials.
The Guardian was unable to verify the report.
During the visit, Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, narrowly escaped a deadly Ukrainian attack on a school being used as a military base in the Russian-controlled city of Izium late Saturday, the Times reported.
Around 200 soldiers including at least one general were killed in the strike, a Ukrainian official told the paper, but Gerasimov had already departed for Russia.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, earlier said that Ukrainian forces had “likely conducted a rocket artillery strike on a Russian command post in Izyum on April 30 that struck after Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov had left but killed other senior Russian officers.”
US officials could not confirm the attack and the Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Our working assumption is that he was there because there’s a recognition they haven’t worked out all their problems yet,” one of the US officials told the Times. The Russian offensive has been slow, with widespread disarray and poor morale reported among Russian forces.
The Kremlin appears to be focusing its operations around the city of Izium as part of renewed efforts to seize the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Gerasimov has reportedly been put in command of the push.
Explosions reported in Russian city of Belgorod
Two explosions have taken place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor has written in a social media post.
“There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote, according to Reuters.
On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged.
Posts on social media said fighter jets and loud explosions had been heard above the city overnight. The Guardian was unable to verify the reports.
Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot.
Russian air defense units are targeting unknown targets (possible UAVs?) above #Belgorod:
— Justin Peden 🦀🇺🇦 (@IntelCrab) May 1, 2022
pic.twitter.com/oKhTYRxz5C
Possible explosion, or sonic boom from aircraft overhead in Belgorod. pic.twitter.com/lwwaeuPHxk
— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) May 2, 2022
3 hours after Belgorod enters a state of emergency, fighter jets storm over and 2 loud explosions are heard. pic.twitter.com/TrDtB1LiJO
— spook (@spook_info) May 2, 2022
Updated
A few more images captured by Reuters of the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, showing emotional scenes as people were reunited with family members in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk region:
Around 100 civilians were on Sunday evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the city. Around 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are thought to be sheltering in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant, enduring a weeks-long siege with little food or water.
One of the civilians evacuated spoke to Reuters, telling the news agency, “We didn’t see the sun for so long”:
Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust.
Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack.
“I feared that the bunker would not withstand it – I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground.
“When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.”
“We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol.
She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there.
Usmanova was among dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and left a wasteland.
Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus ride out, in a convoy agreed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that they would no longer have to go to the lavatory with a torch.
“You just can’t imagine what we have been through - the terror,” Usmanova said. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.”
Hello, this is Helen Livingstone taking over the blog from Maanvi Singh to bring you the latest from the war in Ukraine.
First a bit more from Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s interview with Italy’s Mediaset broadcaster.
He said that Russia was not demanding the “surrender” of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a condition for peace.
We do not demand that he surrender. We demand that he give the order to release all civilians and stop the resistance. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine. This is an American speciality. They do it all over the world.
We want to ensure the safety of people in the east of Ukraine, so that they are not threatened by either the militarisation or the nazification of this country, and that there are no threats to the security of the Russian Federation from the territory of Ukraine.
He also denied that Russia would attempt to claim victory in Ukraine by 9 May – when Russia marks the end of the second world war with Victory Day – saying that the Russian military would not “artificially adjust their actions to any date, including Victory Day.”
The pace of the operation in Ukraine depends, first of all, on the need to minimise any risks for the civilian population and Russian military personnel.
Asked about recent rumours concerning the health of president Vladimir Putin, he did not answer directly, saying instead:
Ask the foreign leaders who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin recently, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. I think you will understand what is at stake.
Updated
Catch up
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Civilians are being evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, where about 1,000 people are thought to be sheltering. The effort is being led by the Red Cross and UN, and coordinated with Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.”
- US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has become the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war, where she met president Zelenskiy. In a press conference afterwards, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied. “If they are making threats, you cannot back down,” she said. Pelosi was presented with the order of Princess of Olga medal by Zelenskiy.
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German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
- Pope Francis described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry”, in a Sunday noon address in St Peter’s Square. “My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” he said of the mostly Russian-controlled south-eastern port city, which is named after the Virgin Mary.
- Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia,” he continued.
- Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU.
- The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv has urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling. Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.”
- The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out.
- Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned. Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts.
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A Russian defence facility near the border with Ukraine was on fire.Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor, posted on Telegram that there were no details yet about damage or casualties at the building in the southern region of Belgorod. Images on social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground.
– Jennifer Rankin, Harry Taylor, Maanvi Singh, Rob Booth
Updated
In Kherson, the first major city to fall, Russia is replacing Ukrainian currency with Russian rubles.
Per AFP, Kirill Stremousov, a civilian and military administrator of Kherson said that “beginning 1 May, we will move to the ruble zone,” according state news agency RIA Novosti.
It is a tactic to legitimize Russia’s “control of the city and surrounding areas through installing a pro-Russian administration,” according to an intelligence update released by Britain’s Defense Ministry. The move is “indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,” the Defense Ministry said.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that the county is working to prevent nuclear war, Reuters reports.
In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov said: “Western media misrepresent Russian threats. Russia has never interrupted efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops”.
Lavrov also doubled down on Russian conspiracy theories and propaganda about Nazism in Ukraine.
This week, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called Russia’s justification for the war in Ukraine “BS”. “It’s hard to square [Vladimir Putin’s] … BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests, when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine,” Kirby said. “It’s brutality of the coldest and the most depraved sort.”
Updated
Eight have died after Russian attacks on Donetsk and Kharkiv, according to the governors of those regions.
AFP reports:
The deaths came as the Russian army refocuses its efforts on eastern Ukraine, notably the Donbas region, which incorporates Donetsk and Lugansk.
Four were killed in shelling in the town of Lyman in Donetsk, the regional governor said.
“On May 1, four civilians were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, all in Lyman. Eleven other people were injured,” governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram.
Another person had died of his injuries in a town near Lyman, he added.
Lyman, a former railway hub known as the “red town” for its redbrick industrial buildings, is expected to be one of the next places to fall to the Russian army after Ukrainian forces withdrew.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces appeared to have made notable advances around the town, advancing on their positions by several kilometres, an AFP team in the area said.
Another three people were killed in shelling on residential areas in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, the regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram.
“As a result of these shellings, unfortunately, three people were killed and eight civilians were injured.”
The Ukrainian army has also withdrawn from Kharkiv, its troops now in outlying positions, according to AFP journalists who recently visited the city.
Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy said that evacuations from Mariupol will continue tomorrow if “all the necessary conditions” are met. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vital corridor has started working,” he said. “For the first time there were two days of real ceasefire on this territory.”
In his latest address, he said:
We will continue to do everything to evacuate our people from Azovstal, from Mariupol in general. The organization of such humanitarian corridors is one of the elements of the ongoing negotiation process. It is very complex. But no matter how difficult it was, more than 350,000 people were rescued from the areas of hostilities...
Today, Russian troops continued to strike at the territory of our state. The targets they choose prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army. They targeted the warehouses of agricultural enterprises. The grain warehouse was destroyed. The warehouse with fertilizers was also shelled. They continued shelling of residential neighborhoods in the Kharkiv region, Donbas, etc.
They are accumulating forces in the south of the country to try to attack our cities and communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war? Honestly, I do not know. The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia. It will only increase the toxicity of the Russian state and the number of those in the world who will work to isolate Russia.
‘I collected metal from the missiles in Kharkiv, but couldn’t find anyone to buy it’
Isobel Koshiw and Ed Ram in Kharkiv report:
In Ukraine’s second city, where the barrage of Russian shelling has been among the most relentless endured, hundreds of people stand in line at a post office, waiting to be given chicken and potatoes. As elsewhere in the country, the mundane institutions of civil society of Kharkiv have had to be hastily repurposed for the goal of keeping its population alive, and about 30 such locations across the city have been turned into food aid distribution points.
The postal workers at this branch of Nova Poshta, who are being paid by their employer to hand out food instead of post, say that an average of 3,000 people come to their repurposed branch every day, seven days a week. They manage the queues using the post office’s ticket system.
“There’s no work. The No 1 thing at the moment is humanitarian aid,” says Ihor Shapovalov, a construction worker who lost his job on 24 February and has just received a quarter of a chicken. “We just want to thank the guys for everything they’re doing.”
Kharkiv has been the worst-hit city still under Ukrainian government control. Since the war began two months ago, civilians have died and been injured almost every day as a result of incoming Russian shelling. On Saturday, one person died and five were injured as a result of mortar fire, according to the regional governor.
The city is starting to see signs of life, but its economy is in tatters. The vast majority of shops and businesses are still closed.
Another man waiting in the queue at the repurposed post office is 30-year-old Zhenia Myrhorod. He says he had tried to get work unloading humanitarian aid at a warehouse, but there was not enough work to go around.
“I even collected metal from the missiles but couldn’t find anyone to buy it,” says Myrhorod. “I’m 30 years old. I’ve got legs and arms, but nobody wants them.”
Read more:
The evacuation of the Azovstal steel plant is ongoing, according to the UN.
“It was agreed with both parties to the conflict that civilians who had been stranded for nearly two months in Azovstal - women, children and the elderly – will be evacuated to Zaporizka where they will receive immediate humanitarian support, including psychological services,” the United Nations said in a statement. “As the operations are still ongoing, we will not provide further details at this point, to guarantee the safety of the civilians and humanitarians in the convoy.”
About 100 civilians have so far been evacuated from the plant in Mariupol in a joint mission by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Here’s a dispatch from Reuters’ Guy Faulconbridge, who interviewed a woman who had been evacuated:
Cowering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers far beneath the vast Azovstal steel works, Natalia Usmanova felt her heart would stop she was so terrified as Russian bombs rained down on Mariupol, sprinkling her with concrete dust.
Usmanova, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after being evacuated from the plant, a sprawling complex founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a subterranean network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack.
“I feared that the bunker would not withstand it - I had terrible fear,” Usmanova said, describing the time sheltering underground.
“When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in.”
“We didn’t see the sun for so long,” she said, speaking in the village of Bezimenne in an area of Donetsk under the control of Russia-backed separatists around 30 km (20 miles) east of Mariupol.
She recalled the lack of oxygen in the shelters and the fear that had gripped the lives of people hunkered down there.
Read more about the evacuation effort here:
Updated
Trevor Reed’s release puts spotlight on other Americans in Russian jail
The release of Trevor Reed, an American prisoner held by Russia, in exchange for a convicted Russian drug smuggler, has shown that Washington and Moscow are still able to negotiate on some issues even after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The exchange on the tarmac of a Turkish airport on Monday morning, has also focused attention on the plight two other Americans left behind in Russian jails, held on flimsy or spurious grounds – most likely as bargaining counters.
One is Paul Whelan, a former marine who was arrested in 2018 in a Moscow hotel, where he had gone to attend a friend’s wedding. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years hard labour.
The other is Brittney Griner, a basketball star who was detained in a Moscow airport on 17 February, a week before the Ukraine invasion, and accused of having cannabis oil in her possession. A court has ordered her held until 19 May, pending investigation.
For both, the news of Reed’s release brought mixed emotions: it showed that such deals are possible, but also the regret that they were excluded on this occasion.
“As I do everything in my power to get BG home, my heart is overflowing with joy for the Reed family,” Griner’s wife, Cherelle, wrote on Instagram. “I do not personally know them, but I do know the pain of having your loved one detained in a foreign country. That level of pain is constant and can only be remedied by a safe return home. For the Reed family, that day is today.”
In a call from a penal colony, Whelan telephoned his parents and asked: “Why was I left behind?
“While I am pleased Trevor is home with his family, I have been held on a fictitious charge of espionage for 40 months,” he said, according to his twin brother, David. “The world knows this charge was fabricated. Why hasn’t more been done to secure my release.”
Read more:
Denmark and Sweden have said a Russian spy plane violated their airspace.
From AFP:
Officials said the plane entered Danish airspace on Friday evening east of the Danish Baltic island of Bornholm before flying into Swedish airspace.
“The Russian ambassador is summoned to the foreign ministry tomorrow,” the Danish foreign minister, Jeppe Kofod, tweeted on Sunday, referring to a “new Russian violation of Danish airspace”.
The Swedish foreign ministry also said the Russian ambassador would be summoned in Stockholm.
“There exist established procedures for this kind of case. It concerns notably summoning the representative of the implicated nation to the foreign ministry,” it said in an email.
Kofod added that it was “totally unacceptable and particularly worrying in the current situation”, alluding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with Nato, of which Denmark is a member.
Henrik Mortensen, a Danish defence command press officer, told AFP on Sunday about the incident.
“It was a reconnaissance plane that was in our airspace for a very brief moment. Two Danish F-16s immediately intervened,” Mortensen said, adding that such incidents were rare.
Denmark is a member of Nato, unlike Sweden, where a debate is taking place over whether it should abandon its non-aligned status and join the alliance.
Questioned by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, the Swedish defence minister said there was no proof that the breach was linked to current discussions on Stockholm eventually joining Nato.
Russia has already signalled that Stockholm and Helsinki, which is also contemplating membership, should consider the consequences of such a move for bilateral relations and Europe’s overall security architecture.
Updated
Inside Transnistria, separatist authorities have kept quiet about the war raging in Ukraine. “Transnistria’s leaders are being cautious,” said the Moldovan journalist Alina Radu. “They are not cheering on the war, but nor are they criticising Russia’s military aggression.”
Since the death of its Soviet-era industry, Transnistria’s economy has been dominated by a small elite. Russia provides Transnistria with free gas, which gives businesses in the region a competitive advantage over other businesses in Moldova.
Its largest conglomerate, which controls everything from petrol stations to a cognac distillery – and the football club FC Sheriff – was co-founded by the former KGB agent Victor Gușan, who also has a Ukrainian passport and owns property in Kyiv.
“Transnistrian leaders are under a lot of pressure,” said the Moldovan journalist Alina Radu. “For the first time, they are isolated. Both Moldova and Ukraine have governments that are not pro-Russian. Transnistrian elites have two options: to follow the orders of Putin, the most terrible dictator today, or to have a prosperous future with Europe.”
Analysts in Chișinău warn that Russian security and propaganda networks are spreading.
A recent report from the Royal United Services Institute, said Russia’s FSB spy agency aimed “to destabilise Moldova to tie down Ukrainian forces on the southern border, to counter growing pro-European sentiment in the country, and to show the west that support for Ukraine risks wider consequences, including in the Balkans”.
Valeriu Pașa, from the Moldovan thinktank Watchdog said that Moscow had overestimated vestigial pro-Russia sentiment in the country.
“Russia’s aim is to create tension,” he said, pointing to debunked viral reports that Romanian troops had been deployed near the border with Moldova.
However, Moldova, with a population of just 2.5 million, has already suffered from mass emigration, and such pressures have the potential to cause more harm, said Radu. “I am afraid that the tension might generate yet another harmful wave of emigration – just as the government has been trying to bring back the diaspora.”
Here’s more background on Transnistria, and why is it being drawn into Ukraine war:
Updated
Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned, reports the Guardian’s Rob Booth.
Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts.
His comments came as the UK government cited unpublished that showed Russia was “using Telegram to actively recruit and coordinate new supporters who then target the social media profiles of Kremlin critics – spamming them with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.”
Linvill said this was “highly consistent with what we have seen the IRA previously do, given how it understands the power of authenticity”.
It was reported that targets have included Boris Johnson’s social media accounts as well as accounts of bands and musicians including Daft Punk, David Guetta and Tiësto. The government said it had shared the research with the social media platforms.
That’s all from me, Jennifer Rankin, as I pass over to Maanvi Singh, who will be keeping you informed with the latest news on the war in Ukraine.
Updated
The leader of the Democrats in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, has said he plans to add provisions to the $33bn Ukraine aid package that will allow the United States to seize Russian oligarchs’ assets and send money derived from them to Ukraine.
In comments reported by Reuters, Schumer said:
Ukraine needs all the help it can get and, at the same time, we need all the assets we can put together to give Ukraine the aid it needs.
The US president, Joe Biden, last week proposed $33bn in military, economic and humanitarian aid, more than twice the US assistance to Ukraine to date.
A senior Republican lawmaker said on Sunday that the request was likely to be approved swiftly. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House foreign affairs committee, told US media that he expected the chamber would look favourably on the request.
Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste. I wish we had [Biden’s request] a little bit sooner, but we have it now.
Updated
When a string of mysterious explosions hit government buildings in Transnistria, the Moscow-backed separatist region of Moldova, there was no immediate claim of responsibility. But for Pasha, a 24-year old journalist from the breakaway region’s capital, Tiraspol, this week’s blasts were a clear sign that it was time to get out.
“There was a chance that there would be more attacks, and it’s no fun waiting to find out where would be hit next,” he said. Adding to the uncertainty were growing rumours that men in the region would be mobilised to fight alongside Russian troops across the border in Ukraine.
So Pasha, his mother and his friend, fellow journalist Maxim, 23, packed their essentials and drove to the Moldovan capital, Chișinău, where they are staying with relatives. They are hoping to return home, but other friends who left Transnistria have already fled to Turkey, Poland or the Czech Republic.
Paula Erizanu reports from Chișinău on the growing concern that Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova could be dragged into the conflict.
Updated
Eighty civilians including women and children have been evacuated from the Mariupol steelworks, according to Russia’s defence ministry.
Citing the ministry, Russian state news agency Ria Novosti said 80 people had been evacuated to Bezimenne in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, the eastern Ukrainian territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. They were said to be receiving food, accommodation and medical care.
One person was injured in a fire on a Russian defence ministry facility in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, Belgorod’s regional governor has said, Reuters reports.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a local resident suffered minor injuries and his life was not in danger. Images posted to social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground. Reuters was not able to verify the reports.
Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility.
Pictures have emerged of the first people to leave the area near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, after the UN confirmed that an evacuation operation was underway.
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ratcheted up pressure on the European Union, by insisting that the next round of sanctions against Russia includes an oil embargo.
He was speaking to the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who tweeted that work on the EU’s sixth round of sanctions against Russia was “ongoing”.
As the live blog reported earlier, the EU is discussing banning Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. The timing still has to be agreed by EU member states, who will discuss the proposal on Wednesday.
Kuleba also said there was “no alternative to granting Ukraine EU candidate status”, the opening step in membership talks. But many EU member states, especially in western Europe, oppose speeding up the EU’s lengthy application process.
I spoke with @JosepBorrellF on the next round of EU sanctions on Russia which must include an oil embargo. I also emphasized there can be no alternative to granting Ukraine EU candidate status. We paid separate attention to further safe evacuation from besieged Mariupol.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) May 1, 2022
Call w/@DmytroKuleba to discuss continued EU support to #Ukraine
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) May 1, 2022
Work is ongoing on the next package of sanctions
EU-Ukraine Association Council will be a key moment to advance even further our partnership
Situation in Mariupol is appalling, humanitarian evacuations urgent.
Updated
Germany has announced a sharp reduction in its imports of Russian fossil fuels, just days before the EU is expected to include oil in its sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
Germany’s economy ministry on Sunday published statistics showing how consumption of Russian imported oil, gas and coal had fallen sharply since the invasion of Ukraine.
Here are the main points summarised by a German government official:
Germany is reducing its energy dependence on Russia rapidly:
— Sebastian Fischer (@SFischer_EU) May 1, 2022
⬇️ Imports of Russian oil down from around 35% to 12%.
⬇️ Imports of Russian gas down from 55% to around 35%.
⬇️ Imports of Russian coal down from 50% to about 8%.
More (in German): https://t.co/LJYZQZAkcX
Germany plans to wean itself off Russian gas by 2024, and oil and coal much sooner.
Ukraine’s national grid operator has said it has restored “reliable” power supply in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, around the site of the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster, the Associated Press reports.
“In the afternoon, the last necessary 330 kV power transmission line was put into operation,” the state-owned Ukrenergo wrote in a Telegram post Saturday.
According to the same post, Ukrenergo also restored another 330 kV line in the northern Kyiv region, helping stabilise the energy supply in the capital. It said the reconstruction of further transmission lines in and around Kyiv remains underway.
Russian forces seized the plant on the first day of the war, while the Kremlin appeared indifferent or unaware of the risks posed to its soldiers.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
Scholz said:
I respect all pacifism, I respect all attitudes, but it must seem cynical to a citizen of Ukraine to be told to defend himself against Putin’s aggression without weapons.
The open letter on Change.org warning of a third world war has been signed by more than 122,000 people.
In a media interview published on Sunday, Scholz defended himself against critics that have accused him of not doing enough to help Ukraine.
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments in Ukraine, as a United Nations-led evacuation of a steel plant in Mariupol is under way.
- Civilians are being evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, where about 1,000 people are thought to be sheltering. The first group of 100 was being led away by late afternoon on Sunday, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The effort is led by the Red Cross, and coordinated with Ukraine and Russia.
- Two groups of nearly 60 people have already been evacuated to the village of Bezimenne in Donetsk, with Reuters witnessing buses arriving on Saturday and Sunday.
- US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has become the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war, where she met president Zelenskiy.
- In a press conference afterwards, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied. “If they are making threats, you cannot back down,” she said.
- German chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected criticism of Germany’s reluctance to send heavy weapons to Ukraine, as an opinion poll by Sunday newspaper Bild Am Sonntag found a majority of Germans disagreed with his approach.
- The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv has urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling.
- Pope Francis described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry”, in a Sunday noon address in St Peter’s Square.
- Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU.
- One person has been injured in a fire at a Russian defence facility in the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine.
I am now handing over to my colleague Jennifer Rankin, who will continue to bring you news from the conflict.
Updated
A group of 100 Ukrainian civilians are on their way out of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol as part of the UN evacuation, according to the country’s president.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a tweet that they were heading to a “controlled area”.
Evacuation of civilians from Azovstal began. The 1st group of about 100 people is already heading to the controlled area. Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia. Grateful to our team! Now they, together with #UN, are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 1, 2022
Updated
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has defended himself against accusations that his approach to Russian aggression has been hesitant, insisting his decisions followed close consultation with Germany’s allies and sought to avoid any suspicion that the country was “going it alone”.
Scholz has faced fierce criticism even from within his own government and last week came under particular fire from the opposition leader, Friedrich Merz, who accused him of weak leadership and of “procrastination, dithering and timidity”. On Sunday it was reported that Merz was planning to travel to Kyiv on Monday.
Scholz appeared to bow to immense domestic and international pressure last week by announcing that Germany would deliver heavy weaponry to Ukraine, in the form of self-propelled anti-aircraft systems, in what was seen as a sharp policy U-turn.
Read more:
The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out.
Under a draft proposal discussed with national capitals on Saturday, the Commission has proposed ending Russian oil imports by the end of 2022, according to EU sources.
One senior EU diplomat said the plan was to “find a clever solution that would hit Russia as much as possible and avoid a price hike” that would harm European consumers.
Ukraine’s most ardent supporters in the EU, such as Poland and the Baltic states, will push for a more rapid phase out of Russian oil. Germany and Austria have been cautious in ending Russian fossil fuel imports quickly, but Berlin shifted its position last week when the vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, said the EU’s largest economy could cope with a Russian oil embargo.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said ending Russian oil and gas imports was “a red line”, but diplomats are hopeful Budapest will fall into line, now Germany is amenable to an oil embargo.
Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 member states are set to discuss a legal text of the sanctions law on Wednesday.
Germany announced on Sunday that it had sharply reduced its dependency on Russian oil, coal and gas. Russia now supplies 12% of Germany’s oil imports, compared to 35% before the Russian invasion, according to an economy ministry statement.
Coal from Russia has dropped to 8% of German coal imports, from 45%, while gas imports are down to 35% compared to 55% before the war. Germany plans to wean itself off Russian gas by 2024, and oil and coal much sooner.
Before the invasion, Russia supplied about a quarter (26%) of the EU’s oil imports.
The EU agreed last month to end Russian imports of coal, but disappointed those looking for tougher sanctions, by delaying the measure until mid-August.
Updated
United Nations evacuation under way from Mariupol steelworks
A UN operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is under way, a spokesperson has confirmed.
Officials reached the factory on Saturday, and the exercise is being coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ukraine and Russia.
According to Reuters, the UN’s Saviano Abreu added that further information was not being shared to ensure the safety of evacuees. It’s believed about 1,000 people are at the site.
Updated
A Russian defence facility near the border with Ukraine is currently on fire, according to the region’s governor.
Vyacheslav Gladkov posted on Telegram that there were no details yet about damage or casualties at the building in the southern region of Belgorod.
Reuters reports that images on social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground.
Another 14 evacuees from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have arrived at a temporary accommodation centre, according to Reuters.
The news agency’s photographer in the village of Bezimenne in Donetsk saw the group arrive on Sunday, hours after 40 had made the journey from the factory in the besieged port city.
An evacuation to Zaporizhzhia from Mariupol was due to begin at 4pm local time on Sunday.
A woman who went on hunger strike to demand a visa for her Ukrainian best friend has spoken of her relief after their reunion in the UK.
Kristina Korniiuk, 34, of Kyiv, was granted a visa under the Ukraine sponsorship scheme and arrived at the home of her friend, Rend Platings, on Sunday, after a journey which took more than 24 hours.
Platings, whose Cambridge house is painted in the colours of the Ukraine flag, said it is both “wonderful” and “surreal” to have her friend by her side.
Platings went on hunger strike for 21 days after the visa application was made for her friend, stating the “delay in issuing visas is adding to an already appalling humanitarian crisis”.
She told the PA news agency: “For me it feels really, really wonderful. It’s a little bit surreal. And it’s kind of quite hard to believe.
“I hope she’ll be able to make the most out of it and find that she makes friends over here and that, instead of losing her country, she gains another community she can become close to.
“Then hopefully we’ll all be able to visit her back in Ukraine when this is all over.”
Korniiuk said while she is happy to be in England she would prefer if it was under better circumstances.
“To tell you the truth I’m too tired to be feeling anything,” she said “It’s a curious mixture of feelings – sadness, tiredness.
She said she stayed in Kyiv for the first three weeks of the invasion before moving to the west of the country. Her parents, grandfather and other family members are still in Kyiv, while her brother is working for the military.
“I tried really hard to convince them [to leave],” she said. “We are all adults and we have responsibilities for our lives, so they decided to stay and I couldn’t convince them.”
Updated
A group of 40 civilians were evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel works on Sunday in a convoy with vehicles bearing United Nations symbols.
In one of the first major signs of an evacuation deal, a group of around 40 civilians arrived on Sunday at a temporary accommodation centre after leaving the area around the Azovstal plant, a Reuters photographer said.
Reuters photographs showed the civilians arriving in the Russian -controlled village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk region, around 30 km east of Mariupol, with Ukrainian number plates in a convoy with Russian forces and vehicles with United Nations symbols.
UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said after meeting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday intense discussions were under way to enable the evacuation of Azovstal.
The siege of Mariupol has turned the port city into a wasteland with an unknown death toll and thousands trying to survive without water, sanitation or food.
The war-torn city is under Russian control but some fighters and civilians remain holed up in the Azovstal works - a vast Soviet-era plant founded under Josef Stalin and designed with a labyrinth of bunkers and tunnels to withstand a major attack.
Two groups of civilians left the residential area around the Azovstal works on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry said. A video released by Russia’s defence ministry on Sunday showed vehicles bearing United Nations and Red Cross symbols.
Updated
An evacuation from Mariupol could take place today, according to local officials.
The besieged port city’s council and governor told residents who wanted to leave for the city of Zaporizhzhia to gather at 4pm, according to Reuters.
Pope Francis described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry”, in a Sunday address in St Peter’s Square.
Speaking in front of thousands of people for his noon blessing, he called for humanitarian corridors to evacuate people trapped in the Mariupol steelworks.
Reuters reports he implicitly criticised Russia, saying that Mariupol had been “barbarously bombarded and destroyed”.
“My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” he said of the mostly Russian-controlled south-eastern port city, which is named after the Virgin Mary.
Francis has not specifically mentioned Russia or Vladimir Putin since the start of the conflict on 24 February, but he has left little doubt over his views, describing the conflict as “unjustified aggression”.
“I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children,” he said.
He also questioned if everything possible was being done to bring about an end to the fighting through dialogue.
“While we are watching a macabre regression of humanity, I ask myself, along with many other anguished people if peace is really being searched for, if there really is a willingness to avoid a continuing military and verbal escalation, if everything is being done to silence the weapons,” Francis said.
Updated
Pelosi: 'We will not be bullied by Russia'
Nancy Pelosi said that the US won’t be stopped helping Ukraine by fears of provoking Russia after she became the highest-ranking US politician to visit the country since Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded.
In a press conference in Poland after her visit, she was asked about whether the US was concerned by the risk of its support provoking a Russian reaction. The speaker of the house said the US would hold its resolve.
“Let me speak for myself, do not be bullied by bullies. If they are making threats, you cannot back down,” she said.
Adam Schiff, chair of the US house intelligence committee said: “This is first and foremost about Ukraine but it’s not only about Ukraine. This is about a dictator in the Kremlin making war like it is world war two all over again with a massive invasion of his neighbour and he must be stopped.
“We are prepared to give Ukraine all the support necessary to stop this.”
Congressman Jim McGovern, who chairs the house’s rules committee and is part of the delegation said: “The question is whether the world will hold him to account. He has crossed many lines, he has committed war crimes, he has targeted hospitals, he has engaged in mass killings which have been documented.
“The question that should also be asked is whether we will hold him to account for his war crimes. Because if we don’t, the likelihood of him or somebody else doing the same thing increases.”
During the visit Pelosi was presented with the order of Princess of Olga medal by Zelenskiy for her work to strengthen Ukrainian and US ties.
In the press conference she said Volodymyr Zelenskiy had shown courage, and praised him for a “masterclass of leadership”.
An official told journalists that the bill for £33bn of aid for Ukraine is currently being written, with negotiations to take place in congress.
“We are proud of the $13.6bn dollars we have just sent and we have just finished the last drop of that,” Pelosi added.
She also repeated that a Lend-Lease arrangement would be for eastern Europe as a whole, not just Ukraine.
Updated
Japanese and Vietnamese leaders discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a meeting on Sunday, and said international law should be respected.
After talks with Vietnam’s Phạm Minh Chính in Hanoi, Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida said: “We cannot accept the actions to change status quo by force in any region of the world.”
Japan has already condemned Russia’s invasion and joined western nations in imposing sanctions against Moscow.
However Vietnam is a long-term ally of Russia’s and like many other south-east Asian countries, has avoided direct criticism.
It abstained from a vote at the UN general assembly in March that deplored the invasion.
According to Associated Press, both leaders said they rejected use of force and said international law should be followed.
Updated
Kharkiv governor says to stay in shelters amid shelling
The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv has urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling.
Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.”
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday.
The ministry said it had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield with Onyx missiles. It said the hangar contained weapons provided by the US and EU countries.
Odesa’s regional governor Maksym Marchenko said Russia had used a Bastion missile launched from Crimea, but this has yet to be verified.
Russia has also claimed it shot down two Ukrainian Su-24 bombers over Kharkiv, according to Reuters.
Updated
More reports on civilians leaving the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Saturday.
The Russian defence ministry said a total of 46 people, in two groups, left the area near the works and were provided with food and shelter.
Hundreds are thought to be holed up in the vast plant site, and thousands in the wider area following the Russian siege.
Efforts to arrange a ceasefire to allow residents to leave the city have broken down, with Moscow and Kyiv blaming each other.
Updated
German chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected criticism of Germany’s reluctance to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
He said it was untrue that Germany was not showing leadership in attempts to supply the country.
Scholz is under pressure both domestically and internationally to give heavy arms such as tanks and howitzers to Ukraine, and support an EU embargo on Russian energy imports.
A recent opinion poll published in Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag found 54% of Germans were unsatisfied with Scholz’s handling of the crisis.
“I take my decisions fast and in concert with our partners,” Scholz told Bild am Sonntag in an interview. “I find hasty actions and maverick German efforts questionable.”
The country has already reversed its policy to send “Gepard” anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine, which is also backed by the majority of Germans in the recent opinion poll.
There has also been pressure from some of Germany’s NATO allies in the chancellor’s initial decision to not arm Ukraine. Others, including Poland, are unhappy with Germany’s opposition to an EU embargo on Russian gas imports.
Referring to opinion polls, he said: “You should take note of surveys, but you must not make your actions dependent on them, especially in questions of war and peace that would be extremely dangerous.”
Civilians escape from Azovstal steel works in besieged city of Mariupol
The first civilians who have been sheltering underneath a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol have left for the first time in weeks.
A group of civilians and soldiers have been taking shelter in the Azovstal works since mid-April. Late on Saturday a fighter who was taking cover inside said about 20 women and children had managed to get out.
“We are getting civilians out of the rubble with ropes – it’s the elderly, women and children,” Sviatoslav Palamar told Reuters.
The United Nations had been looking to broker an evacuation deal to free those still trapped. Details on how are still there differ. The number is thought to be about 1,000 but Russian officials have said it could be double that figure. Reports said Russian and Ukrainian forces were respecting a local ceasefire.
In April as Russian forces looked to complete their capture of the port city, its president Vladimir Putin said that his troops to seal off the stronghold “so that not even a fly comes through”.
Updated
Summary of events
- US speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, has made a surprise visit to Ukraine. She met with Ukraine president Zelenskiy in Kyiv, telling him the US was committed to “be here” for Ukraine until the fight was done.
-
Zelenskiy says Ukrainian forces have destroyed about 1,000 Russian tanks, 2,500 armoured vehicles, and almost 200 aircraft.
- The British Foreign Office said on Sunday Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine on social media and target foreign politicians.
- Moscow has accused Ukraine of shelling civilians in Kherson.
- Twenty wounded civilians were able to evacuate from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, and are likely on their way to Zaporizhzhia. This comes as satellite images released today showed that nearly all the buildings of the steel plant had been destroyed.
- Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange with Russia, with seven soldiers and seven civilians coming home. One of the soldiers was a woman who is five months pregnant.
- A Russian missile strike on Odesa airport has damaged the runway, rendering it unusable, but there were no casualties from the attack.
- Currently, Lyman, a city of about 20,000 in the Donetsk region, is on fire from a Russian attack.
- Angelina Jolie visited Lviv today to meet children and others affected by the war.
- The Russian military has killed twice as many Mariupol residents in these two months of war as Nazi Germany did in its two years occupying the city during World War II.
- Boris Johnson has promised to provide additional military aid.
I’ll now hand over this blog to my colleagues in the UK.
The UK ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, who has moved back to Kyiv despite Russian threats against diplomats based there, said it was “overwhelming” to be back in a city that she once feared she might not see again.
“I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to Kyiv, so coming back is an extraordinary thing,” she said in her first interview from the capital since evacuating the embassy in February. “It absolutely feels like the right place to be.”
Simmons drove into the city from western Ukraine late on Friday, a journey along a highway battered by some of the most brutal Russian assaults. The charred remnants of destroyed buildings that line miles of highway are testament to the intensity of the fighting.
“It’s helpful to drive because you get a real sense of what was going on … and it’s truly shocking. But what is equally extraordinary is to see how Ukraine kept Russia out of Kyiv. Every way in which Ukraine has been able to do that is a thing to to celebrate and to treasure.”
Read more of Emma Graham-Harrison’s interview with Simmons here:
Russia should respond symmetrically to the freezing of Russian assets by some “unfriendly countries,” Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman on Russia’s state Duma, the lower house of parliament, wrote in a social media post on Sunday, Reuters has reported.
“It is right to take mirror measures towards businesses in Russia whose owners come from unfriendly countries, where such measures were taken: confiscate these assets,” Volodin wrote.
There are clear signs Russia intends to “exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term”, the latest briefing from the UK ministry of defence has said.
Since seizing the southern city of Kherson in early March, Russia has sought to legitimise its control of the city and surrounding areas through installing a pro-Russian administration.
Recent statements from this administration include declaring a return to Ukrainian control “impossible” and announcing a four-month currency transition from the Ukrainian hryvnia to the Russian rouble. The Russian rouble is due to be used in Kherson from today.
These statements are likely indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term.
Enduring control over Kherson and its transport links will increase Russia’s ability to sustain its advance to the north and west and improve the security of Russia’s control over Crimea.
Nancy Pelosi visits Kyiv
US speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, has visited president Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
In video just published by the Ukrainian president, Pelosi arrived with a delegation of US representatives.
In the short video Pelosi tells him: “We believe we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom...Your fight is a fight for everyone. So our commitment is to be here for you until the fight is done.”
Alongside the video, Zelenskiy posted: Meeting with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv. The United States is a leader in Ukraine’s strong support in the fight against Russian aggression. Thank you for helping to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state!
Ukraine's president Zelenskiy has just published video of Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv.
— Helen Davidson (@heldavidson) May 1, 2022
"We believe we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom," she said. "Your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to bet here for you until the fight is done."
Video here: pic.twitter.com/JtYUdK20SM
— Helen Davidson (@heldavidson) May 1, 2022
Updated
Yesterday Chinese state media published two interviews, with the foreign ministers of both Russia and Ukraine. It’s an interesting decision, and one they didn’t really push out on social media like they might usually with stories. China’s role in the conflict as a key “no limits” friend of Russia has been the subject of heated debate and discussion. It has put itself forward as a peacemaker but simultaneously refused to label Russia’s act as an invasion, and instead blamed the US and Nato for creating and escalating tensions.
Kuleba asked China to provide security guarantees for Kyiv, as well as from other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Xinhua reported.
“We propose that China becomes one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s security, this is a sign of our respect and trust in the People’s Republic of China.”
China in 2013 pledged to provide Ukraine with “security guarantees” if it is ever invaded or threatened with nuclear attack, but appeared evasive on the same issue in the wake of Russia’s attack, according to AFP’s report which also noted:
In response to a question about the guarantee last month, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman suggested that such “security assurances have clear limitations on the content and are triggered under specific conditions”, in reference to a similar United Nations security resolution on non-nuclear states.
Since the invasion Chinese state media has amplified Russian propaganda, refused to condemn the attack or call it an invasion, and avoided attributed Ukrainian civilian casualties to Russian forces. It’s interesting then, that in publishing the interview it did not censor strong criticisms by Kuleba.
“European countries panic because they cannot guarantee Russia will not invade them tomorrow,” he said according to a translation by Politico reporter, Stuart Lau. “If Russia is not stopped now, it will lead to more crises a few years later.”
Very interesting written interview with Ukraine’s FM Kuleba on China’s state news agency Xinhua.
— Stuart Lau (@StuartKLau) April 30, 2022
Surely Xinhua asked questions in line with government wordings, but to publish Kuleba’s words verbatim — with lots of criticism of Russia — is fascinating.
Thread: pic.twitter.com/5Y0VdWiF59
AFP notes Kuleba also accused Russia of having “compromised” Beijing’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, warning that the consequences of the global food security crisis would threaten China’s economy.
“We also believe that this war is not in China’s interests,” he was quoted as saying.
“The situation is not escalating because of Ukraine, we are exercising our right to defend ourselves,” he said, in an apparent rebuff of Chinese warnings against other states providing arms to Kyiv.
Summary of recent developments
- Ukraine president Zelenskiy says Ukrainian forces have destroyed about 1,000 Russian tanks, 2,500 armoured vehicles, and almost 200 aircraft.
- The British Foreign Office said on Sunday Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine on social media and target foreign politicians.
- Moscow has accused Ukraine of shelling civilians in Kherson.
- Twenty wounded civilians were able to evacuate from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, and are likely on their way to Zaporizhzhia. This comes as satellite images released today showed that nearly all the buildings of the steel plant had been destroyed.
- Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange with Russia, with seven soldiers and seven civilians coming home. One of the soldiers was a woman who is five months pregnant.
- A Russian missile strike on Odesa airport has damaged the runway, rendering it unusable, but there were no casualties from the attack.
- Currently, Lyman, a city of about 20,000 in the Donetsk region, is on fire from a Russian attack.
- Angelina Jolie visited Lviv today to meet children and others affected by the war.
- The Russian military has killed twice as many Mariupol residents in these two months of war as Nazi Germany did in its two years occupying the city during World War II.
- Boris Johnson has promised to provide additional military aid.
