Closing Summary
It is slightly past 10pm in Kyiv. Here is a wrap up of the day’s key events:
The Biden administration has halted the exports of a slew of consumer goods to Russia including clothes dryers, snow plows and milking machines out of concern that the goods may be repurposed to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. The list of banned consumer goods comes as the Biden administration also added 71 companies to a trade blacklist, Reuters reports.
Australia has imposed a new set of sanctions and an export ban on Russia. On Friday, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and foreign minister Penny Wong announced sanctions that will target 21 entities and three individuals. The entities include the major Russian oil company Rosneft, gold company Polyus PJSC, steel company Severstal PJSC and five banks.
Denmark will train Ukrainian F-16 pilots following a US decision to support the training. “Denmark has been working for this together with close allies,” the NATO country’s ministry of defense said, Reuters reports.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has addressed Arab League leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He said asked them not to turn a blind eye to what was happening in Ukraine, saying, “Unfortunately there are some among the world, and here among you who turn a blind eye to those cases and illegal annexations. I am here so everyone can take an honest look, no matter how hard the Russians try to influence, there must be independence.”
The US has said it will back a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 and other modern fighter jets, marking a significant boost to western support for Kyiv as it prepares a major counteroffensive. The news was welcomed by Zelenskiy and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, whose RAF will be involved in the initiative.
Russia has sanctioned former US president Barack Obama, in response to a US sanctioning 300 individuals, companies and institutions. The US measures are largely targeted at energy production.
Ukrainian air defence has claimed it destroyed 19 drones and missiles out of 28 launched on Friday morning. “Three Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea and 16 drones were shot down. Shelling continues on an almost daily basis,” Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television. Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has posted to Telegram to say that five drones were shot down overnight above his western Ukrainian region.
Vladimir Putin has said the west is trying to break up Russia into different states based on ethnic and national lines. In a speech on Friday he said that the sanctions were helping unite the Russian people rather than divide them. In comments reported by Reuters, he said: “There are attempts to drive a wedge between peoples of our country. They say Russia should be divided up into tens of different states.”
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, has claimed that the US was involved in the killing of a pro-war military blogger in a bomb blast in St Petersburg in April, and the car bombing of a nationalist writer and politician earlier in May.
More than 100,000 people have enlisted in the Russian army so far this year, former president Dmitry Medvedev has said, as Moscow seeks to recruit volunteers for its offensive in Ukraine.
Five members of a Belarusian regiment fighting with Ukrainian forces have been killed in the flashpoint east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a Belarusian opposition leader living in exile said Friday. “Heartbroken by the death of five members of the Belarusian Kastus Kalinouski regiment fighting for Ukraine in Bakhmut,” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Twitter.
The UK unveiled a swathe of new sanctions ahead of the meeting. The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced a UK ban on imports of Russian diamonds and Russian-origin copper, nickel and aluminium. Sunak also has a self-declared mission to push India into showing greater support for Ukraine.
The G7 group of nations has urged Russia to stop its objection to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and told it to halt “threatening global food supplies”.
Russia had refused the latest US request for consular access to detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March on suspicion of spying.
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we close the blog for today. Thank you for following along.
The US’s decision to support fighter jet training for Ukrainian pilots marks a major boost of western allies’ support to Ukraine in its war against Russian forces.
According to a senior Biden administration official, president Biden has already informed fellow leaders attending the G7 summit in Japan about his decision.
Just exactly how will F-16 fighter jets change the tide of war?
Dan Sabbagh explains:
In part, it is a question of how many F-16s Ukraine could obtain. The country’s air force has boldly asked for 200, a number that even a generous west may be reluctant to provide in the first instance.
Justin Bronk, an air analyst with the Rusi thinktank, cautioned that the strength of the Russian air defences meant traditional close air support – bombing enemy positions – was hard to achieve because planes were forced to fly low to evade detection. As a result, their advantages in terms of weapons and radar may only be incremental.
“Western fighters with stand-off weapons would offer Ukraine an improved capability to destroy fixed Russian targets near the frontlines from a safer distance,” he tweeted, but “they would be adding to existing strike options like Himars [rocket artillery] and drawing from limited stockpiles”.
For more on F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine, read here:
