Summary of the day
Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, has said her National Rally party needed to make a “clean break” with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
She said it was “urgent to establish a cordon sanitaire” and that “the AfD goes from provocation to provocation.”
Maximilian Krah, AfD’s lead candidate in the European parliament elections, said he will refrain from making any further campaign appearances and step down from the party’s leadership board.
The European Greens’ Terry Reintke said that despite Krah’s move, “one thing has not changed: the AfD and its far-right friends are Putin’s extended arm in the European Parliament. They want to destroy the EU and our democracy. We will stop them.”
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy reiterated an urgent need for faster western aid. “In order to destroy the enemy, deter Russian pressure, and achieve the results necessary for Ukraine, we need prompt assistance from our partners,” he said.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, said that Russia would regard the seizure of revenue from its frozen assets in the EU as a violation of all norms of the global economic system.
The head of the Donetsk regional state administration, Vadym Filashkin, said that “on May 21st, the number of the victims of the Russians in Donetsk oblast increased by 1 killed, 3 injured.”
A Russian attack on Chuhuiv in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region wounded at least seven people this morning, the region’s governor said.
Oleksandr Lytvynenko, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, told the Financial Times that Washington should lift its “absolutely unfair” ban on the Ukrainian armed forces using American-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office, has spoke with the White House national security advisor, Jake Sullivan.
“Informed him in detail about the situation at the frontline and emphasized the importance of bolstering our air defense with modern Western systems,” Yermak said.
Had a phone conversation with the National Security Advisor to @POTUS @JakeSullivan46.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) May 22, 2024
Informed him in detail about the situation at the frontline and emphasized the importance of bolstering our air defense with modern Western systems. pic.twitter.com/or9HvJKuru
