Tag: weapons

As the war enters its 823rd day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Tuesday, May 28, 2024.

Fighting

• Three people were killed and six injured in a Russian missile attack on the town of Snihurivka in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, according to the emergency services and the local governor.

• The Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office said at least one woman was killed and 11 injured in a Russian guided bomb attack that struck a sweet factory in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces had dropped about 3,200 guided aerial bombs on Ukraine this month and that Kyiv did not have enough air defence missiles to stop attacks on such a scale.

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured two villages – Ivanivka in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and Netailove in eastern Donetsk. There was no comment from Ukraine on the claims.
• Ukraine launched two attacks on the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk in its east, triggering a fire, according to Russian-appointed officials. Ukraine made no official comment on either incident. Ukrainian news outlets said the target of the second strike was an airfield.
• Russia and Belarus will hold joint air force and air defence ministry drills from May 27-31, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence said.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy excluded Russia’s participation in next month’s peace summit in Switzerland. “We do not see Russia there, because Russia will block everything. It’s clear,” he said, adding that Moscow “does not benefit from peace. It wants to destroy Ukraine and move on.”
• The European Union imposed sanctions on the media outlet Voice of Europe, its funder Viktor Medvedchuk and “covert head” Artem Marchevskyi, extending penalties imposed by the Czech Republic, which says the Prague-based platform is a Russian influence operation “to undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and freedom of Ukraine”. Medvedchuk is a pro-Kremlin oligarch and former Ukrainian lawmaker who was sent to  Russia in 2022 in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war and stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship.
• A German court jailed Thomas H, a former army captain who was stationed at a military procurement office in Koblenz, for three and a half years after finding him guilty of spying for Russia. Judges found the 54-year-old had handed over internal documents to Russia’s consulate in Bonn last May and offered to provide more material in future.

Weapons

• Spain pledged 1 billion euros ($1.1bn) in military aid, including Patriot missiles and Leopard tanks, to Ukraine as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Zelenskyy signed a security deal in Madrid. Sanchez said the agreement would boost Ukraine’s capabilities including much-needed air defence.
• Zelenskyy will visit Belgium on Tuesday and sign a security pact with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, the Belgian government said. The agreements, signed with several European allies, promise long-term security assistance in the form of arms supplies and training for Kyiv’s forces.

• Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskii said he had signed paperwork that would allow French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centres soon, and said he hoped others would join what he described as an “ambitious project”. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said later that discussions on the use of foreign instructors were continuing with France and other countries.

As the war enters its 822nd day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, May 27, 2024.

Fighting

• The death toll in Russia’s weekend attack on a hardware hypermarket in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, rose to 16, with dozens more injured, according to regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
• Ukrainian prosecutors said Russian shelling killed three people in three different towns in the eastern Donetsk region.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russia was preparing to intensify its offensive along Ukraine’s northern border. He did not go into detail but Ukrainian officials have expressed strong concern about the Sumy region. Both Kharkiv city and Sumy with about 250,000 people are within about 25km (15 miles) of the Russian border.
• Russia claimed to have captured the village of Berestove in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, located on the eastern front line close to the Luhansk region.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces were carrying out offensive attacks across the 1,000-kilometre (620 miles) front line, with pitched battles in the Chasiv Yar direction of the Donetsk region, where “the intensity of the hostilities is quite high” according to a statement from Ukraine’s General Staff.
• Ukraine’s Air Force said it shot down 12 missiles and all 31 drones launched by Russia over southern, central, western and northern Ukraine. The air force said Russia launched a total of 14 missiles and 36 drones. It did not say what had happened to those that were not shot down or whether they caused any damage.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy appealed to United States President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to personally attend a June 15-16 Ukraine peace summit being convened in Switzerland. Bern has said 160 delegations have been invited, but that Russia will not attend.
• Zelenskyy will meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Spain at noon (10:00 GMT) on Monday. It is Zelenskyy’s first official visit to Spain since he was elected in 2019, and comes as he tries to rally Ukraine’s allies to send more military aid to his country.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin, making his third foreign trip since he secured a fifth term in March, arrived in Uzbekistan where he was met by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ahead of the start of formal talks. Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union before the country broke up.
• Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda was returned for a second term in an election marked by security concerns over neighbouring Russia. Nauseda established himself as a staunch supporter of Ukraine in his first term.

Weapons

• Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reiterated her opposition to Ukraine using Western-supplied weapons supplied on targets in Russia, after the NATO chief suggested in an interview last week with the United Kingdom’s Economist newspaper that Kyiv should be allowed to strike targets beyond its border.

As the war enters its 819th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Fighting

• At least seven people were killed and dozens more injured in a Russian missile attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and home to about one million people.
• Nearly 11,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in the Kharkiv region since Russian forces began a cross-border ground offensive there on May 10, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said one woman was killed after a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on her house. The Russian Ministry of Defence said 35 Ukrainian rockets and three drones had been shot down over the Belgorod region, which lies across the border from Kharkiv.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its forces had recaptured the small village of Andriivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The Ukrainian General Staff said later that its troops were repelling three Russian assaults in the area of Andriivka and nearby Novyi. Andriivka was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in an offensive last September.
• Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula, said two people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near Simferopol, the peninsula’s main administrative centre. Ukraine has not commented on the alleged attack. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
• Russia said it brought down a Ukrainian drone in its central Tatarstan region, hundreds of kilometres from the two countries’ border.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia arrested Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, deputy head of Russia’s General Staff, and a high-ranking defence official on corruption and “abuse of power” charges in a widening crackdown on corruption in military contracts. The two are being held in custody pending trial.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally, for talks with President Alexander Lukashenko that are expected to focus on security and military exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons.
• Putin signed a decree allowing the confiscation of assets inside Russia belonging to the United States, its citizens and companies, to use as compensation over Western sanctions against Moscow.
• Russia jailed 36-year-old barman Vladimir Malina for 25 years for joining a unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine and carrying out sabotage of railway equipment.

• Russia jailed 20-year-old student Vladimir Belkovich, from Siberia’s Irkutsk region, to 13 years in prison for treason after he agreed to post leaflets on behalf of a pro-Ukraine partisan group.
• Thirteen Ukrainian children returned home from Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine with the cooperation of Qatar, officials in Kyiv said. Ukraine says about 20,000 Ukrainian children have been sent to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians.
• OVD-Info, a leading Russian rights group and protest monitoring network, said it had received a notice from YouTube threatening to block access in Russia to one of its video channels featuring news on the war in Ukraine.

Weapons

• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba again called on the country’s Western allies to send seven Patriot air defence systems. “They are needed now, not tomorrow,” he said.
• The US is preparing a new $275m military aid package for Ukraine, which will include high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), as well as 155mm and 105mm high-demand artillery rounds, Javelin and AT-4 antitank systems, antitank mines, tactical vehicles and small arms.
• Russian jamming has prevented many of Ukraine’s relatively new long-range glide bombs from hitting their intended targets, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the challenges.

As the war enters its 818th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Thursday, May 23, 2024.

Fighting

• At least 10 people were injured in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, after a Russian-guided bomb destroyed a cafe and damaged a high-rise apartment block and a nearby trolleybus. Regional prosecutors said the bus driver had to have both legs amputated as a result of the attack.

• At least seven people were hurt after a Russian attack on the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region with S-400 missiles. The attack damaged a kindergarten building and a private home, according to the regional police.

• Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said one police officer was killed after a Russian drone dropped explosives on a police car as two officers were on their way to evacuate civilians from Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Klymenko did not say what happened to the other officer.
• One person was killed after Ukrainian shelling struck villages in Russia’s Belgorod border region, according to local authorities.
• At least two people were killed and four injured in Ukrainian shelling of Lysychansk in its eastern Luhansk region, according to the Russian-installed governor, Leonid Pasechnik. Moscow has been occupying Lysychansk, which is close to the eastern front, since mid-2022.
• Russian news agencies, quoting the Ministry of Defence, said Moscow’s forces had seized control of the village of Klishchiivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, close to the city of Bakhmut. Ukraine’s military said it had been repelling attacks in the village but the situation was under control. Ukraine reclaimed Klishchiivka from the Russians in September last year.

• Russian drones struck energy facilities in Ukraine cutting power to more than 500,000 people in the northern Sumy region, according to regional authorities. The attacks targeted the cities of Shostka and Konotop, northeast of Kyiv and near the Russian border.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, said he had met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and offered to send more fighters to Ukraine. Kadyrov said tens of thousands of “well-trained and equipped fighters from the reserves” were prepared to fight for Russia in Ukraine if such an order were given. A total of 43,500 soldiers had already served there, including 18,000 volunteers, he said.

• A Russian court is considering a prosecutor’s request to designate former Russian TV news anchor Alexander Nevzorov and his wife Lidia Nevzorova as an “extremist group”. Nevzorov, 65, runs a YouTube channel with nearly 2 million subscribers where he often criticises the war in Ukraine. He and his wife fled Russia in March 2022. Nevzorov was sentenced in absentia last year to eight years by a Russian court for spreading “fake news” about Moscow’s army.

• Russia handed six more Ukrainian children – aged from six to 17 – to Kyiv in a deal brokered by Qatar, Russia’s TASS news agency reported. Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia.

• Russian patriotic bloggers expressed anger over the arrest of Major General Ivan Popov, the former commander of Russia’s 58th army, who was detained for “large-scale fraud”.  Popov was sacked last July after he criticised army leaders and raised concerns about the high casualty rate in Ukraine.

Weapons

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for upgraded defence systems, in particular, to protect against guided bombs, which he said were now Russia’s “main instrument” in its attacks on Ukrainian cities.
• The Swedish government agreed on additional military support to Ukraine totalling 75 billion crowns ($7.01bn) over three years. Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said Swedish-made weapons had “already proven themselves on the battlefield”.
• Ukraine has equipped some of its naval drones with multiple rocket-launching systems and used them to fire at Russian positions in combat, a Ukrainian intelligence source told the Reuters news agency. The source, who declined to be named, said some “Sea Babies”, a model of naval drones used by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), had been equipped with grad multiple-rocket launching systems.
• British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps accused China of providing or preparing to provide Russia with lethal aid for use in its war against Ukraine. Shapps said it was a “significant development” but did not provide evidence to support his claim.

As the war enters its 817th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Fighting

• Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelenskyy said his country’s troops are achieving “tangible” results against Russian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region but the situation on the eastern front near the cities of Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk and Kurakhove was “extremely difficult”.
• A Russian official said Moscow’s forces controlled “about 40 percent” of Vovchansk, a town near the border with Russia and at the epicentre of fighting.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) said that more than 14,000 people had been displaced from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched a ground offensive there on May 10. The WHO said some 189,000 people were still living within 25km (15 miles) of the border with Russia and facing “significant risks” as a result of the fighting.
• The Ukrainian military said it destroyed the Russian navy’s Tsiklon, a cruise missile carrier, in Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea on the night of May 19.
• Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Vysotska said more than 3,000 prisoners had applied to join the military since the law was amended to allow certain convicts to serve in the armed forces.
• Moscow began nuclear weapons drills close to Ukraine in exercises the Ministry of Defence said were to test the “readiness” of its “non-strategic nuclear weapons… to ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state”.

Politics and diplomacy

• The European Union formally adopted a plan to use windfall profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU for Ukraine’s defence, the Belgian government said. Under the agreement, 90 percent of the proceeds will go into an EU-run fund for military aid for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, with the remainder providing Kyiv with other forms of support.

• A court in Moscow ruled that investigators acted lawfully when they refused to look into two alleged attempts on the life of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza in 2015 and 2017. Kara-Murza, a dual citizen of Russia and the United Kingdom, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for treason over his criticism of the Ukraine war. A media investigation into the 2015 and 2017 incidents suggested he had been poisoned by Russia’s FSB intelligence service.
• Russian general Ivan Popov, who was sacked last July after he criticised army leaders and raised concerns about the high casualty rate in Ukraine, was arrested on suspicion of “large-scale fraud”. State news agencies said the 49-year-old was remanded in custody for two months by a military court.

Weapons

• Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba urged the country’s allies to consider shooting down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory to better protect its cities from Russian aerial attacks. Kuleba, who was speaking alongside visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said Ukraine’s Western backers should not see such a step as “escalatory”.
• Baerbock, on her eighth visit to Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, acknowledged the situation on the front had “dramatically deteriorated”, and that Ukraine needed air defence as an “absolute priority” amid continuing Russian drone, rocket and missile attacks.

As the war enters its 816th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, May 20, 2024.

Fighting

• At least 11 people were killed and dozens injured after Russia bombed a busy lakeside resort on the edge of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv and attacked villages in the surrounding area.
• At least 13 people were injured after the Ukrainian military shelled areas of Russia’s southern Belgorod region, according to Belgorod’s regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
• The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian attacks in the Kharkiv area “slowed down a bit” but that forces “continue their attempts to break through our defences near Vovchansk, Starytsya and Lyptsi”. Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which claimed earlier to have seized Starytsya, said its units “continued to advance into the depth of the enemy’s defences”.
• Officials said Russia shot down at least 103 Ukrainian drones, including 62 over Russian regions, as well as missiles that targeted Crimea, which Moscow seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. An oil refinery in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region was forced to halt operations after six drones crashed into the site.
• Ukraine’s military said its forces sank the Russian minesweeper Kovrovets in the attack on Crimea.
• Ukraine’s Air Force chief said air defences brought down all 37 Shahed attack drones launched by Russia. The weapons were shot down in the Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Kherson regions. There were no reports of damage or casualties.

Politics and diplomacy

• A court in Saint Petersburg ordered the seizure of assets of Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank in Russia in response to a lawsuit over a planned liquefied natural gas terminal in the Baltic Sea, which was cancelled when sanctions were imposed over Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• Oleksandr Usyk beat Tyson Fury to win the world’s first undisputed heavyweight championship in 25 years. The Ukrainian won the 12-round fight in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by a split decision.

Weapons

• Following the latest Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of using its weapons to “terrorise our cities and communities, to kill ordinary people”. He said Ukraine needed “two Patriots for Kharkiv, [which] will fundamentally change the situation”, referring to the sophisticated US-made air defence system.

As the war enters its 813th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, May 17, 2024.

Fighting

• Visiting Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation in the northeast was “extremely difficult” but “under control” after the military partially halted a Russian advance, most notably thwarting an invasion of Vovchansk, 5km (3 miles) from the border with Russia.
• Sergiy Bolvinov, the head of police investigations in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, accused Russia of taking “30 to 40” civilians captive in Vovchansk to use as “human shields” near their command centre.
• General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, said he did not believe Russia’s military had the troop numbers to make a strategic breakthrough in the Kharkiv region and he was confident Ukrainian forces would hold their lines there.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia was directing its most intense assaults on the front line near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia’s offensive has been unrelenting for months.
• An air raid alert in the northeastern Kharkiv region remained in place for more than 16 and a half hours amid Russian drone and missile attacks. Officials said five drones hit parts of the city of Kharkiv, starting a fire. There were no reports of casualties. The alert was lifted in the early hours of Friday.
• Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said a woman and her four-year-old son were killed when their car was hit by a Ukrainian drone. Two other people in the vehicle were injured.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. The two held talks, walked in a park and drank tea. Xi said the two countries’ deepening relationship was a “stabilising force” in the world and that he hoped the war in Ukraine could be resolved peacefully. China has not condemned Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Putin said he was grateful for China’s efforts to resolve the crisis.
• Russia expelled Adrian Coghill, the United Kingdom’s defence attache, from Moscow a week after Britain ordered Russia’s defence attache to leave London for being an “undeclared military intelligence officer”. UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said Moscow’s move was because Coghill “personified the UK’s unwavering support for Ukraine“.
• Sri Lanka said it would send a high-level delegation to Russia to investigate the fate of hundreds of nationals reportedly fighting in the war in Ukraine. The Defence Ministry said social media campaigns via WhatsApp have targeted ex-military personnel with promises of lucrative salaries and citizenship in Russia, warning its nationals not to be duped.

Weapons

• The United States announced sanctions on two Russian nationals and three Russian companies for facilitating arms transfers between Russia and North Korea, including ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Russia had already used at least 40 North Korean-produced ballistic missiles against Ukraine.
• Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, denied Pyongyang was selling weapons to Russia, saying it was a “most absurd theory”, according to state media. UN monitors have found debris from North Korean missiles in Ukraine.
• Denmark said it would send Ukraine a new military aid package, mostly of air defence and artillery, worth about 5.6 billion Danish crowns ($815.47m).

As the war enters its 812th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Thursday, May 16, 2024.

Fighting

• Intense fighting raged in Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region about 5km (3 miles) from the border with Russia. Oleksiy Kharkivskyi, the town’s police chief, said the situation was “extremely difficult”, while Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian troops managed to “partially” push back some Russian infantry groups but “defensive actions” were ongoing on the town’s northern and northwestern fringes.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed Russian forces had taken control of the settlements of Hlyboke and Lukyantsi in the northeastern Kharkiv region, and Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhia region.

• Regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said a Russian air attack on Ukraine’s city of Dnipro killed two people and injured several more.

• At least 25 people were injured, three of them seriously, after Russian missiles and guided bombs struck Ukraine’s southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv. The attack also damaged apartment blocks, homes, schools and a medical facility, local officials said.

• At least two people were injured in Russian shelling of a central district of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said the injured were being treated in hospital.

• The Russian Defence Ministry said its air force destroyed 10 long-range Ukrainian missiles launched at Sevastopol in Crimea, which Moscow invaded and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It did not say whether there was any damage.

• Sri Lanka said at least 16 of its citizens had been killed fighting as mercenaries in the war in Ukraine, mostly on the Russian side.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cancelled visits to Spain and Portugal that were scheduled to take place this week.
• Swiss President Viola Amherd said delegations from more than 50 countries, including in South America, Africa and the Middle East, had so far signed up for next month’s Ukraine peace summit. Switzerland is trying to persuade more countries to join, including China.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Thursday for a two-day visit where he will hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In an interview with Chinese state news agency Xinhua ahead of the visit, he backed China’s peace proposals for Ukraine.

• European Union ambassadors agreed to expand sanctions on Russian media to four more outlets, accusing them of publishing propaganda. EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova said Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvestija and Rossiyskaya Gazeta would be added to the list, which already includes Sputnik and RT. Jourova said Russian funding of EU media, nongovernmental organisations and political parties would also be banned.

• Nadezhda Buyanova, a 68-year-old Moscow paediatrician, went on trial for spreading “fake” information on the army after the ex-wife of a soldier killed in Ukraine lodged a complaint about an alleged comment Buyanova made during a consultation.

Weapons

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $2bn in additional military aid for Ukraine and said Washington was rushing ammunition, armoured vehicles, missiles and air defences to the country to ensure their speedy delivery to the front line.
• Putin said Russia’s total defence and security spending may reach a little more than 8.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024

As the war enters its 811th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, May 15, 2024.

Fighting

• At least 20 people were injured in northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, after Russia struck residential areas, including a high-rise apartment block, with guided bombs and artillery shells.

• The United Nations said at least eight civilians had been killed and 35 injured since Russia began a new offensive in the northeastern region on Friday. It called on Russia to “immediately cease its armed attack against Ukraine – in line with the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly” – and withdraw to the internationally recognised borders.
• Ukraine’s military said its forces pulled back to new positions in two areas of the Kharkiv region and warned of a Russian force buildup to the north near its Sumy region. Russia said it had made further inroads and taken a 10th border village, Buhruvatka.
• Ukraine’s Air Force said defence systems destroyed all 18 attack drones that Russia launched over several regions, including the Kyiv region and the front line.
• Russian officials said one person was injured and several buildings damaged in a Ukrainian air attack on the border city of Belgorod, with Russia’s air defence destroying 25 missiles over the broader Belgorod region.
• Russian media said a Ukrainian drone attack derailed a cargo train and led to a fire in a diesel tank in the southern Russian region of Volgograd, mangling several hundred metres of track. Russian Railways said the incident was the result of “interference by unauthorised persons”.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a surprise visit to Kyiv, promised Ukraine that military assistance that would make “a real difference” on the battlefield was on its way.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China from May 16-17 for talks with President Xi Jinping. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying said the two will discuss “bilateral ties, cooperation in various fields, and international and regional issues of common interest”.
• South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol confirmed Seoul’s participation in a Ukraine peace summit that will be held in Switzerland in June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X.
• Russia’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russia-United Kingdom national and prominent Kremlin and war critic, against a 25-year jail sentence on treason and other charges. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the decision was an “outrage” and that Kara-Murza was a political prisoner.
• International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan said he would not be intimidated by threats as his office investigates possible war crimes in Ukraine. Russia put Khan on its wanted list after the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin and Russia’s children’s commissioner for their role in the alleged deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia.
• Ireland said it would slash a weekly payment for all Ukrainian refugees in state accommodation from 220 euros ($238) to just 38.80 euros ($41.96) from August. Just more than 100,000 Ukrainians have fled to Ireland since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Nearly half are living in state-provided accommodation.

Weapons

• Minister of Defence Sebastien Lecornu said France would send more Aster surface-to-air missiles for the Franco-Italian SAMP/T-MAMBA air defence system defending Kyiv.
• Russia said its submarine-launched Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile had been put into service, a key element in the modernisation of its nuclear arsenal.