Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting via videoconference in Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2022. (AP/PTI)Russia Ukraine War, Mariupol Fall to Russia: Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that the Ukrainian town of Lyman had fallen under the full control of Russian and Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, news agency Reuters reported. The claim comes a day after pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said they had fully captured the town, a railway hub west of Sievierodonetsk.
A ship has entered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol for the first time since Russia completed its capture of the city to load metal and ship it east to Russia, TASS news agency reported Saturday, in a move that Kyiv decried as looting. A spokesperson for the port told TASS that the vessel would be loading 2,700 tonnes of metal before travelling 160 km east to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Monday.
Russia successfully test-fired a hypersonic Zircon cruise missile over a distance of about 1,000 km, the defence ministry said Saturday. The missile was fired from the Barents Sea and hit a target in the White Sea, it said. Video released by the ministry showed the missile being fired from a ship and blazing into the sky on a steep trajectory.
However, breaking with the party line in a rare show of opposition to his country’s war in Ukraine, a Communist Party legislative deputy in Russia’s Far East demanded an end to the military operation and withdrawal of Russian forces. “We understand that if our country doesn’t stop the military operation, we’ll have more orphans in our country,” the deputy said at a meeting of Russia’s Primorsk regional Legislative Assembly.
A view shows a mural on the wall of an apartment building damaged during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine May 26, 2022. (Reuters)
Local resident Anatolii Virko plays a piano outside a house likely damaged after a Russian bombing in Velyka Kostromka village, Ukraine, May 19, 2022. (AP)
Hundreds of Lithuanians are clubbing together to buy an advanced military drone for Ukraine in its war against Russia, in a show of solidarity with a fellow country formerly under Moscow's rule. Some 4.4 million euros ($4.1 million) have been raised in just three days - out of the 5 million euros needed - largely in small amounts, according to Laisves TV, a Lithuanian internet broadcaster that launched the drive.
"Before this war started, none of us thought that we would be buying guns. But it's a normal thing now. Something must be done for the world to get better," said Agne Belickaite, 32, who sent 100 euros as soon as the fundraising launched on Wednesday.
"I've been donating to buy guns for Ukraine for a while now. And will do so until the victory," she told Reuters, adding she was motivated in part by fears Russia could attack Lithuania. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday to release the 2,500 Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant detained by Russian forces, the Elysee palace said. The two European leaders, in a joint call, also urged Putin to accept a direct exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the palace said.
Russia said this month that almost 2,000 Ukrainians had surrendered after making a last stand in the ruins of Mariupol, where they had held out for weeks in bunkers and tunnels beneath the vast Azovstal steelworks.
Macron and Scholz also insisted on the urgency of lifting the Russian blockade of the port of Odesa to allow Ukrainian grain exports, the palace said. The Kremlin said Putin told Macron and Scholz in the call that Russia was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports. (Reuters)
Russian forces were assaulting the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk on Saturday after saying they had captured the nearby rail hub of Lyman as Moscow pressed its offensive in the eastern Donbas. Russian gains in recent days indicate a shift in momentum in the war, now in its fourth month. The invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region of Donbas, a main Kremlin war goal, despite Ukrainian resistance.
Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday its troops and allied separatist forces were now in full control of Lyman, site of a railway junction and lying west of the Siversky Donets River in the Donetsk region that neighbours Luhansk.
However Hanna Malyar, Ukraine's deputy defence minister, said the battle for Lyman continued, the ZN.ua website reported. The Russian forces were likely to try to cross the river in coming days in the next phase of the Kremlin's Donbas offensive, the British defence ministry said in its daily intelligence report on Saturday.
Sievierodonetsk, some 60 km (40 miles) from Lyman on the eastern side of the river and the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, is now under heavy assault from the Russians. "Sievierodonetsk is under constant enemy fire," Ukraine's police force said in a social media post on Saturday. (Reuters)
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was prevented from leaving Ukraine to take part in a meeting of a NATO body in Lithuania, his party's parliamentary faction said on Saturday.
Poroshenko was stopped twice at a border crossing with Poland while he was on his way to the meeting of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly, a consultative interparliamentary organisation, the statement said.
Ukrainian media reported Poroshenko could not cross the border due to "technical problems" with a permit allowing him to leave the country. "Poroshenko had received all the formal permissions to leave the country and had been included ... in the official delegation of the Parliament of Ukraine for this event," his European Solidarity parliamentary faction said. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the leaders of France and Germany in a phone call on Saturday that Russia was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to export grain from Black Sea ports, the Kremlin said. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday he's confident Turkey's objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO can be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders at the end of next month.
At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the US has no reason to believe Turkey's concerns cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey's top diplomat said Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could support their membership.
“The United States fully supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be confident that both will soon be NATO members,” Blinken said. "We look forward to being able to call Finland and Sweden our allies." Haavisto said his country and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their concerns in recent days and said those discussions would continue with an eye toward resolving them before the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June. (AP/Matthew Lee)
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said that he had a phone conversation with UK prime minister Boris Johnson. In a tweet, Zelenskyy said they spoke about “strengthening defence for Ukraine, intensifying work on security guarantees, supplying fuel to Ukraine”.
“We must work together to prevent a food crisis and unblock Ukraine’s ports,” he added.
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A branch of Ukraine's Orthodox Church that remained loyal to Moscow after a 2019 schism has said it will break with the Russian church over the country's invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine was given permission by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide to form a church independent of Moscow in 2019, largely ending centuries of religious ties between the two countries. However many parishes, especially in Ukraine's east, elected to remain loyal under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate.
Following a meeting of of its leadership the church announced that it would declare its "full independence" from Russia. "The council has approved the corresponding additions and changes to the Statute on the Management of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, indicating the full autonomy and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," it said in a statement late on Friday. (Reuters)
Ukraine has started receiving Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday, saying the arms would bolster forces fighting Russia's invasion.
"The coastal defence of our country will not only be strengthened by Harpoon missiles – they will be used by trained Ukrainian teams," Reznikov wrote on his Facebook page.
He said Harpoon shore-to-ship missiles would be operated alongside Ukrainian Neptune missiles in the defence of the country's coast including the southern port of Odesa. After launching its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia imposed a naval blockade of Ukrainian ports, hampering vital grain exports.
It has also used its Black Sea fleet to launch missile attacks against Ukraine, which has since started receiving Western military aid. Reznikov said the supplies of Harpoon missiles were the result of cooperation between several countries, saying the deliveries from Denmark took place "with the participation of our British friends". (Reuters)
Russia successfully test-fired a hypersonic Zircon cruise missile over a distance of about 1,000 km (625 miles), the defence ministry said on Saturday. The missile was fired from the Barents Sea and hit a target in the White Sea, it said. Video released by the ministry showed the missile being fired from a ship and blazing into the sky on a steep trajectory.
President Vladimir Putin has described the Zircon as part of a new generation of unrivalled arms systems. Hypersonic weapons can travel at nine times the speed of sound, and Russia has conducted previous test-launches of the Zircon from warships and submarines in the past year. (Reuters)
Russia's military has suffered heavy losses of men and equipment during its three-month invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a "special operation", but it has continued to stage high-profile weapons tests to remind the world of its prowess in missile technology. (Reuters)
Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday that the Ukrainian town of Lyman had fallen under the full control of Russian and Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. The claim comes a day after pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said they had fully captured the town, a railway hub west of Sievierodonetsk.
Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had captured most of Lyman but that its forces were blocking an advance to Sloviansk, a city a half-hour drive further southwest. Ukrainian and Russian forces had been fighting for Lyman for several days. (Reuters)
A ship has entered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol for the first time since Russia completed its capture of the city to load metal and ship it east to Russia, TASS news agency reported Saturday, in a move that Kyiv decried as looting.
A spokesperson for the port told TASS that the vessel would be loading 2,700 tonnes of metal before travelling 160 km east to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Monday. The spokesperson did not say where the metal being shipped had been produced.
Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova said the shipment amounted to looting by Russia. "Looting in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine continues," she wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "Following the theft of Ukrainian grain, the occupiers resorted to exporting metal products from Mariupol." (Reuters)
As much as 8 billion rubles (about Rs 1,000 crore) of dividend income belonging to Indian oil firms is stuck in Russia after the Putin administration clamped down on dollar repatriation, officials said.
Indian state oil firms have invested $5.46 billion in buying stakes in four different assets in Russia. These include a 49.9 per cent stake in Vankorneft oil and gas field and another 29.9 per cent in TAAS-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha fields. They get dividends on profits made by the operating consortium from selling oil and gas produced from the fields.
"We had been regularly getting our dividend income from the projects but since the war in Ukraine led to volatility in foreign exchange rates, the Russian government has put restrictions on repatriation of dollars from that country," said Harish Madhav, Director (Finance), Oil India Ltd, which is one of the partners in the fields. (PTI)
Russian gas producer Gazprom said Saturday its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point stood at 43.96 million cubic metres (mcm), slightly up from 43.6 mcm on Friday.
An application to supply gas via another major entry point, Sokhranovka, was rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said. (Reuters)
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said while Russian forces had begun direct assaults on built-up areas of Sievierodonetsk, they would likely struggle to take ground in the city itself.
"Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban terrain throughout the war," they said.
Russian troops advanced after piercing Ukrainian lines last week in the city of Popasna, south of Sievierodonetsk. Russia's eastern gains follow the withdrawal of its forces from approaches to the capital, Kyiv, and a Ukrainian counter-offensive that pushed its forces back from Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv. (Reuters)
Is the war in Ukraine entering a new and, perhaps, even more dangerous phase? The answer to this question depends on seeing Ukraine as a two-front war. There is the battle being fought in Ukraine, where the country has admirably held back Russian power, and cut it to size. But it is still not clear what the endgame of this struggle is going to be. It is not very likely that Ukraine will be able to enforce all its territorial claims. Nor is it likely that Russia will want to simply walk away from this war under a narrative of total defeat.
How much territory in Ukraine will Russia want to hold on to so that the war does not count as a complete political disaster for Vladimir Putin is an open question. What means it is willing to deploy to devastate Ukraine is also an open question. In many ways, Ukraine has suffered immense devastation already, with more than 10 million people displaced and the country’s infrastructure destroyed. It has found immense reservoirs of national resolve, and support from the West. But whether that will be enough to achieve its objectives is not clear. The risk of Ukraine overplaying its immense success is real. There could be a protracted stalemate, but one that will continue to impose immense humanitarian costs on Ukraine. Putin could escalate, not for purposes of winning but to inflict punishment. (Read more)
The governor of Ukraine's Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said early on Saturday that there are some 10,000 Russian troops in the eastern region.
"These are the (units) that are permanently in Luhansk region, that are trying to assault and are attempting to make gains in any direction they can," Gaidai said on Ukrainian television. (Reuters)
Former President Donald Trump said if the US could donate money to Ukraine, it should be able to improve the security of its own schools.
"This is not a matter of money. This is a matter of will. If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we can do this," he told a meeting of the National Rifle Association. There was large bipartisan support for the nearly $40 billion in military aid the US Congress approved earlier this month, but Trump said the money would have been better spent at home.
"Before we nation-build the rest of the world, we should be building safe schools for our own children in our own nation," Trump told a crowd just days after a school shooting in the Texan city of Uvalde. He also claimed the war in Ukraine would have never happened if he was still president.
"What did they have left, with all the shooting, all the rockets, every city is being levelled, what are they going to have, there is no win here for anybody," he said. (Deutsche Welle)
Russian forces have likely captured most of the town on Lyman in the north of Donetsk, said the UK intelligence agency in its daily update.
Lyman is strategically important because it is the site of a major railway junction, and also gives access to important rail and road bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River, said the British Defence Intelligence department.
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor said on Friday it had opened administrative cases against Alphabet Inc’s Google and six other foreign technology companies for alleged violations of personal data legislation.
Moscow has clashed with Big Tech over content, censorship, data and local representation in a simmering dispute that has erupted into a full-on information battle since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24.
Russia fined Google 3 million roubles ($46,540) last year for not storing the personal data of Russian users in databases on Russian territory, and on Friday said it had opened a new case over what it called Google’s repeated failure to comply with Russian legislation. (Read more)
Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp dedicated Saturday's Champions League final against Real Madrid in Paris to the people of Ukraine, expressing support for the country against Russia's invasion.
The game, a rematch of the 2018 final, had been scheduled for St Petersburg's Gazprom Arena but was shifted to the Stade de France after Russia's February 24 invasion of its neighbour.
"I am happy that the game is here for thousands of reasons," Klopp told reporters. The war is still going on and we have to think about that." The German said moving the final to Paris was "exactly the right message that Russia should get".
"We play this final for all the people in Ukraine. I am sure some people in Ukraine can still watch it and we do it for you, 100%," Klopp said. (Read more)
Three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, America and its allies are quietly debating the inevitable question: How does this end?
In recent days, presidents and prime ministers as well as the Democratic and Republican party leaders in the United States have called for victory in Ukraine. But just beneath the surface are real divisions about what that would look like — and whether “victory” has the same definition in the United States, in Europe and, perhaps most importantly, in Ukraine.
After three months of remarkable unity in response to the Russian invasion — resulting in a flow of lethal weapons into Ukrainian hands and a broad array of financial sanctions that almost no one expected, least of all Putin — the emerging fissures about what to do next are notable. (Read more)
Breaking with the party line in a rare show of opposition to his country's war in Ukraine, a Communist Party legislative deputy in Russia's Far East demanded an end to the military operation and withdrawal of Russian forces.
“We understand that if our country doesn't stop the military operation, we'll have more orphans in our country,” Leonid Vasyukevich said at a meeting of the Primorsk regional Legislative Assembly in the Pacific port of Vladivostok on Friday.
His comments, which he addressed to President Vladimir Putin, were shown in a video posted on a Telegram channel emanating from the region. Another deputy followed to support Vasyukevich's views but the legislative assembly's chairman issued a statement afterward calling the remarks a “political provocation” not supported by the majority of lawmakers. (AP)
➡️ In the Kherson region north of Russian-held Crimea, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were fortifying their positions and trapping civilians with constant shelling.
➡️ Ukraine said its forces may need to retreat from their last pocket of resistance in Luhansk to avoid being captured by Russian troops pressing a rapid advance in the east that has shifted the momentum of the three-month-old war.
➡️ Zelenskyy said Russia was weaponising a global food supply crisis and the world must prevent large-scale famine. Moscow did not appear ready for serious peace talks, he said. The Kremlin blamed Kyiv for stalled peace talks.
➡️ The EU is seeking a deal this weekend to ban Russian oil deliveries by sea but not pipeline to win over Hungary. Zelenskyy has accused the EU of dithering.
➡️ Russia will need huge financial resources to fund its military operation in Ukraine, its finance minister said. The economy minister blamed Russia's economic troubles on low household spending.
➡️ An EU summit on Monday and Tuesday could see divisions between members who want to take a hard line against Russia and those calling for a ceasefire.
The US Army said it has awarded a contract worth $625 million to Raytheon Technologies Corp for anti-aircraft Stinger missiles in order to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine.
The shoulder-fired anti-aircraft Stinger missiles made by Raytheon were in hot demand in Ukraine, where they have successfully stopped Russian assaults from the air, and in neighbouring European countries which fear they may also need to beat back Russian forces.
US troops have limited use for the current supply of Stingers — a lightweight, self-contained weapon that can be deployed quickly to defend against helicopters, airplanes, drones and even cruise missiles — but the United States needs to maintain its supply on hand while it develops the next generation of a "man-portable air defense system." (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday he's confident Turkey's objections to Finland and Sweden joining Nato can be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders at the end of next month.
At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the US has no reason to believe Turkey's concerns cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey's top diplomat said Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could support their membership.
“The United States fully supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be confident that both will soon be Nato members,” Blinken said. "We look forward to being able to call Finland and Sweden our allies." Haavisto said his country and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their concerns in recent days and said those discussions would continue with an eye toward resolving them before the Nato summit in Madrid at the end of June. (AP)
Moscow pressed the West on Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyiv's inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products due to the conflict.
Britain immediately accused Russia of "trying to hold the world to ransom," insisting there would be no sanctions relief, and a top U.S. diplomat blasted the "sheer barbarity, sadistic cruelty and lawlessness" of the invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow "is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted," according to a Kremlin readout of the call. (AP)
The governor of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, which has almost completely fallen under Russian control, on Friday said it was possible that Kyiv's forces would be forced to retreat from the final pocket of resistance to avoid being captured.
"The Russians will not be able to capture Luhansk region in the coming days as analysts have predicted," Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said in a post on the Telegram messaging service, referring to the near-surrounded cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
"We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However it is possible that in order not to be surrounded we will have to retreat," he said. (Reuters)
Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed unblocking wheat exports from Ukraine to tackle the food crisis which is threatening the world's poorest countries, Draghi's office said on Friday.
Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports has prevented shipments of grain, of which both countries are major exporters. Russia accuses Ukraine of mining the ports and Ukraine has described the Russian position as "blackmail".
In a phone call, Draghi assured the Italian government's support for Ukraine along with the rest of the European Union countries. (Reuters)
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him on a telephone call on Friday that Moscow would meet its natural gas delivery commitments and was ready to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine.
He made the comments to reporters after the two leaders held a 45-minute call. (Reuters)
Russia's President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of "sabotaging" the negotiating process between the two countries, the Kremlin said, citing comments he made to Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in a phone call on Friday.
Putin also informed Nehammer about actions that Russia was taking to secure safe passage for vessels in the Azov and Black Seas, the Kremlin said in a statement. (Reuters)
Russia has placed temporary restrictions on the current accounts of Italian individuals and companies that bank with the local units of Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit, two people familiar with the matter said.
Confirming press reports, the people said the Bank of Russia had told the local arms of Italy's top two lenders that from May 25, Italian residents and companies, as well as the Italian consulates, could not withdraw money from their accounts without approval from the local bank heads.
Deposits that lift an account's balance above 100,000 euros ($107,150) are also banned, in a measure matching one imposed by the European Union on Russian nationals, the sources said. Also, Italian companies and citizens who do not have a Russian residency permit would not be allowed to open new accounts, they added. (Reuters)
Ukraine has backed a request by state gas company Naftogaz to apply for a 300 million euro ($321 million) loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to purchase natural gas to ensure supply, the prime minister said.
The government had given its backing to the proposed loan, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a statement on the Telegram messaging service. (Reuters)
Russia will need huge financial resources to fund its military operation in Ukraine, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday.
Siluanov said Russia had earmarked 8 trillion roubles ($123 billion) of stimulus to support the economy in the current circumstances. "(These are) huge amounts of money. We need these resources to support the economy, to support our citizens," Siluanov told a university audience.
Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, triggering a barrage of Western sanctions. (Reuters)
Ukrainian troops are fighting to keep control of the northwestern and southeastern parts of the town of Lyman, the country's defence ministry said on Friday, as Russia's offensive in east Ukraine gathers pace.
Ukrainian troops were "counteracting attempts" by Russia to push its offensive towards the key Ukrainian town of Sloviansk, defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said at a briefing. (Reuters)
European Union countries are negotiating a deal on Russian oil sanctions that would embargo shipment deliveries but delay sanctions on oil delivered by pipeline to win over Hungary and other landlocked member states, officials said on Friday.
"The idea is to split the oil embargo into pipeline and seaborne deliveries," said one official. "Pipeline would get an exemption for some time to organise a replacement."
Another official said that an agreement could be reached by EU member states' ambassadors in Brussels on Sunday, on time for their leaders to agree at a May 30-31 summit.
Hungary's resistance to oil sanctions - and the reluctance of a handful of other countries - has held up implementation of a sixth package of sanctions by the 27-member EU against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (Reuters)
Russian forces on Friday pounded the last Ukrainian strongholds in a separatist-controlled eastern province of Ukraine, including a city where authorities said 1,500 people have been killed and 60% of residential buildings destroyed since the start of the war.
Ukraine's foreign minister warned that without a new injection of foreign weapons, Ukrainian forces would not be able to stop Russia from seizing Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk, locations that are crucial to Russia's goal of capturing all of Ukraine's industrial Donbas region.
The cities are the last areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up the region. Russian forces have made slow but persistent advances as they bombarded and sought to encircle both Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. (AP)
Turkey expects Sweden and Finland to take concrete action and halt what it says is their support for terrorist groups in order for Ankara to lift its objections to them joining NATO, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO last week, seeking to boost security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They hoped it would be a quick accession process and other NATO members touted the planned enlargement as historic.
However, Turkey challenged the move saying they harbour people linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is making slow but palpable progress in the Donbas in east Ukraine, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday.
"I'm afraid that Putin, at great cost to himself and to the Russian military, is continuing to chew through ground in Donbas," he told Bloomberg UK. "He's continuing to make gradual, slow, but I'm afraid palpable, progress and therefore it is absolutely vital that we continue to support the Ukrainians militarily."
Russia calls its invasion that it launched on Feb. 24 a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "de-nazify" its neighbour. Ukraine and the West say these are false pretexts for a war of aggression. Johnson said Ukraine needed more military support, including multiple-launch rocket systems, and said the conflict had to end. (Reuters)
Ukraine's state gas company Naftogaz said on Friday it had launched a pre-arbitration procedure against its Russian counterpart Gazprom, claiming the latter underpaid contractually agreed gas transit fees.
"There is some time during which we should try to resolve the issue before arbitration, if we do not resolve it - (we will begin) new arbitration," Naftogaz CEO Yuri Vitrenko told the Interfax Ukraine news agency on Friday. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said Ukraine was not eager to talk to Russia's Vladimir Putin but that it has to face the reality that this will likely be necessary to end the war.
"There are things to discuss with the Russian leader. I'm not telling you that to me our people are eager to talk to him, but we have to face the realities of what we are living through," Zelenskyy said in an address to an Indonesian think tank.
"What do we want from this meeting... We want our lives back... We want to reclaim the life of a sovereign country within its own territory," he said, adding that Russia did not appear to be ready yet for serious peace talks. (Reuters)
Ukraine's foreign minister is pleading with Western nations to provide Kyiv with heavy weapons to enable it to push Russian forces back.
Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday night tweeted a video of himself answering questions submitted on Twitter and said: “We need heavy weapons. The only position where Russia is better than us it's the amount of heavy weapons they have. Without artillery, without multiple launch rocket systems we won't be able to push them back.”
Kuleba said that the situation in the east of the country, where the Russian forces are on the offensive, “is as dire as people say.” He added: “I would even say it's even worse than people say. We need weapons. If you really care for Ukraine, weapons, weapons and weapons again,” the minister stressed. (AP)
Pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said on Friday that they have established full control over the strategic town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Russian forces had been fighting for the Donbas region town for several days. (Reuters)
Russian gas producer Gazprom said on Friday its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point stood at 43.6 million cubic metres (mcm), slightly down from 44.5 mcm on Thursday.
An application to supply gas via another major entry point, Sokhranovka, was rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said. (Reuters)
With fighting having moved away from the capital to the east, there is a sense of normality returning to Kyiv, DW correspondent Rebecca Ritters reports.
She said feelings ranged from frustration and fatigue with the war to hopefulness about the outcome. "People here really still believe Ukraine can win this war. They say the other option is just too horrible to think about. People are remaining hopeful."
"It definitely feels like more of a normal city, if you will. More restaurants and cafes are open, and you see more people out in the streets," she said, adding: "For all intents and purposes you could almost be forgiven for forgetting that the war is on from time to time — except that people are talking about it. It is the main topic of conversation, people are still very worried." (Deutsche Welle)
The United States on Friday won the latest round of a legal battle to seize a $325-million Russian-owned superyacht in Fiji, with the case now appearing headed for the Pacific nation's top court.
The case has highlighted the thorny legal ground the US finds itself on as it tries to seize assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. Those intentions are welcomed by many governments and citizens who oppose the war in Ukraine, but some actions are raising questions about how far US jurisdiction extends.
Fiji's Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed an appeal by Feizal Haniff, who represents the company that legally owns the superyacht Amadea. Haniff had argued the US had no jurisdiction under Fiji's mutual assistance laws to seize the vessel, at least until a court sorted out who really owned the Amadea.
Haniff said he now plans to take the case to Fiji's Supreme Court and will apply for a court order to stop US agents sailing the Amadea from Fiji before the appeal is heard. (AP)
The Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk is the centre of fierce fighting in the east. Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk says it's holding out even though a Russian reconnaissance and sabotage group went into a city hotel.
Stryuk said at least 1,500 people have been killed in Sievierodonetsk and about 12,000 to 13,000 remain in the city, where he said 60% of residential buildings have been destroyed.
Sievierodonetsk is the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbas under Ukrainian government control, and Russian forces have been trying to cut it off from the rest of Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Stryuk said the main road between the neighbouring town of Lysychansk and Bakhmut to the southwest remains open, but travel is dangerous. He said only 12 people were able to be evacuated Thursday. (AP)
A South Korean volunteer fighter returned home from Ukraine on Friday saying he had to recover from injuries and was ready to face a police investigation on suspicion of breaking the law by defying a government ban on travel to Ukraine.
Volunteers from around the world have flocked to Ukraine to help it fight Russian forces that invaded on February 24. Russia calls its action in Ukraine a "special operation".
Rhee Keun, a former member of South Korean naval special forces who is also known as Ken Rhee, flew back to South Korea with media broadcasting his return live on television. "I haven't left the battlefield completely but came to recover from injuries. I want to go back ... because the war has not ended, there's still a lot to do," Rhee said at the airport.
Rhee said he was suffering from cruciate ligament injury in both legs. He was able to walk. (Reuters)
Ukraine full-back Oleksandr Zinchenko said his team hope to make their country proud when they take on Scotland in a World Cup playoff semi-final next week.
Ukraine play Scotland at Hampden Park on June 1 in a match that was postponed from March due to Russia's invasion. It will be Ukraine's first competitive match since the invasion began in February. The Ukrainian Premier League season was abandoned last month.
"The first period when it just started, it was so complicated to be focused on football," Zinchenko told BBC. "All my thoughts were with Ukraine, Ukrainian people. I would say for everyone, for every Ukrainian footballer ... I can promise all the Ukrainian people that every one of us is going to give everything to win the game and to make them proud of us and just maybe for a few seconds we would like to give them this smile." (Reuters)
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to stop playing around with Russia and impose tougher sanctions on Moscow to end its "senseless war" in Ukraine, adding his country would remain independent, the only question was at what price.
Zelenskyy's criticism of the West has mounted in recent days as the European Union moves slowly towards a possible Russian oil embargo and as thousands of Russian forces try to encircle two key eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
"Ukraine will always be an independent state and it won't be broken. The only question is what price our people will have to pay for their freedom, and what price Russia will pay for this senseless war against us," said Zelenskyy in a late-night address on Thursday. "The catastrophic unfolding events could be still stopped if the world treated the situation in Ukraine as if it were facing the same situation, if the powers that be did not play around with Russia but really pressed to end the war." (Reuters)
Moscow pressed the West Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyiv's inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products due to the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow “is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted," according to a Kremlin readout of the call.
Ukraine is one of the world's largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war and a Russian blockade of its ports has halted much of that flow, endangering world food supplies. Many of those ports are now also heavily mined. (Reuters)
Ukraine is desperately trying to export its vast stores of grain by road, river and rail to help avert a global food crisis but has no chance of hitting its targets unless Russia's blockade of its Black Sea ports is lifted, a government official said.
Before Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, the country had the capacity to export up to 6 million tonnes of wheat, barley and maize a month but exports collapsed to just 300,000 tonnes in March and 1.1 million in April.
While the government wants to lift that to 2 million, it is hitting logistical bottlenecks ranging from a lack of train wagons, fuel and trucks to freight wagons using a wider rail gauge than its neighbours, obstacles that could take years and billions of dollars to overcome. At the moment, Ukraine has at least 20 million tonnes of surplus grain in silos and the APK-Inform agricultural consultancy estimates another 40 million could be available for export once the next harvest comes in this summer. (Reuters)