A summary of today's developments
Preliminary operations have begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. “It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of deoccupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has claimed Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to try to thwart Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive. The plant, in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, has been repeatedly hit by shelling that each side blames the other for.
Russian forces have temporarily eased their attacks on the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to regroup and strengthen their capabilities, a senior Kyiv official said on Saturday. Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over its positions to regular Russian troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Reuters reported. In a statement on Telegram, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces have continued attacking but that “overall offensive activity has decreased”.
Russian forces have intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain, the RIA news agency cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday. Reuters reports that the ministry said it had intercepted shorter-range US-built Himars-launched and Harm missiles, and shot down 13 drones in the last 24 hours, RIA reported.
Defeat in its war against Ukraine would leave Russia “vindictive” and “brutal” and posing a threat to Nato countries, the outgoing head of the RAF said. Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston told The Telegraph that Russia’s air force, surface navy and submarine force are a threat to Britain and Nato. He warned its threat could even get worse if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was ousted.
A construction worker has been killed near the Russian village of Plekhovo, a few kilometres from the border with Ukraine after shelling from the Ukrainian side, said Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region. Works were being carried out not far from Plekhovo on fortifying defensive lines for the state border, the governor said on Telegram.
Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and the New York Times reported that US intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.
Ukraine has asked Germany to supply it with Taurus cruise missiles, an air-launched weapon with a range of 500 km (310 miles), a spokesperson for the defence ministry in Berlin said on Saturday. Germany received the request several days ago, the spokesperson said, confirming a report by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She declined to provide further details or say how likely it was that Germany would supply the missiles to Ukraine.
Russia has dismissed criticism from the US president, Joe Biden, over Moscow’s plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying Washington had for decades deployed just such nuclear weapons in Europe. Russia said on Thursday it was pushing ahead with the first deployment of such weapons outside its borders since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said the weapons were already on the move.
Russia is to start expelling German diplomats, teachers and employees of cultural institutions next month. The measure is expected to further exacerbate tensions between the two countries, which have already had very fraught ties since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year.
Russia failed in a bid to prevent Ukraine taking a place on the World Health Organization’s Executive Board, on a day which also saw North Korea gain a berth. Ten countries joined the board for a three-year term but Russia tried to exclude Ukraine, which it invaded 15 months ago, from joining the 34-nation forum at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva.
Russia has accused Japan of “cynical, unscrupulous speculation” over Tokyo’s comments around the nuclear threat Moscow poses and promised to respond to Japan’s latest round of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said on Friday that Japan would place additional sanctions on Russia after the G7 summit Tokyo hosted last week agreed to step up measures to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on an outpatient clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to two, with 30 people wounded, according to media reports. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Russian terrorists once again confirm their status of fighters against everything humane and honest.”
Tehran on Saturday accused Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of anti-Iranian propaganda in his call for Iran to halt the supply of drones to Russia, saying his comments were designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the west. Zelenskiy in a video address on Wednesday called on Iranians to stop their slide into “the dark side of history” by supplying Moscow with drones.
A Belarus court has rejected an appeal by a jailed Polish-Belarusian journalist against his eight-year prison sentence for reporting critically on president Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. Agence France-Presse reports that Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and active member of the Polish minority in Belarus, was sentenced in February.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, plans to visit Finland, Sweden and Norway from this Monday to deepen cooperation on top national security and economic issues, the US state department has said. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland has joined Nato, with Sweden’s bid to join awaiting ratification from Hungary and Turkey.
A deal allowing the safe export of grain and fertiliser from Ukrainian Black Sea ports has not yet resumed full operations, the UN said on Friday, having come to a halt before Russia’s decision last week to extend it.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has told China’s special envoy Li Hui there are “serious obstacles” to resuming peace talks, blaming Ukraine and western countries. Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy security council chair, Dmitry Medvedev, has said the conflict in Ukraine could last for decades and negotiations with Ukraine were impossible as long as Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in power.
The former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and former US president Donald Trump discussed Ukraine and “the vital importance of Ukrainian victory” on Thursday, a spokesperson for Johnson said.
Two years ago, Raman Pratasevich, a young Belarusian dissident blogger, was white-knuckled, begging a Ryanair flight crew not to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport, writes Andrew Roth and Shaun Walker.
He said: “Don’t do this, they will kill me, I am a refugee,” according to a fellow passenger. The plane, escorted by a Belarusian Mig-29 fighter jet sent to force it down, landed anyway. Pratasevich was promptly arrested.
Last week he emerged from custody. The activist and blogger, accused of more than 1,586 crimes, was charged on 10 counts including conspiracy to seize power. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and then promptly pardoned, his reward from Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for becoming a full-throated mouthpiece of the regime.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence has tweeted this video footage.
A graduation ceremony outside a Kharkiv school damaged by russian terrorists. pic.twitter.com/ivqdc1ptZ7
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 27, 2023
Around 400 Ukrainian soldiers have started training on American M1 Abrams tanks in Germany, the New York Times reported.
Half of the group started training in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels in southern Germany, being taught medical skills and how to shoot firearms.
The other half were taught how to fuel and maintain the tanks.
Around 31 tanks were due to be sent to Germany to be used in the training programme, which is expected to last 10 to 12 weeks, according to the newspaper.
A 73-year-old woman has died and two others have been injured after Russian troops shelled 16 areas in Zaporizhzhia, a local Ukrainian governor said.
Yurii Malashko reported that Russia had launched 108 attacks against the southeastern city in one day using artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, and drones.
Malashko wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “The enemy will be held accountable for every war crime, for every broken fate and life that has been cut short. Ukrainians are strong and unbreakable, Victory is ours.”
Afternoon summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 6pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s headlines:
Preliminary operations have begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. “It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of deoccupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has claimed Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to try to thwart Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive. The plant, in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, has been repeatedly hit by shelling that each side blames the other for.
Russian forces have temporarily eased their attacks on the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to regroup and strengthen their capabilities, a senior Kyiv official said on Saturday. Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over its positions to regular Russian troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Reuters reported. In a statement on Telegram, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces have continued attacking but that “overall offensive activity has decreased”.
Russian forces have intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain, the RIA news agency cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday. Reuters reports that the ministry said it had intercepted shorter-range US-built Himars-launched and Harm missiles, and shot down 13 drones in the last 24 hours, RIA reported.
Defeat in its war against Ukraine would leave Russia “vindictive” and “brutal” and posing a threat to Nato countries, the outgoing head of the RAF said. Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston told The Telegraph that Russia’s air force, surface navy and submarine force are a threat to Britain and Nato. He warned its threat could even get worse if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was ousted.
A construction worker has been killed near the Russian village of Plekhovo, a few kilometres from the border with Ukraine after shelling from the Ukrainian side, said Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region. Works were being carried out not far from Plekhovo on fortifying defensive lines for the state border, the governor said on Telegram.
Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and the New York Times reported that US intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.
Ukraine has asked Germany to supply it with Taurus cruise missiles, an air-launched weapon with a range of 500 km (310 miles), a spokesperson for the defence ministry in Berlin said on Saturday. Germany received the request several days ago, the spokesperson said, confirming a report by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She declined to provide further details or say how likely it was that Germany would supply the missiles to Ukraine.
Russia has dismissed criticism from the US president, Joe Biden, over Moscow’s plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying Washington had for decades deployed just such nuclear weapons in Europe. Russia said on Thursday it was pushing ahead with the first deployment of such weapons outside its borders since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said the weapons were already on the move.
Russia is to start expelling German diplomats, teachers and employees of cultural institutions next month. The measure is expected to further exacerbate tensions between the two countries, which have already had very fraught ties since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year.
Russia failed in a bid to prevent Ukraine taking a place on the World Health Organization’s Executive Board, on a day which also saw North Korea gain a berth. Ten countries joined the board for a three-year term but Russia tried to exclude Ukraine, which it invaded 15 months ago, from joining the 34-nation forum at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva.
Russia has accused Japan of “cynical, unscrupulous speculation” over Tokyo’s comments around the nuclear threat Moscow poses and promised to respond to Japan’s latest round of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said on Friday that Japan would place additional sanctions on Russia after the G7 summit Tokyo hosted last week agreed to step up measures to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on an outpatient clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to two, with 30 people wounded, according to media reports. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Russian terrorists once again confirm their status of fighters against everything humane and honest.”
Tehran on Saturday accused Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of anti-Iranian propaganda in his call for Iran to halt the supply of drones to Russia, saying his comments were designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the west. Zelenskiy in a video address on Wednesday called on Iranians to stop their slide into “the dark side of history” by supplying Moscow with drones.
A Belarus court has rejected an appeal by a jailed Polish-Belarusian journalist against his eight-year prison sentence for reporting critically on president Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. Agence France-Presse reports that Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and active member of the Polish minority in Belarus, was sentenced in February.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, plans to visit Finland, Sweden and Norway from this Monday to deepen cooperation on top national security and economic issues, the US state department has said. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland has joined Nato, with Sweden’s bid to join awaiting ratification from Hungary and Turkey.
A deal allowing the safe export of grain and fertiliser from Ukrainian Black Sea ports has not yet resumed full operations, the UN said on Friday, having come to a halt before Russia’s decision last week to extend it.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has told China’s special envoy Li Hui there are “serious obstacles” to resuming peace talks, blaming Ukraine and western countries. Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy security council chair, Dmitry Medvedev, has said the conflict in Ukraine could last for decades and negotiations with Ukraine were impossible as long as Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in power.
The former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and former US president Donald Trump discussed Ukraine and “the vital importance of Ukrainian victory” on Thursday, a spokesperson for Johnson said.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Nadeem Badshah will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Updated
Russia failed in a bid to prevent Ukraine taking a place on the World Health Organization’s Executive Board, on a day which also saw North Korea gain a berth.
Ten countries joined the board for a three-year term but Russia tried to exclude Ukraine, which it invaded 15 months ago, from joining the 34-nation forum at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva.
Normally those joining the forum, which plays a key role in the governance of the WHO, are elected on the nod but Moscow forced the first vote since 1977 at this year’s 76th assembly.
In the event, the vote was easily carried by 123 votes to 13.
Russia’s delegation stated: “We deeply regret the fact that the assembly has voted for a country that will simply further politicise the work of the EB,” saying it opposed “politicisation of the work of the WHA and of the WHO as a whole.”
There was further acrimony at the gathering after the United States said it regretted the extension of a place for North Korea after it was put forward by South East Asia.
Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media.
Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and the New York Times reported that US intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.
Ukraine has not publicly acknowledged launching attacks against targets inside Russia. The Ukrainian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday, Reuters reported.
In the Tver region, which lies just north-west of Moscow, two drones attacked a station that serves the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline, one of the world’s largest oil pipelines, the Kommersant newspaper said.
The Tver local council said that a drone had crashed near the village of Erokhino, about 500 km (310 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
The Telegram channel Baza, which has good sources among Russia’s security services, said the drones attacked a station serving the Druzhba pipeline.
Updated
First steps in counteroffensive have begun - Ukraine
Preliminary operations have already begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said.
“It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of de-occupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines.
“The intensity is increasing, but it will take quite a long period of time,” he added, predicting that as the counteroffensive gathered momentum, there would be more incursions into Russia by Russian rebel groups, such as the raid in Belgorod region earlier this week.
On Saturday the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, raised expectations that a major operation could be imminent by declaring on social media: “The time has come to take back what’s ours.”
Zaluzhnyi’s declaration on the Telegram messaging app was accompanied by a cinematic video showing heavily armed Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle to a soundtrack of ominous music and a narrator reciting a prayer calling for strength to “annihilate” Ukraine’s enemies.
Updated
Russian forces have intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain, the RIA news agency cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday.
Reuters reports that the ministry said it had intercepted shorter-range US-built Himars-launched and Harm missiles, and shot down 13 drones in the last 24 hours, RIA reported.
Updated
More on the expulsion of German diplomats from Russia (see 12:53pm).
Germany has said more than 100 employees will be withdrawn after Moscow imposed limits on the numbers allowed to work at diplomatic missions in Russia, a source with the German foreign ministry said on Saturday.
“This limit, set by Russia for the beginning of June, requires a major cut in all areas of our presence in Russia,” the source said, Reuters reports.
Those affected included teachers, as well as other employees of schools and the Goethe Institute, and was necessary to maintain the right balance for Germany’s diplomatic presence, said the person, who described the number affected as at least 100.
Relations between Russia and Germany, which used to be the biggest buyer of Russian oil and gas, have broken down since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the west responded with sanctions and weapons supplies.
The source called the limit, announced in April, “unilateral, unjustified and incomprehensible”. The person declined to say what the limit imposed by Moscow was.
The number of German employees leaving was earlier reported by Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Updated
Russia is to start expelling German diplomats, teachers and employees of cultural institutions next month.
The measure is expected to further exacerbate tensions between the two countries, which have already had very fraught ties since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year.
The German foreign ministry criticised Russia’s move, calling it an “unilateral, unjustified and incomprehensible decision”.
The expulsions will affect several hundred German state employees, including teachers and staff of the Goethe Institute, which promotes German culture and language abroad, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
It comes in response to the reduction of the presence of Russian intelligence services in Germany earlier this year.
Updated
A construction worker has been killed near the Russian village of Plekhovo, a few kilometres from the border with Ukraine after shelling from the Ukrainian side, said Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region.
Works were being carried out not far from Plekhovo on fortifying defensive lines for the state border, the governor said on Telegram.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Updated
Russia has accused Japan of “cynical, unscrupulous speculation” over Tokyo’s comments around the nuclear threat Moscow poses and promised to respond to Japan’s latest round of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said on Friday that Japan would place additional sanctions on Russia after the G7 summit Tokyo hosted last week agreed to step up measures to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Matsuno also condemned Russia’s plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying it would further inflame the situation and that Japan would never accept “Russia’s nuclear menace, let alone its use”.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it was assessing the implementation of Japan’s sanctions on its national security and economy and would not leave Tokyo’s “illegitimate actions” unanswered, Reuters reported.
The ministry also took issue with Matsuno’s casting of Russia as engaging in “nuclear blackmail”.
Updated
Defeat would leave Russia brutal and vindictive even if Putin 'disappeared', says RAF chief
Defeat in its war against Ukraine would leave Russia “vindictive” and “brutal” and posing a threat to Nato countries, the outgoing head of the RAF said.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston told The Telegraph that Russia’s air force, surface navy and submarine force are a threat to Britain and Nato. He warned its threat could even get worse if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was ousted.
He said:
When the Ukraine conflict is over and Ukraine has restored its borders, as it must, we will have a damaged, vindictive, and brutal Russia, whose means of harming us is through air attack, missile attack and subsurface attack.
Sir Mike is set to step down next month after four years at the top of the RAF.
He added:
But it also demonstrates that this is more than about just one person. There is a whole structure and a hierarchy behind Putin.
So even if Putin was to disappear off the stage, there are countless others that could replace him that could be as equally as brutal and vicious to their own people and to neighbouring states.
Updated
Kyiv says Russian forces ease attacks on Bakhmut to regroup
Russian forces have temporarily eased their attacks on the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to regroup and strengthen their capabilities, a senior Kyiv official said on Saturday.
Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over its positions to regular Russian troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Reuters reported.
In a statement on Telegram, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces have continued attacking but that “overall offensive activity has decreased”.
“Yesterday and today there have not been any active battles – neither in the city nor on the flanks,” she wrote, adding that Moscow’s troops were instead shelling the outskirts and approaches to Bakhmut.
“The decrease in the enemy’s offensive activity is due to the fact that troops are being replaced and regrouped,” Maliar said. “The enemy is trying to strengthen its own capabilities.”
She added that Ukrainian troops “firmly hold” the heights overlooking Bakhmut from the north and south, as well as a portion of the outskirts, but have not advanced during the past two days to focus on “other tasks”.
Updated
Ukraine has asked Germany to supply it with Taurus cruise missiles, an air-launched weapon with a range of 500 km (310 miles), a spokesperson for the defence ministry in Berlin said on Saturday.
Germany received the request several days ago, the spokesperson said, confirming a report by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She declined to provide further details or say how likely it was that Germany would supply the missiles to Ukraine.
If it supplied the missiles, Germany would be following in the footsteps of Britain, which earlier in May became the first country to publicly provide Kyiv with long-range cruise missiles.
The United States has so far declined to supply Ukraine with the 297-km range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles amid concerns that Ukraine could use them to strike inside Russia’s internationally recognised borders.
Ukraine has been asking for months for these kind of weapons, but support from western allies has focused on shorter-range weapons
Updated
Russia has dismissed criticism from the US president, Joe Biden, over Moscow’s plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying Washington had for decades deployed just such nuclear weapons in Europe.
Russia said on Thursday it was pushing ahead with the first deployment of such weapons outside its borders since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said the weapons were already on the move.
Biden said on Friday he had an “extremely negative” reaction to reports that Russia has moved ahead with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Reuters reported. The US state department denounced the Russian nuclear deployment plan.
“It is the sovereign right of Russia and Belarus to ensure their security by means we deem necessary amid of a large-scale hybrid war unleashed by Washington against us,” Russia’s embassy in the United States said in a statement.
“The measures we undertake are fully consistent with our international legal obligations.”
The US has said the world faces the gravest nuclear danger since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis because of remarks by Vladimir Putin during the Ukraine conflict, but Moscow says its position has been misinterpreted.
Updated
Tehran on Saturday accused Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy of anti-Iranian propaganda in his call for Iran to halt the supply of drones to Russia, saying his comments were designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the west.
Zelenskiy in a video address on Wednesday called on Iranians to stop their slide into “the dark side of history” by supplying Moscow with drones.
Iran initially denied supplying Shahed drones to Russia but later said it had provided a small number before the conflict began. Ukraine says the drones have played a major role in Russia’s attacks on cities and infrastructure.
“The Ukrainian president’s repeat of delusional claims against the Islamic Republic of Iran is in line with the anti-Iranian propaganda and media war aimed at attracting as many arms and financial aid as possible from western countries,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement carried by Iranian media.
Ukraine, Kanaani said, has been refusing to allow an independent investigation into these claims.
Updated
A Belarus court has rejected an appeal by a jailed Polish-Belarusian journalist against his eight-year prison sentence for reporting critically on president Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Agence France-Presse reports that Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and active member of the Polish minority in Belarus, was sentenced in February.
He had extensively reported on mass protests against Lukashenko and refused to leave the Moscow-allied country after authorities unleashed an historic crackdown on dissent.
Belarus’s supreme court said in a statement that the sentence was “left unchanged”.
The verdict has come into force.
Poczobut, 50, who stood trial in his home city of Grodno, near the Polish border, was found guilty of taking part in “actions harming national security” and “inciting hatred”.
Poland, Belarus’s western EU-member neighbour, has condemned the trial and called for his release.
After Poczobut’s appeal was rejected, Warsaw said it would impose new punitive measures against Lukashenko’s regime next week. The Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, said on Twitter:
On Monday, I will announce the decision to add to the sanctions list several hundred representatives of the Lukashenko regime responsible for political repression, including repression against Poles living in Belarus.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has claimed Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to try to thwart Kyiv’s long-planned counter-offensive.
The plant, in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, has been repeatedly hit by shelling that each side blames the other for.
Reuters reports that the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate said Russian forces would soon shell the plant and then announce a radiation leak. This would force an investigation by international authorities, during which all hostilities would be stopped.
The directorate’s statement, posted on Telegram, did not provide any proof. It said Russia had disrupted the planned rotation of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who are based at the plant.
The agency, which frequently posts updates on the plant, has made no mention of any disruption.
Last week witnesses said Russian military forces had been enhancing defensive positions in and around the plant ahead of the counter-offensive.
Updated
Ukraine ready to launch counter offensive, senior official says
Ukraine is ready to launch its much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, a senior Ukrainian official has told the BBC.
The broadcaster reported that Oleksiy Danilov would not name a date but said an assault to retake territory from President Vladimir Putin’s occupying forces could begin “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week”.
He said Kyiv had “no right to make a mistake” on the decision because it was an “historic opportunity” that “we cannot lose”.
As secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Danilov is at the heart of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s de facto war cabinet.
Danilov also told the BBC he was “absolutely calm” about Russia beginning to deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus, saying: “To us, it’s not some kind of news.”
Updated
Wagner mercenaries likely to be used in other Ukraine battles after Bakhmut, says UK MoD
The Wagner mercenary group’s forces have probably begun to withdraw from some of their positions around the devastated Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and are likely to be used for other offensive operations in the Donbas region, according to British intelligence.
The UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update that Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had said the withdrawal had begun and positions were being transferred to Russian defence ministry forces. Kyiv corroborated Wagner’s rotation out from the city’s outskirts.
The UK ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter, that forces of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic had probably entered the eastern Ukrainian city since Wednesday to start “clearance operations”.
Bakhmut has been the scene of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.
The ministry said:
Ukrainian forces had taken 20 square kilometres of Bakhmut’s flanks as of 16 May. The rotation out of Wagner forces is likely to continue in controlled phases to prevent collapse in pockets around Bakhmut.
Despite Prigozhin’s ongoing feud with the Russian MOD [ministry of defence], Wagner forces will likely be used for further offensive operations in the Donbas following reconstituting its forces.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 27 May 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 27, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/mWADInKNj3
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/6pgyQ1bYxV
Updated
US and EU decry Russian plan to deploy nuclear arms in Belarus
US president Joe Biden has said he had an “extremely negative” reaction to reports that Russia has moved ahead with its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, while the European Union has condemned the plan.
Reuters reports that the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said:
This is a step which will lead to further extremely dangerous escalation.
Russia signed a pact with Belarus on Thursday about the storage of the warheads, at a facility due to be finished in just over a month. The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said later that the relocation of some of the weapons had already begun.
Borrell said the agreement contravened multiple international agreements.
We call on Russia to abide by these commitments. The Belarusian regime is an accomplice in Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.
Borrell said any attempt “to further escalate the situation will be met by a strong and coordinated reaction”.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton and here’s an overview of the latest.
The European Union has condemned Russia’s plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus, while US president Joe Biden says he had an “extremely negative” reaction to reports that Russia has already begun moving ahead with the plan.
More on that story soon. In other news:
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on an outpatient clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to two, with 30 people wounded, according to media reports. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Russian terrorists once again confirm their status of fighters against everything humane and honest.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, plans to visit Finland, Sweden and Norway from this Monday to deepen cooperation on top national security and economic issues, the US state department has said. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland has joined Nato, with Sweden’s bid to join awaiting ratification from Hungary and Turkey.
A deal allowing the safe export of grain and fertiliser from Ukrainian Black Sea ports has not yet resumed full operations, the UN said on Friday, having come to a halt before Russia’s decision last week to extend it.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has told China’s special envoy Li Hui there are “serious obstacles” to resuming peace talks, blaming Ukraine and western countries. Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy security council chair, Dmitry Medvedev, has said the conflict in Ukraine could last for decades and negotiations with Ukraine were impossible as long as Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in power.
The former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and former US president Donald Trump discussed Ukraine and “the vital importance of Ukrainian victory” on Thursday, a spokesperson for Johnson said.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said in a phone call with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, that Russia is open to dialogue over Ukraine. Lula tweeted that he had reiterated Brazil’s willingness to talk to both sides of the war in Ukraine but declined Putin’s invitation to visit.
Russia has blamed Kyiv for dozens of strikes on its southern Belgorod region. Its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the Ukrainian military was responsible for artillery, mortar and drone attacks across the region over 24 hours but reported no casualties. In a rare attack on the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, east of Crimea, two drones damaged buildings in the city centre, officials said. In the neighbouring Rostov region, the governor said a Ukrainian missile had been shot down near Morozovsk, where there is a Russian airbase.
Canada will donate 43 AIM-9 missiles to Ukraine to help the country “secure its skies”, the national defence has said. “Canada’s support for Ukraine is unwavering,” said Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand. The country also said it welcomed Ukraine’s application to join the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP).
Moscow’s city court will hold a preliminary hearing next Wednesday in a new criminal case against the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on charges including incitement to extremism.
The Russian arms company Kalashnikov, maker of the world’s most widely used assault rifle, is launching a division for the production of kamikaze drones – a key weapon used in the Ukraine war.
Ukraine said it shot down 10 missiles and 25 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on the capital of Kyiv, the city of Dnipro and eastern regions. Several drones and missiles hit targets in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, officials said on Friday. There was no immediate word of any deaths.
The city of Donetsk has come under fire from Ukrainian forces, the Russian-imposed leader of the occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, has said. As a result, he said, a young woman died and another was injured.
Japan will place additional sanctions on Russia after the Group of Seven (G7) summit the country hosted last week agreed to step up measures to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, has said.
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