A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing in the region of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday, the Russian state news agency Tass said, in an attack that Russia immediately blamed on Ukraine and the West. Tass quoted a source in the emergency services as saying the writer’s car was blown up. “He survived, but was wounded and is conscious,” the source was quoted as saying.
Russia has been accused of attacking the besieged city of Bakhmut with incendiary phosphorus weapons, BBC News reported. Ukraine’s military shared drone footage of what appeared to show Bakhmut ablaze as white phosphorus rains down on the city.
Ukraine’s air force has claimed to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defence systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles. Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defence systems.
Concerns in the Russian leadership about its vulnerability to attacks and the potential for public protests over the Ukraine war have contributed to the decision to cancel many Victory Day parades, citing security concerns, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its latest intelligence briefing, the ministry said six Russian regions, occupied Crimea and 21 cities had cancelled their parades on Tuesday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Russia is still not satisfied with how the issue of Russian agricultural exports as part of the Black Sea grain deal is being resolved, TASS news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin as saying on Saturday after the latest talks with a top UN official. “We are still not satisfied with the progress. This is very important for us,” Vershinin said. He was speaking after talks in Moscow with the United Nations’ top trade official Rebeca Grynspan, TASS said.
Poland will demand European Union sanctions on imports of Russian farm products, its ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sadoś was quoted as saying by PAP news agency. “Europe isn’t threatened by disruptions in supply chain of farm products now, contrary, we have a problem of surpluses. We are resolving a problem of increased imports of farm products from Ukraine,” Sadoś said, according to PAP.
Switzerland’s parliament has approved a request from Ukrainian authorities for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address it. The invitation, announced in a statement late on Friday, comes amid pressure on Switzerland’s government to break with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality and end a ban of exports of Swiss weapons to conflict zones such as Ukraine.
Kherson’s weekend curfew is the latest inconvenience for residents who, after enduring months of Russian occupation last year, have been subjected to daily bombardments by Russian troops encamped nearby on the other side of the River Dnipro. Despite their retreat from Kherson city last November, Russian forces still hold large swathes of territory in the wider Kherson region that Ukraine wants to recapture, Reuters reports.
Some residents left Kherson in cars and buses on Friday while others stocked up on groceries before a 56-hour curfew began on Friday evening in the southern Ukrainian city. Reuters reports that the announcement of the curfew, lasting until Monday morning, prompted speculation in Kherson that the city was about to be used as a launch point for Ukraine’s much-anticipated counterattack.
Strikes on Russian infrastructure including drone attacks on refineries and train sabotage have multiplied in recent weeks, with experts suggesting they are part of Ukraine’s preparations for an expected spring offensive. Agence France-Presse reports that Kyiv has not claimed any of the acts denounced by Moscow as Ukrainian “sabotage” of “unprecedented momentum”, but the majority appear to target Russian army supply chains in border regions and in annexed Crimea, a base for Russian troops.
Ukraine has sent first lady, Olena Zelenska, and Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, as the country’s representatives to UK’s King Charles’s coronation in London on Saturday. Zelenska posted on her official Facebook: “It is an honour for us and prime minister Denys Shmyhal to attend the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla The royal family here at Westminster Abbey to wish on behalf of all of Ukraine successful governance and prosperity to the country.”
The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has said his forces will leave Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer. Yevgeny Prigozhin said they would pull back on Wednesday 10 May – ending their involvement in the war’s longest battle – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies, and he asked defence chiefs to put regular army troops in their place. But Ukraine said Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize the eastern city before that date.
Prigozhin earlier released a video showing him standing in a field of Russian corpses and blaming defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine, appearing to reignite his simmering feud with Russian top brass.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has carried out an inspection of troop readiness for forces engaged in the war, in an apparent coded response to Prigozhin’s criticism.
Ukraine said two people had been killed and nine wounded in the eastern Donetsk region and electricity distribution networks had been damaged by shelling in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Authorities in the Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia have begun evacuating villages near the frontline. The Russian-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced the move in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive aimed at retaking the area, claiming Kyiv’s forces had “stepped up shelling of settlements close to the frontline” in the past few days.
Engineers have reduced the risk of a dam bursting and damaging the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a senior Russian official was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying on Friday. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of energy engineering firm Rosenergoatom, said specialists had begun discharging water from the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine.
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of a theatre director and a playwright on charges of “justifying terrorism” over an award-winning play about Russian women recruited online to marry radical Islamists in Syria. Director Yevgeniya Berkovich and author Svetlana Petriychuk were placed in custody until 4 July, Russian news agencies reported.
Bill Clinton has said he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before the Russian president attacked Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 – three years before he took Crimea – that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”
