As the time is approaching 9pm in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, here is a roundup of today’s news.
A Ukrainian military commander has said that Russian forces in Bakhmut had been pushed back by up to 2km in some areas, after counteroffensives. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, made the comments in a post on Telegram. He said: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers.”
Russia’s oil pipeline operator Transneft said that a filling point on the Europe-bound Druzhba pipeline in a border area between Russia and Ukraine had been targeted in a “terrorist” attack, according to the Tass news agency. Transneft said nobody was injured in the incident, which it called a “terrorist attack”, according to Reuters.
It comes as Ukraine’s military said its forces have seriously damaged Russia’s 72nd independent motorised rifle brigade near Bakhmut, made up of thousands of troops. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east, said the situation remained “difficult” in Bakhmut but Moscow was increasingly forced to use regular army units because of heavy losses among the Wagner private army group.
The Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner group is fighting in Bakhmut, said on Tuesday that the brigade had abandoned its positions. Russia has not commented.
Prigozhin has complained that his fighters were still not getting enough shells from the official defence ministry. In an audio statement, he said the defence ministry – which has promised to ensure all combat units have the resources they need – had been holding long meetings on the shell issue but there had been no breakthrough. “We’re not receiving enough shells, we’re only getting 10%,” Prigozhin said, reported Reuters.
The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Wagner group terrorists. France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.
Britain is also set to formally blacklist Wagner as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia, the Times reported on Tuesday. After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported, citing a government source.
Russian forces are planning to “evacuate” more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday. Energoatom said it had received information about preparations for the evacuation of about 3,100 people from the southern city of Enerhodar, including 2,700 workers who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company. Ukraine has repeatedly criticised Russia for forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian Federation territory.
However, Ukraine has said that Russia is now blocking the exit of the thousands it had organised to leave Enerhodar.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been criticised again for his links to Russia after attending a Victory Day party at the Russian embassy in Berlin. Schröder was seen at the reception on Tuesday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, along with senior figures from the far-right Alternative for Germany party and the far-left Linke party.
Russia may formally “denounce” the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe that it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The decree formally appoints the deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, to represent Putin during parliamentary proceedings on denouncing the treaty, which aimed to regulate the number of forces deployed by Warsaw Pact and Nato countries. Russia announced in 2015 that it was completely halting its participation in the treaty, having already suspended cooperation in 2007. Russia argues that the treaty, which was intended to balance conventional forces towards the end of the cold war, was de facto in breach because former Soviet republics such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Warsaw Pact nations such as Bulgaria, had become members of Nato by the early 2000s.
The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Wednesday that two drones attempted to attack a military facility in his region, but failed.
Tass reports that the Russian Federation security service, the FSB, has claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on a police chief in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region.
The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has spoken in Brussels at a meeting of Nato’s military committee. He said the alliance needs to “redouble our efforts” in order to provide security to the 1 billion people in Nato countries, citing what he claimed was a range of rising threats.
Updated
More news on the killing of Arman Soldin on Tuesday.
French judges have launched a war crimes investigation into the journalist’s death in Ukraine, anti-terror prosecutors said Wednesday.
Soldin, 32, died when he and his Agence France-Presse colleagues came under fire by Grad rockets on Tuesday while they were with Ukrainian troops near Chasiv Yar, in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
The French inquiry will be handled by the OCLCH, an investigating unit specialising in crimes against humanity and hate crimes, and will seek to determine the exact circumstances of Soldin’s death, the prosecutors said, according to AFP.
Soldin’s death brings to at least 11 the number of journalists, fixers or drivers for media teams killed since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, according to advocacy groups.
Updated
Russian shelling has killed a woman in Kherson oblast’s Kakhovskyi district on the Dnipro river, the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office reported on Wednesday.
Russian forces reportedly shelled the district at about 5pm. The attack also damaged residential buildings and farms in the area.
An investigation is under way and the prosecutor general’s office said that a war crimes inquiry had been launched.
Updated
The UN’s special rapporteur on torture has called on Russia to provide jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny with “urgent and comprehensive” medical care following reports that his health is deteriorating.
Navalny’s supporters have said he was suffering from significant stomach pain in jail, which they said could be a sign of some sort of slow-acting poison.
“I am distressed by the deteriorating state of Navalny’s health and the apparent lack of satisfactory diagnosis and medical treatment,” Alice Edwards said in a statement.
Russia’s penitentiary service has previously denied allegations that its employees have mistreated Navalny and has said he has always been granted medical treatment when needed.
Navalny voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated for what western laboratory tests showed was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia in 2020.
“He must immediately and continuously be provided with adequate care, including comprehensive medical check-ups, treatment and monitoring of his health situation in a civil hospital,” Edwards said.
Navalny, 46, is serving combined sentences of 11 and a half years for fraud and contempt of court on charges he says were trumped up to silence him.
Updated
German chancellor Gerhard Schröder criticised for attending victory day party at Russian embassy in Berlin
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is in trouble again for his links to Russia after attending a victory day party at the Russian embassy in Berlin.
Schröder, who has previously been criticised for his links to Russia, was seen at the reception on Tuesday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, along with senior figures from the far-right Alternative for Germany party and the far-left Linke party.
The two parties have been critical of the sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The former Social Democrat chancellor is seen at the event in a photo published by the German daily Bild. Schroeder has not yet commented on his presence at the reception.
Schröder, who held a number of positions in Russian energy companies, has seen many of the privileges normally given to ex-chancellors taken away for his ties to the Kremlin.
Schröder no longer has a publicly funded private office, but members of current chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have so far failed to expel his predecessor from the party.
“I find it incomprehensible,” senior Social Democrat MP Katja Mast said in response to Schröder’s attendance.
“Gerhard Schröder’s behaviour can hardly be surpassed in its tastelessness,” said senior conservative (CDU) politician Thorsten Frei.
“On the day the former chancellor was entertained by Russian diplomats, innocent people in Ukraine died as a result of the Russian war of aggression,” Frei said.
Scholz’s spokesperson declined to comment on the reception at a regular press conference Wednesday.
Also seen at the embassy party was the former East German leader Egon Krenz.
Updated
Russian forces in Bakhmut pushed back by up to 2km in some areas, claims Ukraine military commander
A Ukrainian military commander has said that Russian forces in Bakhmut had been pushed back by up to 2km in some areas, after counteroffensives.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, made the comments in a post on Telegram.
It comes as Ukrainian forces claim to have routed a brigade of thousands of Russian troops in Bakhmut.
He said: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers.
”It was the competent conduct of the defensive operation that exhausted the trained forces of the ‘Wagner’ PvC and forced them to be replaced in certain directions by less well-prepared units of the Russian regular troops, which were defeated and left.”
Updated
Tributes have been paid to an Agence France-Presse journalist who has been killed in Ukraine.
Arman Soldin was killed when an AFP team came under fire by Grad rockets while they were with a group of Ukrainian soldiers near Bakhmut, the epicentre of the fighting for months.
His death brings to at least 11 the number of journalists, fixers or drivers for media teams killed since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, according to advocacy groups.
The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, paid tribute to Soldin’s “courage” and described his work as “essential” to understanding the facts around the war in Ukraine.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said: “Arman was a talented and courageous journalist and his death is obviously devastating for those who knew him.”
“Journalism continues to shine a light in the darkness of this war, and Arman’s work was vital to that.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region where Bakhmut lies and which has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed forces for years, offered his condolences to Soldin’s friends and family.
“I thank everyone who – risking their own lives – continues to tell the truth about our war,” he said.
Updated
Some more on the claims earlier that the Ukrainian army has partially destroyed a Russian brigade that has been fighting in Bakhmut.
Moscow has not commented on the reports that its 72nd separate motor rifle brigade had abandoned its positions on the south-western outskirts of Bakhmut.
Russia’s ministry of defence did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and Reuters said it was unable to independently confirm the situation on the ground.
A Russian brigade is typically formed of several thousand troops. The eastern Ukrainian city has been the primary target of Moscow’s huge winter offensive and scene of the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since the second world war.
Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has repeatedly accused Moscow’s regular armed forces of failing to adequately support his private army leading the fight in Bakhmut, said on Tuesday that the Russian brigade had abandoned its positions.
“Our army is fleeing. The 72nd Brigade pissed away three square km this morning, where I had lost around 500 men,” Prigozhin said.
In a statement overnight, Ukraine’s Third Separate Assault Brigade said: “It’s official. Prigozhin’s report about the flight of Russia’s 72nd Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade from near Bakhmut and the ‘500 corpses’ of Russians left behind is true.”
“The Third Assault Brigade is grateful for the publicity about our success at the front.”
Early on Wednesday the Ukrainian unit, which was formed last year from the nationalist Azov battalion, reposted a video of one of Azov’s founders, Andriy Biletsky, who said his forces had “defeated” the Russian brigade.
“In fact, the 6th and 7th squadrons of this brigade were almost entirely destroyed, brigade intelligence was destroyed, a large number of fighting vehicles were destroyed a considerable number of prisoners were taken,” he said.
Updated
Canada and Latvia will become the latest countries to help train Ukrainian troops.
They will jointly lead Ukrainian soldiers on Latvian soil from 15 May, the Canadian defence minister, Anita Anand, said on Wednesday.
The training programme will complement other Canadian efforts to train Ukrainian soldiers in the UK and in Poland, said Anand, speaking to reporters alongside her Latvian counterpart, Ināra Mūrniece, in Ottawa.
Updated
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree calling up military reservists for training in 2023, according to a document published on Wednesday on a government website.
The training of these Russian citizens, who are in the armed forces reserve, is a planned annual event.
Reservists were partially mobilised in September last year, as the Kremlin looked to bolster its forces in the midst of a swift counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops.
Updated
Wagner's Prigozhin again complains his mercenaries are not receiving enough ammunition in Bakhmut
Russian Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin complained on Wednesday that his fighters were still not getting enough shells from the official defence ministry to underpin what he claimed was their advance in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
In an audio statement, he said the defence ministry – which has promised to ensure that all combat units have the resources they need – had been holding long meetings on the shell issue but that there had been no breakthrough.
“We’re not receiving enough shells, we’re only getting 10%,” Prigozhin said, reported Reuters.
“We’re scraping by with a minimal quantity of shells,” he said, adding his mercenaries were nonetheless continuing to advance in Bakhmut.
Prigozhin said the Russian leadership had asked the defence ministry to check the status of Wagner’s shell request, but that bureaucracy meant the process was a slow one.
Late last week Prigozhin posted a video of an expletive-laden tirade addressed at senior Russian army officials while standing in what appeared to be a field of Russian corpses. He accused officials of “getting fat” in their offices while his troops died. He subsequently threatened in public to withdraw Wagner forces from Bakhmut, a Ukrainian city Russia has spent ten months trying to take.
Updated
Germany will buy an additional 50 Puma fighting vehicles worth €1.5bn (£1.3bn/$1.65bn) for its armed forces, two participants in the parliamentary budget committee which approved the purchase on Wednesday have told Reuters.
Berlin has ramped up defence spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, both sending weapons to Kyiv and replenishing its own military stocks.
Updated
Ukraine claims it has partially destroyed brigade attacking Bakhmut
Ukraine’s military has said its forces have seriously damaged Russia’s 72nd independent motorised rifle brigade near Bakhmut, and that the eastern city remained Moscow’s main target.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east, said the situation remained “difficult” in Bakhmut but that Moscow was increasingly forced to use regular army units because of heavy losses among the Wagner private army group.
The Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose private Wagner group is fighting in Bakhmut, said on Tuesday that the brigade had abandoned its positions.
“Unfortunately they have not destroyed the whole [Russian] brigade yet, two companies have been seriously damaged there,” Cherevatyi said in televised comments.
“The situation [in Bakhmut] remains difficult because for the enemy, despite all the white noise Prigozhin is trying to create, it [Bakhmut] is the main direction of attack, the main coveted target.”
Updated
France has asked China to make clear to Russia that Moscow is in an “impasse” in its war with Ukraine, as Beijing seeks to mediate in the conflict.
The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, told a cabinet meeting that Beijing should urge Russia to “return to peace”, according to a post-cabinet press briefing Reuters has reported.
“It is necessary for China to use its relations with Russia to make Russia understand better that it is at an impasse, and to tell Russia to come back to its senses,” she said.
The request comes after French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited China last month and sparked controversy by saying that Europe should not be a “follower” of either Washington or Beijing or get caught up in any escalation over the future of Taiwan.
The remarks sparked much comment, including from the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, who called them “unfortunate”, adding: “We have never been in danger of becoming or being a vassal of the United States.”
Updated
Ukraine claims Russia is blocking Zaporizhzhia evacuation
The Ukrainian army has claimed that Russia is stopping workers and their relatives from leaving Zaporizhzhia, despite organising their evacuation from the area near the Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
On Wednesday Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, Energoatom, said it had been told that about 3,100 people were to be withdrawn from the southern city from Enerhodar, including 2,700 who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company.
Warnings have frequently been issued over how dangerous the situation at the power plant has been since the invasion last year.
However the situation looks murkier than first thought. In its daily update on Wednesday morning, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said:
In Enerhodar, the Russian occupiers organised a so-called “evacuation” for family members of Zaporizhzhia NPP [nuclear power plant] employees. Yet the employees of the power plant are not allowed to leave the city.
The so-called “authorities” put in office by the occupation forces announced the evacuation to recreation centres and hotels of Berdiansk and Kyrylivka. However, those who agreed were taken to Rostov oblast [in Russia] and placed in tent camps.
Updated
Two Ukrainian civilians were killed and five were wounded in Russian attacks on Tuesday.
The preliminary figures come from the country’s military media centre. Russian forces used shells in attacks on 126 settlements across Ukraine, it said.
In a statement on Telegram, it said: “According to the information provided by the Situation Center of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Russian troops shelled nine regions of Ukraine in the past day.
“In total, 126 settlements were shelled with various types of weapons (mortars, tanks, artillery, MLRS, air defense systems, UAVs and tactical aircraft) and 153 infrastructure facilities were hit. According to preliminary reports, two people were killed and five were wounded,” the report said.
Russian oil pipeline filling point attacked in 'terrorist' incident
Russia’s oil pipeline operator Transneft said that a filling point on the Europe-bound Druzhba pipeline in an border area between Russia and Ukraine had been targeted in a “terrorist” attack, according to the Tass news agency.
Transneft said nobody was injured in the incident, which it called a “terrorist attack”, according to Reuters.
“Yes, indeed, early this morning there was an attempt to commit a terrorist act against the Druzhba oil pipeline system at the Bryansk filling station,” Transneft’s spokesman told Tass.
“As a result, no one was hurt. The competent authorities are investigating the circumstances of the incident.”
Early on Wednesday, Baza, a Telegram channel with links to Russia’s law enforcement agencies, reported that three empty oil reservoirs at the Druzhba pipeline’s filling station came under attack.
It said there were no leaks following the attacks.
Russian oil supplies via the Soviet-built pipeline have not been sanctioned, however, European countries are scaling back usage of the route amid wider sanctions against Moscow.
The Druzhba pipeline was attacked several times after the start of what Kremlin casts as a special military operation in Ukraine last February.
The Kremlin has declined to comment on the progress of talks aimed at extending the Black Sea grain deal, which facilitates the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
Moscow has threatened to quit the agreement when it ends on 18 May unless what it calls obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports are lifted.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Tass news agency suggested that an agreement was close (see 9.46am). Ukraine has sought a longer term extension, and suggested that it would like to see additional ports included in the deal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia’s position was well known and that work on the deal was under way.
Two Russian soldiers from Kamchatka in the far east of Russia have been jailed for two and a half years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, human rights group OVD-Info said on Wednesday.
In separate rulings, the men, identified in military court documents as Alexander Stepanov and Andrei Mikhailov, were found guilty of refusing orders to go into combat during wartime, Reuters reports. Russian president Vladimir Putin amended the criminal code last year to include prison sentences of up to three years for refusing to fight.
Putin ordered the mobilisation of an extra 300,000 troops last September to bolster Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, where the army has sustained heavy losses in nearly 15 months of war. The move, unprecedented since the second world war, prompted hundreds of thousands of Russian men to flee the country to avoid being called up.
Summary of the day so far …
The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Russian mercenary group Wagner as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same. France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.
Britain is also set to formally blacklist Wagner as a terrorist organization to increase pressure on Russia, the Times of London newspaper reported on Tuesday. After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported citing a government source.
Russian forces are planning to “evacuate” more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday. Ukraine’s Energoatom said it had received information about preparations for the evacuation of about 3,100 people from the southern city of Enerhodar, including 2,700 workers who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company. Ukraine has repeatedly criticised Russia for forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian Federation territory.
Russia may formally “denounce” the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe that it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The decree formally appoints deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov to represent Putin during parliamentary proceedings on denouncing the treaty, which aimed to regulate the number of forces deployed by Warsaw Pact and Nato countries. Russia announced in 2015 that it was completely halting its participation in the treaty, having already suspended cooperation in 2007. Russia argues that the treaty, which was intended to balance conventional forces towards the end of the cold war, was de facto in breach because former Soviet republics like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Warsaw pact nations like Bulgaria had become members of Nato by the early 2000s.
The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Wednesday that two drones attempted to attack a military facility in his region, but failed.
Tass reports that the Russian Federation security service, the FSB, has claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on a police chief in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region.
The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has spoken in Brussels at a meeting of Nato’s military committee. He said the alliance needs to “redouble our efforts” in order to provide security to the 1 billion people in Nato countries, citing what he claimed was a range of rising threats.
Ukraine’s Energoatom claims Russia is planning to 'evacuate' nuclear power plant workers from Enerhodar
Russian forces are planning to evacuate more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s Energoatom said it had received information about preparations for the evacuation of about 3,100 people from the southern city of Enerhodar, including 2,700 workers who had signed contracts with the Russian-installed company.
“The Russian occupiers are proving their inability to ensure the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as there is now a catastrophic lack of qualified personnel,” Reuters reports it said in a statement on the Telegram messaging service.
“Even those Ukrainian workers who, having signed shameful contracts, … are going to be ‘evacuated’ soon. And this will exacerbate the already extremely urgent issue of having a sufficient number of personnel to ensure the safety of operation of the NPP (nuclear power plant) even in the current shutdown state.”
Last week, the head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said the situation around the Russian-held nuclear station had become “potentially dangerous” after Moscow-installed officials began evacuating people from nearby areas.
Russia’s Tass state news agency said on Monday the Moscow-installed governor of the Russia-controlled part of the surrounding region had suspended operations at the plant.
Reuters said it was not able to independently verify the reports, and Russia did not immediately comment.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe, and has been under Russian occupation since the earliest days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused the other side of endangering nuclear safety by firing at the plant. Ukraine has repeatedly criticised Russia for forcibly deporting its citizens from occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian Federation territory.
Updated
Russia may formally “denounce” the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe that it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Reuters reports the decree formally appoints deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov to represent Putin during parliamentary proceedings on denouncing the treaty, which aimed to regulate the number of forces deployed by Warsaw Pact and Nato countries.
Russia announced in 2015 that it was completely halting its participation in the treaty, having already suspended cooperation in 2007.
Russia argues that the treaty, which was intended to balance conventional forces towards the end of the cold war, was de facto in breach because former Soviet republics such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Warsaw Pact nations like Bulgaria had become members of Nato by the early 2000s.
Updated
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is carry a report from a source in Ankara hinting that the Black Sea grain initiative may be closer to an extension.
Moscow has insisted the deal expires on 18 May, claiming that western sanctions in areas such as banking and insurance are preventing it exporting its own agricultural products. Ukraine has sought a longer term extension, and suggested that it would like to see additional ports included in the deal. Tass quotes its source saying:
There is information that the deal will eventually be extended after May 18. That’s why I’m talking about it as a fact. And there are expectations that the export of Russian products will be included in it. For President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the extension of the deal is a signal to the west that Turkey can be trusted. Therefore, the authorities will do everything possible to continue the grain initiative
Updated
The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Wednesday that two drones attempted to attack a military facility in his region, but failed.
“As a result of intervention measures, one of them veered off course and went down, while the second was destroyed by gunfire,” Reuters reports governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
Voronezh is to the east of Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, which both border Ukraine, and it shares a border with Luhansk, one of the occupied regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.
Tass reports that the Russian Federation security service, the FSB, has claimed to have prevented an assassination attempt on a police chief in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. It reports the FSB said in a statement:
The FSB … prevented an attempt on the life of one of the leaders of the law enforcement agencies of the Zaporizhzhia region. The first victim of the attacker was to be the head of the police department in the village of Kirillovka [which is on the Sea of Azov coast, south of Melitopol].
When trying to detain the criminal, he offered armed resistance, but thanks to the professional actions of the special forces of the FSB of Russia, he was disarmed.
Tass reports that “components for the manufacture of an improvised explosive device were found at the detainee’s place of residence” and that the man was “a citizen of Ukraine, aged 31, who arrived in the Zaporizhzhia region to carry out sabotage and terrorist activities.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, offers this round-up of the latest developments overnight. It writes on its official Telegram channel:
In Bakhmut, fighters of the 3rd brigade of the armed forces of Ukraine advanced 2.6km during the storming of Russian positions for two days and defeated two companies of the 72nd brigade of the Russian Federation, said the commander of the “Azov” regiment.
Air defence forces destroyed three Russian drones over Dnipropetrovsk region on the night of 10 May. Also at night, the Russian army shelled Kherson heavily. More than 350 projectiles were fired in Kherson oblast during the day: one person was injured.
In Zaporizhzhia, the Russian army shelled 19 settlements yesterday: a resident of the village of Mykilske was seriously injured.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Stoltenberg: 'We must redouble our efforts' to keep Nato citizens safe in face of rising threats
The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has been speaking in Brussels at a meeting of Nato’s military committee. He has said the alliance needs to “redouble our efforts” in order to provide security to the 1 billion people in Nato countries, citing what he claimed was a range of rising threats. He told military leaders:
The transformation of our alliance over the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable. Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea and entered into eastern Ukraine in 2014, we have increased the readiness of our forces.
We have deployed combat troops to the east of the alliance for the first time in our history, and European allies and Canada have spent an additional $350bn extra on defence.
When President Putin launched his full fledge invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we were therefore ready. Within hours, we activated all our defence plans. We put 40,000 troops under Nato command, backed by significant air and maritime power, and we strengthened our forward defences from the Baltic to the Black Sea. These actions reduce the risk of miscalculation and escalation beyond Ukraine, by making crystal clear that we will defend every inch of Nato territory.
Stoltenberg went on to say:
As we prepare for a more dangerous future, we must redouble our efforts to keep our one billion citizens safe, and to uphold the rules-based international order.
High intensity warfare is back in Europe, global competition is rising, authoritarian regimes are challenging our values, interests and security, and other threats are also multiplying – from terrorism to cyber-attacks, from nuclear proliferation to climate change. So we need to step up for this new era of strategic competition.
Updated
Nato’s military committee is meeting in Brussels, and the session has just opened. We will bring you any key lines that emerge. One session is dedicated specifically to discussing Russia and Ukraine. Finland is participating in person as a member for the first times.
Adm Rob Bauer, chair of the Nato military committee, has said in his opening remarks that Russia is in the fifteenth month of its planned three day war, and that the committee will be hearing directly from Ukrainian military voices.
Here is a little more detail from the Times of London in its report that the UK government may be planning to designate the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation, following the lead of Estonia, France and Lithuania. The paper writes:
[Wagner founder Yevgeny] Prigozhin, 61, was able to use British courts to bring a libel case against Eliot Higgins, a British journalist, after revelations by his website Bellingcat about the group’s shadowy operations. The case collapsed in March last year after the outbreak of war in Ukraine and personal sanctions imposed on Prigozhin, but government sources said it was an example of how proscription could help to prevent Wagner’s influence and operations in the UK.
There has not been evidence that Wagner or individuals linked to it are operating in the UK since the war in Ukraine started and proscription is largely seen as a symbolic move. However, a government source said there had been “suspicions” that the group had helped launder money out of the UK along with organised crime groups after financial sanctions were imposed against Russian oligarchs and Putin allies in the wake of the war.
The UK Ministry of Defence has published its daily intelligence update, saying yesterday’s Victory Day parades in Russia, “highlighted the materiel and strategic communications challenges the military is facing 15 months into the war in Ukraine”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 May 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 10, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/TKmTuwDqhR
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/F8toJrjKqk
The full update reads:
On 09 May 2023, the make-up of Russia’s annual Victory Day Parade in Red Square highlighted the materiel and strategic communications challenges the military is facing 15 months into the war in Ukraine.
Over 8,000 personnel reportedly took part in the parade, but the majority were auxiliary, paramilitary forces, and cadets from military training establishments.
The only personnel from deployable formations of regular forces were contingents of Railway Troops and military police.
A vintage T-34 from a ceremonial unit was the sole tank on parade. Despite heavy losses in Ukraine, Russia could have fielded more armoured vehicles.
The authorities likely refrained from doing so because they want to avoid domestic criticism about prioritising parades over combat operations.
What are the implications of Wagner being listed as a terrorist group?
Being listed as a terrorist organisation means EU members could freeze assets of the Wagner group and its members, with European companies and citizens barred from dealing with the group.
Prigozhin had his assets in the European Union frozen in 2020 and was placed on a visa blacklist over the deployment of Wagner fighters to war-torn Libya, a decision he unsuccessfully appealed.
The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, conceded to lawmakers on Tuesday that legally the EU terrorist label would not have any “direct supplemental effect” on the group. But “we should not underestimate the symbolic importance of such a designation, nor the dissuasive effect that it could have on states tempted to turn” to Wagner.
In the UK, the blacklisting would make it a criminal offence to belong to Wagner, attend its meetings, encourage support for it, or carry its logo in public, the Times said. It would impose financial sanctions on the group and there would be implications for Wagner’s ability to raise money if any funds went through British financial institutions.
Britain reportedly poised to formalise terrorist classification
On Tuesday, the Times newspaper reported that after two months of building a legal case, Britain would also formally list Wagner as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia.
Citing a government source, the Times said the blacklisting was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks.
Britain’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
‘Enemy’ drone shot down in Kursk, says Russia
Reuters reports that Russia’s air defence forces shot down an “enemy” drone in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, its governor said on Wednesday, adding that falling debris damaged a gas pipeline and a house.
“Debris fell in the village of Tolmachevo. No one was hurt,” the regional governor, Roman Starovoyt, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
However, Kyiv has recently said that undermining Russia’s logistics is part of preparation for a planned counteroffensive
France calls on EU to label Wagner a terrorist organisation
The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Russian mercenary group Wagner as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same.
France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.
“Wherever they work, Wagner members spread instability and violence,” MP Benjamin Haddad told parliament on Tuesday. “They kill and torture. They massacre and pillage. They intimidate and manipulate with almost total impunity.”
He said they were not simple mercenaries driven by an “appetite for money” but they “follow a broad strategy, from Mali to Ukraine, of supporting the aggressive policies of President [Vladimir] Putin’s regime towards our democracies”.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: the French parliament has unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.
And Russia’s air defence forces shot down an “enemy” drone in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, its governor said on Wednesday, adding that falling debris damaged a gas pipeline and a house.
We’ll have more on these stories shortly.
In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
Vladimir Putin has told Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine that the “whole country is praying for them”, as he used his Victory Day speech to defend his invasion of Ukraine. Speaking on the 78th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Russian president drew historical parallels between the second world war and fighting in Ukraine. “We are proud of the participants of the special military operation. The future of our people depends on you,” Putin said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner force said he was told he and his mercenaries would be regarded as “traitors” if they abandoned their positions. Prigozhin threatened to withdraw his troops from the city in east Ukraine, which has been the site of a long-running battle since 2022 to try to capture it, because of a lack of ammunition. He then rowed back on it, but has again threatened to do so.
Arman Soldin, a 32-year-old video journalist for Agence France Presse in Ukraine, was killed by Grad rocket fire near Chasiv Yar, in eastern Ukraine, AFP said on Twitter, citing AFP colleagues who witnessed the incident.
The UK foreign secretary James Cleverly and US secretary of state Antony Blinken have urged Russia not to use hunger as a weapon of war, as discussions over the Black Sea grain deal continue.
Ukraine said its air defences shot down 23 of 25 missiles, fired overnight by Russia, chiefly at Kyiv, and there were no reported casualties. It was the second night in a row of major Russian airstrikes and fifth so far this month.
Ukraine is planning a “very important” counteroffensive against Russian forces that must “demonstrate success”, the country’s prime minister has said. Denys Shmyhal told Sky News that the operation would be launched when the time was right.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen hailed Ukraine as “the beating heart of today’s European values”. Zelenskiy discussed European integration, defence matters and sanctions against Russia at a meeting with Von der Leyen in Kyiv. He said he expected the EU to soon approve more sanctions on Russia.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said there is currently no prospect of peace between Russia and Ukraine because “both sides are convinced that they can win”. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País on Tuesday, Guterres was pessimistic about the EU and the UN’s ability to broker an end to the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion last year.
The US has announced a “new security assistance package” to help bolster Ukraine’s air defences and artillery ammunition needs. This package, confirmed by the Department of Defense on Tuesday, totals up to $1.2bn and is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).
A UK-led group of European countries has asked for expressions of interest to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles. The call for responses from companies who could provide the munitions with range of up to 300km (190 miles) was included in a notice posted last week by the International Fund for Ukraine.
Germany’s foreign minister has said China could play a decisive role in ending the war in Ukraine. Speaking alongside her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, at a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Annalena Baerbock said that as a permanent member of the UN security council, China had the power to be influential in the conflict and bring it to an end.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said Russia “will prevail” in its fight against what he described as “imperialists”, the state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday, in remarks seen to be aimed at Ukraine and its western supporters such as the US.
