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Summary
It’s now 8.30pm in Ukraine. In case you missed it, here’s a quick rundown of all the latest developments from throughout the day.
Two people were killed in a series of drone strikes in Kyiv overnight, the largest such attack to hit the Ukrainian capital since the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian military said that 58 of 59 Russian drone strikes across the territory of Ukraine were intercepted by aerial defence systems.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that “most of the lives that could have been taken by the [strikes] were saved” and thanked “each and everyone” of the people who had taken part in defensive operations.
Zelenskiy has also asked his country’s parliament to approve 50-year-long sanctions against Iran because of its role in supplying Russia with drones and military equipment for the war.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a medical facility in Dnipro on Friday has risen from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.
Russian attacks near the eastern city of Bakhmut, the scene of heavy fighting in recent months, have abated slightly, according to a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military.
The EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, Nabila Massrali, has said Russia “will be held accountable” for attacks on civilian areas.
Authorities in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine continue to coerce local populations into accepting Russian passports as part of efforts to annex territory, according to Ukrainian officials.
The Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin has told the BBC that Russia has “enormous resources and we haven’t just started yet to act very seriously”.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement.
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The authorities in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine continue to coerce local populations into accepting Russian passports, Ukrainian officials have said.
In its latest operational update, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said “forced passporting” was taking place in the Nyzhni Sirohozy district in the southern region of Kherson.
“In particular, the Russian occupiers constantly put pressure on the locals, threaten deportation and confiscation of property,” it said.
“Thus, local citizens with a Ukrainian passport, driver’s licence and technical passport for a vehicle are threatened with confiscation if they refuse to receive Russian-style documents.”
Kherson was among the regions Russia attempted to annex in September by staging referendums that were widely condemned by the UN and others as shams.
In an intelligence update last month, the UK Ministry of Defence said Russia was using passports as a “tool in the ‘Russification’ of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion”.
It added that the measure was part of attempts to “paint the invasion as a success, especially in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections”.
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Pictures show some of the damage done to buildings in Kyiv by last night’s drone strikes.
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Russia 'will be held accountable' for attacks, says EU
Russia will be held accountable for attacks carried out on civilian areas, the European Union has said.
Writing on Twitter, Nabila Massrali, an EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said: “Russia’s barbaric attacks continue, killing & terrorising civilians: attack on hospital in #Dnipro, now #Kyiv on dawn of #KyivDay.
“[Russian] leadership & perpetrators will be held accountable. We remain committed to help Ukraine defend itself.”
Last night’s strikes on Kyiv came after four people were killed and more than 30 were injured when a Russian missile hit a medical facility in the eastern city of Dnipro on Friday.
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We have some testimony now from a Kyiv resident whose home was damaged by the strikes that hit the city overnight.
Sergei Movchan, 50, said the attack had left people “in shock”.
“People are in shock. There’s a lot of damage, the windows were broken, the roof was damaged,” he said.
“Russians are intimidating us. But I think it’s the agony of their regime.”
Kyiv had been relatively spared since the start of the year, but last night’s attack was the 14th its residents have had to endure this month.
Reporters from Agence France-Presse (AFP) have visited the bombed Russian border region of Belgorod, where they found that an air of resignation has taken over a week after forces linked to Ukraine invaded.
Marina Saprykina thought about leaving the Russian border city of Belgorod, but finally, despite the bombing, incursions and fear, she says she is staying.
“We are used to it,” the 34-year-old sales director told AFP.
The Belgorod region witnessed on Monday the biggest armed incursion into Russia from Ukraine since Moscow launched its offensive in February 2022.
Shelling and drones were part of the assault which raised questions about the strength of Russian border defences.
People living in several border communities fled and the army and security forces deployed warplanes and artillery to halt the raids.
In the regional capital, also called Belgorod, 40km (25 miles) from Ukraine, no signs of panic are visible despite the frequent shells and drones that have fallen here for the last few months.
“The news is really concerning, we are worried,” Saprykina says. The strikes “take place every day, we can hear them”.
“But even if it’s frightening, we are used to it,” she adds.
Viktor Kruglov, 24, who works for an online sales site, says he too wondered about leaving Belgorod because of the repeated bombings.
“But if it’s your destiny, it doesn’t matter where you go, what will happen will happen.”
Fatalism seems to be a dominant force across the city. While some people do confess to a certain amount of worry, there’s no sign of panic.
There is no military presence or even a stepped-up police deployment to be seen in the city centre.
The town centre is full of carefree people enjoying the sun in parks and along the banks of the Vezelka River. Shops are packed and cafe terraces are doing brisk business.
Retired teacher Rimma Malieva, 84, is above all worried about her dog, which frets whenever military helicopters buzz overhead or explosions are heard.
“He runs all over without knowing where to go. Dogs are afraid of loud noises, especially when the [Russian] anti-aircraft guns go into action. So he’s the one who’s most afraid,” she said.
“As for us, what can we do? We just shout ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’. What will that change?”
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Here’s some footage of the aftermath of the overnight Russian drone attack on Kyiv on Sunday, which is Kyiv Day, marking the anniversary of the city’s establishment.
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The head of President Zelenskiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, has said that Ukraine will need security guarantees as it enters Nato membership.
Speaking to the Voice of America website, he said: “We are not talking about [Nato’s] article 5 until we become members of Nato. That is, these are absolutely realistic guarantees.
“Regarding security guarantees, you know that President Zelenskiy started talking about it many months ago, that we need security guarantees on the path to our membership in Nato. Because the main guarantee is Nato membership. Nato is the world’s strongest alliance today. Everyone admits it. And I am sure that it will be like that.”
Nato’s article 5 is the maxim that an attack on one Nato member is perceived as an attack on all of them, which should provoke a joint response.
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President Zelenskiy has praised his country’s air defence forces, after the capital, Kyiv, was hit by what Ukrainian officials said was the largest drone attack since the beginning of the Russian invasion, AFP reports.
The overnight attack killed two people and wounded three others.
The latest drone attack came as Russia has intensified aerial strikes on the capital this month, and warned the west against escalating the conflict after the United States agreed to green-light F-16 deliveries.
Ukraine said the latest attack on Kyiv was “the most important” of the invasion, with more than 40 out of 54 drones targeting the capital.
“Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved ... You are heroes,” Zelenskiy told his air defence forces on Sunday morning, also thanking rescuers.
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Summary
The time is now approaching 3pm in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Here’s a roundup of today’s latest news as Russia launched a mass drone attack overnight on Kyiv.
A 41-year-old man was killed by falling debris of Russian drones being shot out of the air, as the Kremlin launched a 54-strong drone attack on the Ukrainian capital.
The death was confirmed by the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who said a 35-year-old woman was also injured by the fall of the drone’s wreckage in the Solomyanskyi district.
Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 52 of the 54 drones during the attack, which it said was a “record” attack with the Iranian-made Shaheds.
The Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin has told the UK’s BBC that Russia has “enormous resources and we haven’t just started yet to act very seriously”.
In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, he repeated Russia’s line that the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was a “spy”. In response to a question by Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife, he said it was a decision of the “courts” rather than government-led oppression that led to Kara-Murza’s 25-year jail term.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a clinic in Dnipro on Friday has risen from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is asking the country’s parliament to approve 50-year-long sanctions against Iran because of its role in supplying Russia with drones and military equipment for the war.
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Russian attacks near Bakhmut have abated slightly, according to a spokesperson for the eastern section of Ukraine’s army.
Serhii Cherevatyi is quoted by the Ukrinform website by saying that there was only one military clash in the last 24 hours.
He said: “In the Bakhmut direction, the occupiers opened fire with different weapons 250 times. Our forces also launched strikes in response. As a result, 80 occupiers were eliminated, 99 injured, and one Russian soldier was taken prisoner. Three self-propelled howitzers, one electronic warfare system and one ammunition depot were destroyed.”
He added that Wagner group’s troops were being replaced with other units.
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President Zelenskiy is asking Ukraine’s parliament to approve 50-year-long sanctions against Iran because of Tehran’s role in supplying Russia with drones and military equipment for the war.
It would include a complete ban on trade with Iran, investments and transferring technologies, the Kyiv Independent reports.
A vote has not been scheduled. The announcement comes hours after a mass drone attack by Russia, using 54 Iranian-made Shahed drones. Ukraine claims it has downed 52 of them.
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The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a clinic in Dnipro has risen from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.
In a post on Telegram, Serhii Lysak said further analysis had confirmed that three missing people had been killed in the attack on Friday.
Those killed were doctors and employees of the clinic and neighbouring vet clinic.
The initial two who were identified as being killed were a 69-year-old man who was passing by the centre and an employee at the vets.
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South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
The US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, said on 11 May that he was confident that a Russian ship, which docked at a naval base in Simonstown in the western Cape in December last year, took aboard weapons from South Africa.
The South African has since denied it, Reuters reports.
The allegations have caused a diplomatic row between the US, South Africa and Russia and called into question South Africa’s non-aligned position on the Ukraine conflict.
South Africa says it is impartial and has abstained from voting on UN resolutions on the war.
“The president decided to establish the inquiry because of the seriousness of the allegations, the extent of public interest and the impact of this matter on South Africa’s international relations,” said the statement.
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Author Bill Browder, appearing on a panel on the BBC One current affairs show Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, said the Russian government was “failing miserably”.
Browder has written two books about Russia and his experience in finance there, which covers corruption and money laundering.
He said: “Corruption inside Russia has hollowed out the military. The supposed strong force failed at every step, they lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, they lost huge amounts of equipment.
“As he said Ukraine is a small country compared to Russia and they are being decimated by this small country.
“It is difficult watching that interview because everything he said is a lie. It will be painful when [Ukraine] launch that spring offensive.”
He said it is impossible that Putin is popular, as is claimed, when he has to rely on “totalitarian” measures.
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Russia hasn't started to act 'seriously' yet in Ukraine, Russian ambassador says
When Kuenssberg mentions war crimes, including a maternity hospital being attacked in Mariupol and asks why Kelin won’t be honest about what has happened, he replies that the war has been going on since 2014 in the Donbas with crimes being committed on the Ukrainian army side.
He adds: “We want peace. We want no threat from Ukraine to Russia, this is one thing, and second that Russians in Ukraine will be treated like all other nations in the world. Like a French person in Ukraine.
“It is a big idealistic mistake to think that Ukraine will prevail. Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources and we haven’t just started yet to act very seriously.
“We are just defending the lands which are under control and assisting Russian people over there. We are rebuilding the Donbas.
“It depends on the escalation of war that is taking place. Sooner or later this escalation might have a new dimension that we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow, if Ukrainian side will be prepared to negotiate but there is no preconditions for that.
“The German defence minister said if we stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, it will stop the day after tomorrow,” he said and laughs, saying he is right.
“If supplies of weapons will be stopped, it will be stopped the day after tomorrow. Please, stop it.”
The jailed Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia is then able to ask a question via Kuenssberg’s phone.
She asks why the Russian government needs to use oppression when it says it has support of the people.
Kelin says that Kara-Murza has been treated as a Russian citizen despite his dual-nationality, which Kelin acknowledges. He said he had not been treated differently from any other prisoner, and it is the court’s judgment.
On the subject of jailed westerners in Russia, Kelin claims that Evan Gershkovich was arrested as a spy.
Updated
The Kremlin’s man in London, Andrei Kelin, has spoken to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning about the war in Ukraine.
He said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner group, is a “free man” who is “commenting on what is happening in Bakhmut, and how the battle has gone”.
“I don’t think that he is very much wrong because the threat that existed for us on the eve of the military operation … was really the danger that presented to the existence of our state,” he said, in regards to Prigozhin saying Russia’s existence is at threat.
Kuenssberg challenged him on this, saying it was untrue. Kelin replied with conjecture about the size of the Ukrainian army.
Kelin went on to say that he did not agree with Prigozhin that there was a chance of “losing Russia”.
In response to a question about whether the attack on a hospital is justified, he brought up apparent incidents in Luhansk and Donetsk and claimed there had not been any mentions of it in British press.
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An interesting piece here from the Kyiv Post on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s speechwriting team and process.
Senior correspondent Maryna Shashkova said that Zelenskiy’s team say that speeches are “80%” him.
“He always knows what he wants to say, and he immediately formulates it in sentences and phrases. He speaks ready-made thoughts, the speechwriter needs to listen, take notes and possibly add what the president did not say,” a source told the Post.
Others involved are Dmytro Lytvyn, a speechwriter, and Yuriy Kostyuk, who worked with Zelenskiy when he was an actor.
“The main task of a speechwriter is to completely turn off your ego and become a reflection of another person. They can do it,” an official in the president’s office said.
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A 41-year-old man died during Russia’s mass drone strike on Kyiv on Sunday morning, after being hit by falling debris.
The death was confirmed by mayor Vitali Klitschko. Posting on Telegram he said that the man had been killed, along with a 35-year-old woman who was injured by the fall of a Shahed drone’s wreckage near a petrol station in Solomyanskyi, in the south-west of the city.
Fires were also reported in Kyiv, caused by the drones, as well as damaged buildings which had been struck by the UAVs.
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Biggest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the war – Ukrainian officials
Ukrainian officials are calling the raid on Kyiv the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war.
Ukraine’s air force said it downed 52 out of the 54 Russia-launched drones, calling it a record attack with the Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones. It was not immediately clear how many of the drones were shot over Kyiv.
The air force said on Telegram that Russia had targeted military and critical infrastructure facilities in the central regions of Ukraine, and the Kyiv region in particular.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said earlier that preliminary information indicated the air raid was the largest drone attack since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
He added that Russia used the Iranian-made Shahed drones in the attack. Reuters was not able to independently verify that information.
“Today, the enemy decided to ‘congratulate’ the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles),” Popko said on the Telegram messaging app.
“The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Iran earlier this week to reconsider the supply of deadly drones to Russia in order to stop their slide into “the dark side of history”. But Iran on Saturday said his comments were really designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the west.
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Summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. This is Christine Kearney and here’s an overview of the latest.
Russia carried out a major two-wave overnight air attack on Kyiv that killed at least one person, officials said, calling it the biggest drone attack on the capital since the start of the war, as Kyiv prepares to celebrate its birthday on Sunday.
The pre-dawn attacks came on the last Sunday of May when the capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of its official founding 1,541 years ago. Ukraine says it shot down more than 40 drones.
More on that story soon. In other news:
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.
The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, raised expectations that a major operation could be imminent, declaring on social media: “The time has come to take back what’s ours.” Zaluzhnyi’s declaration on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday was accompanied by a cinematic video showing heavily armed Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle.
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, Ukraine’s 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 500km (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.
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