Thank you for following today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
This blog is closed – however our coverage continues here.
Russia is replenishing significant losses of equipment and continuing to focus on establishing complete control over the settlements of Rubizhne and Popasna in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military claims.
Ukrainian defenders successfully thwarted 24 Russian attacks, as well as destroying six tanks, five artillery systems and 22 units of combat armoured equipment, according to the latest operational report from Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.
Here are some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today.
Push to arm Ukraine putting strain on US weapons stockpile, officials say
The US has provided Ukraine with much-needed military support including Javelins, Stingers, howitzers and other material being hustled to Eastern Europe to resupply Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia.
However, a growing concern has emerged as the war drags on: can the US sustain the cadence of shipping vast amounts of arms to Ukraine while maintaining its own stockpile?
The US already has provided about 7,000 Javelins, including some that were delivered during the Trump administration, about one-third of its stockpile, to Ukraine, according to an analysis by Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies international security program.
Analysts also estimate that the US has sent about one-quarter of its stockpile of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Ukraine. Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told investors last week during a quarterly call that his company, which makes the weapons system, wouldn’t be able to ramp up production until next year due to parts shortages.
“Could this be a problem? The short answer is, Probably, yes,’” Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and former government specialist on Pentagon budget strategy, war funding and procurement, told the Associated Press.
Cancian, the former government specialist on defence budget strategy, said the fact that Stingers and Javelins were not included in the most recent tranche of weapons the Biden administration announced it was sending to Ukraine could be a sign that Pentagon officials are mindful about inventory as they conduct contingency planning for other possible conflicts.
“There’s no question that whatever war plan they’re looking at there is risk associated with the depleting levels of Stingers and Javelins, and I’m sure that they’re having that discussion at the Pentagon,” he said.
Pentagon officials recently sat down with some of the leading defence contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman to discuss efforts to ramp up production.
The European Commission may spare Hungary and Slovakia from a soon-to-be-prepared embargo on buying Russian oil, accounting for the two countries’ dependence on Russian crude, two EU officials said on Monday.
The Commission is expected to finalise on Tuesday work on the next, and sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, which would include a ban on buying Russian oil.
Hungary - which received 58% of its crude oil and oil products imports from Russia last year, according to the International Energy Agency (IAE) - is heavily dependent on Russian oil and has repeatedly said it would not sign up to sanctions involving energy.
Slovakia received 96% of its supply from Russia, according to IEA data.
To keep the 27-nation bloc united, the Commission may offer Slovakia and Hungary “an exemption or a long transition period”, one official said, as reported by Reuters.
The oil embargo is likely to be phased in, most likely taking full effect from the start of next year, officials said. Overall, the EU is dependent on Russia for 26% of its oil imports.
The European Union hopes to pass the sixth round of sanctions against Russia at the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, the bloc’s chief diplomat said on Monday.
Josep Borrell told a news conference in Panama City, where he is on an official visit, the bloc hopes to curb Russia’s energy exports as part of its efforts to sanction Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the union, is expected to propose the package of EU sanctions this week, including a potential embargo on buying Russian oil - a measure that would deprive Moscow of a large revenue stream. However, many EU countries remain divided.
Borrell, who chairs the foreign affairs council meetings, said he hopes the EU will be able to take “measures to significantly limit these imports” but conceded so far there is no agreement from all the members.
“But I am confident that, at least with regard to oil imports, this agreement will be possible between now and the next Council meeting,” he added.
The Council has meetings scheduled for 10 May and 16 May later this month.
Russia plans to annex Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk with ‘sham’ elections, US says
Here is a little more detail surrounding US claims that Russia plans to “annex” Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe told reporters in Washington on Monday:
According to the most recent reports, we believe that Russia will try to annex the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’ to Russia.
The reports state that Russia plans to engineer referenda upon joining sometime in mid-May.”
“This is straight out of the Kremlin’s playbook,” he added.
Carpenter said that the United States also believed Russia was considering a similar plan in a third region, Kherson, where Moscow has recently solidified its control and imposed use of its ruble currency.
We think the reports are highly credible. Unfortunately we have been more right than wrong in exposing what we believe may be coming next, and so that is part of what we’re trying to do here.
Such sham referenda - fabricated votes - will not be considered legitimate, nor will any attempts to annex additional Ukrainian territory.
But we have to act with a sense of urgency.”
Carpenter said it was also possible that Russia’s leaders would try to take over other parts of Ukraine, by imposing “puppets and proxies” in local governments and forcing out democratically elected officials. He said that this had appeared to be Moscow’s initial aim in Kyiv — a plan that included installing a new constitution in Ukraine — but that Russian forces had been forced to drop back to the country’s east and south after they were unable to take the capital.
Updated
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, visited the Donbas front in the Ukraine war last week, a Pentagon official said.
Reports that he was injured in a Ukrainian attack could not be confirmed.
“What we can confirm is that we know that for several days last week he was in the Donbas,” a senior US defense official told journalists on Monday.
“We don’t believe that he’s still there - that he has left and he’s back in Russia,” the official said.
“We cannot confirm reports that he was injured.”
According to reports citing Ukraine officials, on Saturday Ukraine forces shelled a command centre in Izium, where Gerasimov, chief of general staff of the Russian armed forces, visited to meet with top field commanders.
But he had apparently left the site before the shelling took place, according to Agence France-Presse.
Gerasimov was believed to be touring the front to better understand field conditions and rally his troops as Russian forces, after failing to capture Kyiv in the north, attempt to take control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the east.
Summary so far
If you have just joined us, here is a quick re-cap of where things stand:
- Some of the first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in Mariupol reportedly arrived on Monday in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia after an overnight bus journey stymied by delays across the frontline. More than 100 civilians – mostly women, children and elderly people – were evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant, Ukraine’s military police said in a statement. Hundreds of people are believed to still be remained trapped in the last stronghold of resistance in the city.
- A Russian rocket strike hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in south-western Ukraine, causing deaths and injuries. The strike hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary. A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was wounded, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday. “How did these children and the dormitory threaten the Russian state?” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
- Russian forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine – where the bulk of the fighting is taking place – are suffering from poor command and control, low morale, and less than ideal logistics, the US says. “We continue to see minimal, at best, progress by the Russians in the Donbas,” a senior US Defense Department official, has said.
- The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said that the death toll of civilians killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion has exceeded 3,000 people. Most of the victims were killed by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as missile strikes and airstrikes, the rights office said, without attributing responsibility.
- Russian troops are reportedly destroying historical tombs in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to Ukrainian officials. Via Twitter, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Russian troops were destroying 1,000-year-old Scythian tombs in Kherson by “arranging firing positions on them”.
- Russia is planning to annex Donetsk and Luhansk after failing to gain Kyiv and overthrow the government there, the US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe told reporters. Russia might also consider doing the same in Kherson, where it is already imposing roubles as the official currency.
- The director of the United Nations World Food Programme in Germany has warned that millions of tonnes of grain is stuck in Ukraine due to seaports being blocked by Russian military action. Martin Frick said about 4.5m tonnes of grain in containers at Ukrainian ports could not be shifted due to unsafe or occupied sea routes, some of which had been mined, as well as inaccessible ports.
- Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was asked to address how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” the country when its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, in an interview with Italian TV. Lavrov responded that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews” while defending Russia’s policy of “denazification” in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s term for a sweeping purge that Ukraine says is a pretext for “mass murder.”
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Lavrov’s comments showed that “Russia has forgotten all the lessons of the second world war”. Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology and world leaders condemned the remarks.
- Britain has said it will provide £300m ($375m) more in military aid to Ukraine, including electronic warfare equipment and a counter-battery radar system, on top of around £200m pounds of assistance so far, Reuters reports.
- Boris Johnson will hail Ukraine’s resistance against tyranny as an exemplar for the world as he delivers a virtual address to the country’s parliament on Tuesday. Johnson will become the first world leader to address the Verkhovna Rada since the conflict began.
- More than 70 of 90 M-777 howitzers the US planned to send are now in Ukrainian hands, along with over 140,000 155 mm rounds, a senior official with the US department of defense said.
- The European commissioner for energy, has said that Russia’s demands for fuel payments to be made in roubles had to be rebuffed despite the risks of an interruption to supply at a time without alternative gas supply. After a meeting of EU energy ministers, Kadri Simson said that all the energy ministers had accepted that paying in roubles through the mechanism set out by Russia would breach sanctions imposed by the bloc after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Germany said it was prepared to back an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil, a major shift from Moscow’s biggest energy customer that could let Europe impose such a ban within days. “We have managed to reach a situation where Germany is able to bear an oil embargo,” German economy minister Robert Habeck said Monday in Brussels, where he met with EU colleagues. “This means it won’t be without consequences.”
- Russia has rerouted internet traffic in the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson through Russian communications infrastructure, the internet service disruption monitor NetBlocks said on Monday.
- The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has banned Russian football clubs from participation in the 2022-23 seasons in the Champions League, Europa League and Uefa Nations League. Russia’s bid to host the Euro 2028 and Euro 2032 tournaments is also no longer eligible.
The evacuation of civilians trapped in Mariupol is set to resume on Tuesday, 3 May, the city council announced.
In an update over its official Facebook page, officials said an evacuation of civilians has been agreed to start at 7am local time.
“It’s official. Evacuation. With the support of the UN and the Red Cross for tomorrow the evacuation of civilians has been agreed,” the council said.
Russia makes minimal progress in Donbas, US says
Russian forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — where the bulk of the fighting is taking place — are suffering from poor command and control, low morale, and less than ideal logistics, a senior US Defense Department official, has said in a statement on Monday.
We continue to see minimal, at best, progress by the Russians in the Donbas. They are not making the progress that they had scheduled to make and that progress is uneven and incremental.”
The Russians have had some minor gains east of the Ukrainian cities of Izyum and Popasna, the official said, adding that that progress has been anaemic.
“What we saw there in Popasna is not unlike what we’ve seen in other hamlets in the Donbas. [The Russians] will move in and then declare victory and then withdraw their troops only to let the Ukrainians take it back. So, there was a lot of back and forth over the last couple of days,” the official said.
Also, the Pentagon has observed that Russian forces seem to have a risk and casualty aversion in both the air war and the ground war, the official said.
Ukrainian forces continue to hold Kharkiv against nearby Russian forces. The city continues to endure Russian air strikes, the official said.
“But the Ukrainians have been doing an able job over the last 24 to 48 hours of pushing the Russians further away. And they have managed to push the Russians out about 40km to the east of Kharkiv,” the official said.
That’s a good example of the stiff and formidable resistance Ukrainian forces are displaying, the official said.
Mariupol continues to get hit with standoff Russian air attacks. “We continue to see them using dumb bombs in Mariupol,” the official said, referring to ordnance that’s not precision-guided.
The New York Times is also reporting that some evacuees have successfully arrived from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday.
The group escaped the city in a convoy led by the International Committee for the Red Cross and the UN, the newspaper reports.
“For more than a month, more than 40 of us had to split six tins of food,” one evacuee said.
Fleeing Russian occupation, evacuees arrived in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday, in a convoy led by the International Committee for the Red Cross and the UN. “For more than a month, more than 40 of us had to split six tins of food,” one evacuee said. https://t.co/tZ6pyZrH45 pic.twitter.com/yE2dlrQhfh
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 2, 2022
Over the last 24 hours, two dozen flights carrying US arms have landed near Ukraine, and another 11 are planned over the coming 24 hours, officials said.
In addition, 23 transport flights carrying arms and battlefield supplies from five other countries also landed in key delivery locations.
US marine corp and air force personnel were earlier seen loading M777 howitzers bound for Ukraine onto a C-17 Globemaster III at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California.
More than 70 of 90 M-777 howitzers the US planned to send are now in Ukrainian hands, along with over 140,000 155 mm rounds that these cannons use, which is about half of the projectiles planned for delivery, a senior official with the US department of defense said.
Training on those weapons continues outside of Ukraine, the official added.
.@USMC and @usairforce personnel load M777 Howitzers bound for 🇺🇦 Ukraine onto a C-17 Globemaster III at @March_ARB in April 2022. pic.twitter.com/lJfYPMLO4c
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) May 2, 2022
Updated
Russia has rerouted internet traffic in the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson through Russian communications infrastructure, the internet service disruption monitor NetBlocks said on Monday.
London-based NetBlocks said it had tracked a near-total internet blackout across Kherson region on Saturday that affected various Ukrainian providers, Reuters reports. Connection was reportedly restored after several hours, but various metrics showed traffic was now going through Russia.
“Connectivity on the network has been routed via Russia’s internet instead of Ukrainian telecoms infrastructure and is hence likely now subject to Russian internet regulations, surveillance, and censorship,” NetBlocks said on its website.
Britain’s ministry of defence said on Sunday that Russian moves in the region are “likely indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term”.
It pointed to statements about the use of the rouble and rejections of the possibility of the region’s return to Ukrainian control.
The move appeared aimed at tightening Moscow’s grip on a region where it claims it has taken full control. Russia-appointed authorities in parts of Kherson have said the region would start using the Russian rouble on 1 May.
Britain to provide £300m more in military aid to Ukraine
Britain has said it will provide £300m ($375m) more in military aid to Ukraine, including electronic warfare equipment and a counter-battery radar system, on top of around £200m pounds of assistance so far, Reuters reports.
Britain has sent Ukraine more than 5,000 anti-tank missiles and five air defence systems as well as other munitions and explosives since Russia’s invasion on 24 February, which has destroyed cities and left thousands of people dead or injured.
The United States has provided $3bn of military aid to Ukraine so far, and last week President Joe Biden asked the US Congress to approve more than $20bn in military support.
First civilians to be evacuated from steel plant in Mariupol arrive in Zaporizhzhia
The first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in Mariupol arrived on Monday in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia after an overnight bus journey across the front-line, Reuters is reporting.
More than 100 civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant arrived safely in Zaporizhia, Ukraine’s military police said in a statement.
Those evacuated were made up mostly of women, children and the elderly, the police said. The evacuees there will have access to medical care, food, medicine and psychological assistance, police said.
Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov unit, told Agence France-Presse that another 20 people were transferred out on Monday evening, but only after a five-hour delay as “the enemy’s artillery caused new rubble and destruction.”
Hundreds of civilians have been trapped for weeks inside the Azovstal plant along with the city’s last Ukrainian defenders. Dozens were able to leave on Sunday in an evacuation organised by the United Nations, the first to escape since Putin ordered the plant barricaded last week.
About 200 civilians, including 20 children, remain at the Mariupol steel plant where Ukrainian soldiers have refused Russian demands to surrender, a Ukrainian official told The Washington Post late Monday local time.
Efforts to organise the evacuation of civilians from other parts of the city, now held by the Russians, ran into several delays.
Before the weekend evacuation, about 1,000 civilians were believed to be in the sprawling, Soviet-era steel plant, along with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, according to the Associated Press. As many as 100,000 people may still be in Mariupol.
Ukraine and Russia have been coordinating civilian evacuations with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Updated
Germany could back immediate EU ban on Russian oil
Here is a little more detail surrounding Germany’s latest position that it is prepared to back an immediate European Union embargo on Russian oil.
German economy minister Robert Habeck met with EU colleagues in Brussels on Monday where he addressed the country’s stance on an oil embargo.
We have managed to reach a situation where Germany is able to bear an oil embargo. This means it won’t be without consequences.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has been more cautious than other western leaders in backing Ukraine, has been under growing pressure to take a firmer line, including from within the Social Democrat’s own governing coalition.
In an interview broadcast Monday, Scholz said sanctions will remain until the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signs a peace deal with Ukraine.
“We won’t withdraw the sanctions unless he reaches an agreement with Ukraine, and he won’t get that with a dictated peace,” Scholz said on ZDF public television. He said Germany would also not accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“With coal and oil, it is possible to forgo Russian imports now,” finance minister Christian Lindner told Die Welt newspaper. “It can’t be ruled out that fuel prices could rise.”
The latest stances marks a major shift from Moscow’s biggest energy customer that could let Europe impose such a ban within days.
Updated
Boris Johnson to hail Ukraine’s ‘finest hour’ in address to Kyiv parliament
British prime minister Boris Johnson will hail Ukraine’s resistance against tyranny as an exemplar for the world as he delivers a virtual address to the country’s parliament on Tuesday.
Recalling Britain’s resolve during the second world war, Johnson will say that “we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour”. He will say the bravery demonstrated by those who have sought to defend their country from Russian invaders means the war will come to be known as Ukraine’s “finest hour”, too.
The speech to Ukrainian MPs reciprocates the move made by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who gave a historic speech to the House of Commons in March.
Johnson will become the first world leader to address the Verkhovna Rada since the conflict began, and seek to show critics he is focused on international affairs despite continuing questions over his leadership.
Updated
Catch up
- A Russian rocket strike hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in south-western Ukraine, causing deaths and injuries. The strike hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary, and a teenage boy was reportedly killed.
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Uefa banned Russian football clubs from participation in the 2022-23 seasons in the Champions League, Europa League and Uefa Nations League. Russia’s bid to host the Euro 2028 and Euro 2032 tournaments is also no longer eligible.
- The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said that the death toll of civilians killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion has exceeded 3,000 people.Most of the victims were killed by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as missile strikes and airstrikes, the rights office said, without attributing responsibility.
- Efforts to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol ran into delays as hundreds of people remained trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance. The evacuation is seen as the best and possibly last hope for hundreds of trapped civilians.
- Russian troops are reportedly destroying historical tombs in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to Ukraine officials. Ukraine’s ministry of foreign affairs twitted that Russian troops were destroying 1,000-year-old Scythian tombs in Kherson by “arranging firing position at them”.
- After failing to gain Kyiv and overthrow the government there, Russia is planning to annex Donetsk and Lugansk, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe told reporters. Russia might also consider doing the same in Kherson, where it is already imposing rubles as the official currency.
- The director of the United Nations world food programme in Germany has warned that millions of tonnes of grain is stuck in Ukraine due to sea ports being blocked by Russian military action. Martin Frick said about 4.5m tonnes of grain in containers at Ukrainian ports could not be shifted due to unsafe or occupied sea routes, some of which had been mined, as well as inaccessible ports.
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews” showed that “Russia has forgotten all the lessons of World War II”. Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology and world leaders condemned the remarks.
– Guardian staff
Updated
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews” showed that Moscow had not learned the lessons from the second world war.
He said:
Russia’s foreign minister openly and without hesitation said that the biggest antisemites were allegedly among the Jews themselves. And that Hitler allegedly had Jewish blood. How could this be said on the eve of the anniversary of the victory over Nazism? These words mean that Russia’s top diplomat is blaming the Jewish people for Nazi crimes. No words.
Of course, there is a big scandal in Israel today as regards these words. However, no one hears objections or excuses from Moscow. There is silence. Hence, they agree with what their foreign minister said. After the Russian missile attack at Babyn Yar in Kyiv, after the menorah damaged by shelling at the site of the mass executions in Drobytsky Yar near Kharkiv, after the deaths of ordinary people who survived the Nazi occupation and Nazi concentration camps from Russian shelling, such an antisemitic thrust by their minister means Russia has forgotten all the lessons of world war two.
Or maybe they never studied those lessons. So the question is will the Israeli ambassador stay in Moscow knowing their new position? Will relations with Russia remain as usual? Because it’s not accidental. The words of the Russian foreign minister – a ‘great connoisseur of Hitlerism’ – are not accidental.
It is no coincidence that the Russian occupiers are creating so-called ‘filtration camps’ on Ukrainian land through which thousands of our Ukrainian citizens are passing. Where our people are killed, tortured and raped. It is no coincidence that the occupiers capture civilians and take them hostage or deport them as free labour.
It is no coincidence that they are waging a so-called total war to destroy all living things, after which only the burned ruins of entire cities and villages remain.
To do this, one must completely reject the moral and achievements of the victors of Nazism. But if such people are in the Russian leadership, it does not mean they can judge others in Europe or in the world according to themselves.
Updated
Ministers are to investigate whether British-made components identified as being used in Russian weapons systems are being deployed in Ukraine.
A report by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) said that research conducted by the Ukrainian armed forces of Russian weapons systems recovered from the battlefield showed a “consistent pattern” of dependence on foreign-made components, in some cases British.
The UK introduced an arms embargo against Russia in 2014 after its illegal annexation of Crimea – although there were reports that some export licences were still being issued – and banned the direct export to Russia of dual-use components, which have a civilian or military use, at the beginning of March after the invasion of Ukraine.
The Rusi report did not say when the components in question were likely to have been exported and there was no suggestion of wrongdoing by the manufacturers, but it raised concerns that parts made in the UK could still find their way to Russia. It said that western economic sanctions meant Moscow would become increasingly reliant on component-smuggling to ensure its jets, missiles and other hi-tech munitions can function.
The Daily Telegraph reported that a Whitehall inquiry would be launched to look into UK components being used in Russian weapons systems.
A government spokesperson said: “We have introduced the largest and most severe economic sanctions that Russia has ever faced, to help cripple Putin’s war machine, including by sanctioning key defence sector organisations, and banning the export of critical technologies.
“The UK has one of the most robust and transparent export-control regimes in the world. We take all credible allegations of breaches of export control seriously and we will take further action if appropriate.”
Read more:
After failing to gain Kyiv and overthrow the government there, Russia is planning to annex Donetsk and Lugansk, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe told reporters.
“According to the most recent reports, we believe that Russia will try to annex the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’ to Russia,” said Michael Carpenter. Russia might also consider doing the same in Kherson, where it is already imposing rubles as the official currency.
“The reports state that Russia plans to engineer referenda upon joining sometime in mid-May,” he told reporters, according to AFP. “We think the reports are highly credible.”
Updated
A teenage boy was killed in a Russian strike that hit the city of Odessa today, reports AFP citing a social media post made by the southern city’s council.
“As a result of a missile strike in Odessa, a residential building which had five people in it at the time of the attack, was damaged. A 15-year-old boy died,” Odessa city council said on Telegram.
A girl was hospitalised, it said but gave no details on the other three people in the building.
The statement came after Ukraine said there was a new strike on Odessa.
“The enemy fired a missile at one of Odessa’s infrastructure facilities,” regional governor Maxim Marchenko said earlier on Monday.
“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded,” he said.
Odessa, a largely Russian-speaking city and cultural hub, has seen increased attacks by Moscow in recent weeks.
Late last month, five people were killed, including a three-month-old baby girl, in a Russian strike on the city.
Russia has regrouped its forces to attack Ukraine’s south and east, where fighting is heavy.
Updated
Canada’s prime minister spoke out against comments made by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that suggested Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, reports Reuters.
While speaking to reporters in Canada’s Ontario providence, Trudeau said:
They are ridiculous and unacceptable ... what the Russian foreign minister just said is unbelievable.
Updated
The US president, Joe Biden, would “love to visit Ukraine”, but has no current plans to do so, reports Reuters citing the White House.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said today that Biden would love to visit the country following Russia’s invasion, but confirmed no official visit was in the works.
Psaki was asked about a potential Biden visit following a surprise trip by US lawmaker and House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi over the weekend.
“And I know the president would love to visit Ukraine, but no plans in the works at this time,” said Psaki.
Psaki said the White House would continue to assess the situation, emphasising the Biden administration’s objective to reopen the US embassy in Ukraine and have American diplomats on site.
Updated
Here’s the comment from Germany’s ambassador to the US Emily Haber on its willingness to back an EU embargo of Russian oil.
Haber via Twitter:
Yes. We support phasing out oil as part of the next round of EU sanctions.
We are already down to 12% Russian oil imports, and we’ll go all the way to zero.
Yes. We support phasing out oil as part of the next round of EU sanctions.
— Emily Haber (@GermanAmbUSA) May 2, 2022
We are already down to 12% Russian oil imports, and we’ll go all the way to zero.
Updated
Germany said today that it was willing to back an immediate European Union embargo on Russian oil, a policy shift that could lead to the EU imposing a ban within days, reports Reuters.
Russian oil exports have largely been spared from international sanctions, which Ukrainian officials have criticized as allowing countries to still support Russia and fund its invasion of Ukraine.
However, as the war continues, Ukraine allies – specifically Germany – have come under pressure to take a harsher stance against Russia, including sanctioning its oil exports – Russia’s largest source of income.
“Germany is not against an oil ban on Russia. Of course, it is a heavy load to bear but we would be ready to do that,” said Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, to reporters before talks with his EU colleagues in Brussels.
“With coal and oil, it is possible to forgo Russian imports now,” Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister, told Die Welt newspaper. “It can’t be ruled out that fuel prices could rise.”
Updated
Russia has expressed interest in investing in a pipeline project that would run between Nigeria and Morocco, reports Reuters citing a Nigerian official.
Russia has expressed interest in investing in the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project that has been on the cards since 2016, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources said on Monday.
Nigeria and Morocco first signed the agreement on the project in December 2016. Besides linking the two countries, the 5,660km (3,517 miles) pipeline is also expected to connect some other African countries to Europe.
“The Russians were with me in the office last week. They are very desirous to invest in this project and there are lots of other people who are also desirous to invest in the project,” Timipre Sylva told reporters in Abuja.
“This is a pipeline that is going to take our gas all through a lot of countries in Africa and also, all the way to the edge of the African continent where we can have access to the European market as well.”
Sylva said President Muhammadu Buhari’s government hoped to at least kickstart the project before leaving office in May 2023. He did not say how much it will cost.Nigeria is rich in hydrocarbons but produces little electricity, making its industries uncompetitive.
Updated
The US first lady, Jill Biden, will visit parts of eastern Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports the Associated Press.
Biden will visit Romania and Slovakia later this week to meet Ukrainian refugees, US diplomats and US military personnel on a five-day trip. Both countries border Ukraine and are members of Nato.
“As a mother myself, I can only imagine the grief families are feeling,” said Biden, a mother of three.
“I know that we might not share a language, but I hope that I can convey, in ways so much greater than words, that their resilience inspires me, that they are not forgotten, and that all Americans stand with them still.”
Updated
Russian troops are reportedly destroying historical tombs in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to Ukraine officials.
Via Twitter, Ukraine’s ministry of foreign affairs reported that Russian troops were destroying 1,000-year-old Scythian tombs in Kherson by “arranging firing position at them”.
The foreign ministry affairs office had been informed by Kherson officials in charge of inspection and protection of cultural heritage objects.
From the ministry of foreign affairs’ Twitter:
The invaders are destroying thousand-year-old Scythian tombs in Kherson region by arranging firing positions on them – #Kherson Regional Inspection on the Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects informed.#WeAreUkraine
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) May 2, 2022
🔗 https://t.co/TtHbI6yBko pic.twitter.com/hZj4213RlH
Updated
Following up on a story on the ground in Ukraine, animal rescuers were able to save a cat who was trapped on the seventh floor of a bombarded building in the settlement of Borodianka, located in the Kyiv Outblast.
From Kyiv Post via Twitter:
Animal rescuers from Zoopatro have managed to evacuate a kitty stuck inside a shelled house in #Borodyanka. To reach the animal sitting on the sixth floor, the rescuers had to use specialized equipment. pic.twitter.com/o1qRFSdI1l
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) May 2, 2022
From Nexta via Twitter:
Volunteers rescued a cat stuck on the seventh floor of a destroyed house in #Borodyanka. pic.twitter.com/5VwCwDwmkD
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 2, 2022
Borodianka residents were heavily impacted by Russia shelling, with residents returning to find their homes had been completely destroyed after their town had been retaken from Russian troops earlier last month.
From Reuters:
Updated
Catch up
Today, fears grew that a new front in the conflict is opening in Odesa in south-west Ukraine, where a curfew has been extended and rocket strikes took place.
Here are the main developments since 11am UK time this morning:
- A Russian rocket strike hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in south-western Ukraine, causing deaths and injuries.
- A Russian rocket strike hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary in the Odesa region.
- Uefa banned Russian football clubs from participation in the 2022-23 seasons in the Champions League, Europa League and Uefa Nations League.
- The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said that the death toll of civilians killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion has exceeded 3,000 people.
- Efforts to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol ran into delays as hundreds of people remained trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance. The evacuation is seen as the best and possibly last hope for hundreds of trapped civilians.
Thank you for following the blog today. I’m handing over to my colleague Gloria Oladipo in the US.
Updated
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, declined to answer when asked if he would sit at a table with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at a G20 summit Indonesia is hosting later this year.
“We will decide on that if the matter arises,” he said in an interview with ZDF public television. “It would be unwise to do anything else.”
He added that Germany’s aim is for Russia to end the war and withdraw troops, and that no sanctions would be lifted without a peace agreement with Ukraine.
Updated
A Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol has said that up to 200 civilians remain trapped inside bunkers in the Azovstal steelworks despite an evacuation operation led by the United Nations.
Capt Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, told Reuters that his fighters could hear the voices of people trapped in bunkers of the vast industrial complex.
He said they were women, children and elderly people, but that the Ukrainian forces there did not have the mechanised equipment needed to dislodge the rubble, he said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify his comments.
“We were planning to tear up the bunkers, the entrance to which is blocked, but all night into Monday naval artillery and barrel artillery were firing. All day today aviation has been working, dropping bombs,” Palamar said by Zoom.
An unknown number of civilians and Ukrainian forces have been holed up in the Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol that has been devastated by weeks of Russian shelling and where Moscow has claimed control.
Updated
Uefa bans Russian football clubs from Champions and Europa leagues
Uefa has banned Russian football clubs from participation in the 2022-23 seasons in the Champions League, Europa League and Uefa Nations League.
Russia’s bid to host the Euro 2028 and Euro 2032 tournaments is also no longer eligible.
Updated
The New York Times Ukraine blog has some background to the rocket strike in Odesa.
A curfew in the Black Sea port city of Odesa was extended on Monday as recent events in neighboring Moldova have military authorities on heightened alert that Russia could be looking to open a new front in its war against Ukraine.
A string of explosions last week at government buildings in Transnistria, the Moscow-backed separatist region in Moldova that borders Ukraine to the southwest, has raised concerns that Russia could be preparing to deploy forces there and then move on to Odesa.
Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa region’s military administration, said that the threat of an amphibious assault by Russia on the region has faded as Moscow has moved its warships further from the coast after the sinking of its Black Sea flagship, Moskva, but that Odesa continued to be targeted by rocket strikes.
Updated
Moscow’s proposed scheme for foreign companies to pay for gas by enabling Russia to convert their payments into roubles would breach European Union sanctions, the bloc’s energy policy chief has said.
The EU energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, told a news conference after a meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels:
Paying roubles through the conversion mechanism managed by the Russian public authorities and a second dedicated account in Gazprombank is a violation of the sanctions and cannot be accepted.
Updated
Rocket strike hits Odesa
A rocket strike has hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in south-western Ukraine, causing deaths and injuries, the local governor, Maksym Marchenko, said on the Telgram messaging app.
No further details were immediately available.
Separately, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the southern military command as saying the strike had damaged a religious building.
Updated
There are some lines on Reuters from a US defence official:
- The US believes a top Russian general was in the Donbas region but can’t confirm reports he was injured in fighting.
- Roughly 200 Ukrainian troops have been trained on M777 howitzers.
Updated
Sweden will on Wednesday reopen its embassy in Kyiv after it closed temporarily following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish foreign minister tweeted.
On Wednesday, the Swedish Embassy will re-open in #Kyiv. Thank you @TobiasThyberg & team for your hard work, and to 🇵🇱 for temporarily hosting us. Sweden will continue to #StandWithUkraine, and is delighted that @SwedeninUA's diplomatic presence will be back where it belongs 🇸🇪🇺🇦
— Ann Linde (@AnnLinde) May 2, 2022
Updated
Guardian reporters Josh Halliday and Diane Taylor have spoken to three people fleeing Ukraine who have been left in limbo after the UK Home Office approved their visas but never sent them.
Taras Topolia, the lead singer of the Ukrainian band Antytila, has spoken about their collaboration with Ed Sheeran to raise money for Ukraine.
Topolia is working as a medic in the war effort and spoke to the BBC about the remix of Sheeran’s track 2step.
PA Media reports:
It was not so easy to record the voice because our studio was under occupation while we were creating the lyrics for the song … but we found a way to record the voice.
Topolia, 34, described the song’s accompanying video as “heartbreaking”, but encouraged people to watch it.
“You should watch it, I’m asking you, please watch the video because the video conveys the message of the song.”
The remix has been released to raise money for Music Saves UA, a non-profit fundraising project providing humanitarian aid for people in Ukraine.
Over the next 12 months, Sheeran and Antytila’s worldwide record royalties from YouTube streams of the official video, and Warner Music’s proceeds from such streams, will be donated to Music Saves UA.
Topolia explained the meaning behind the remix, saying: “It is a simple but very dramatic story. It is not just only my story, it is the story of millions of Ukrainian people, whose peaceful life was interrupted by war.”
Ed Sheeran’s official video for the original recording of 2step featuring rapper Lil Baby, which was unveiled last month, was shot in Kyiv last year.
In a statement, Sheeran said: “I stand with Ukraine and will be donating my record royalties from YouTube streams of the video to the DEC’s Ukraine humanitarian appeal.”
Updated
Reuters reports that Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said it has moved its embassy in Ukraine back to Kyiv from Lviv.
In a Facebook video, Szijjártó said the move was finished over the weekend and the embassy in Kyiv was already operating.
Updated
According to the Kyiv Independent, the Lysychansk Gymnasium school in the Luhansk region, which survived two world wars, has been destroyed by Russian shelling.
On Twitter it said: “Russian shelling destroys renowned school in Luhansk Oblast.
“Built over 100 years ago, the Lysychansk Gymnasium school survived two world wars and Russia’s attack in 2014. It was one of top 100 schools in Ukraine, according to the regional governor Serhiy Haidai.”
⚡️ Russian shelling destroys renowned school in Luhansk Oblast.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 2, 2022
Built over 100 years ago, the Lysychansk Gymnasium school survived two world wars and Russia’s attack in 2014. It was one of top 100 schools in Ukraine, according to the regional governor Serhiy Haidai.
Updated
The director of the United Nations world food programme in Germany has warned that millions of tonnes of grain is stuck in Ukraine due to sea ports being blocked by Russian military action.
Martin Frick said about 4.5m tonnes of grain in containers at Ukrainian ports could not be shifted due to unsafe or occupied sea routes, some of which had been mined, as well as inaccessible ports.
“None of the grain can be used right now. It is just sitting there,” Frick told the German news agency DPA.
Ukraine is one of the world’s leading producers of wheat as well as being a major corn producer. About 30m tonnes of corn and about 25m tonnes of wheat were harvested in the country in 2020, according to the UN. Many countries in north Africa in particular are dependent for their basic food provision on low-cost wheat from Ukraine.
Read the full report here.
Updated
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth has the full report on comments made by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews”.
Poland is ready to be fully independent from Russian oil and is willing to support other countries to cut their supplies of fossil fuels from Russia, the country’s environment and climate minister Anna Moskwa said on Monday.
“Poland is proud to be on Putin’s list of unfriendly countries,” she told reporters before a meeting with fellow national ministers in Brussels to discuss energy.
Moskwa also said that Poland’s storages of gas would be filled for the winter.
Updated
UN reports Ukraine civilian death toll has surpassed 3,000
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said that the death toll of civilians killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion has exceeded 3,000 people.
The toll of 3,153 killed so far represents an increase of 254 from Friday. OHCHR said the real toll was likely to be considerably higher, citing access difficulties and ongoing corroboration efforts.
Most of the victims were killed by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as missile strikes and air strikes, the rights office said, without attributing responsibility.
Updated
The Guardian’s European affairs correspondent, Jon Henley, has the full report on the Mariupol steelwork evacuations:
Hundreds of people remain trapped in underground bunkers and tunnels beneath the sprawling industrial site – the last stronghold of resistance to Russia’s siege of the devastated southern port city – which Russian forces resumed shelling overnight.
Updated
Delays hit Mariupol evacuation
Efforts to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol have run into delays with hundreds of people still trapped in the Azovstal steel works.
Reuters reports:
It was not clear what was causing the hold-up although a city official said earlier that Russian forces had on Sunday resumed shelling the plant after a convoy of buses had left.
The plight of civilians trapped in Mariupol, which endured weeks of bombardment before Russian forces captured most of it, has been a focus of humanitarian concern as the war has ground on into a third month.
Thousands are believed to have been killed and those still stuck in the besieged Azovstal complex, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter, are running out of water, food and medicine.
Updated
The US embassy hopes to return to Kyiv by the end of May if conditions permit, after departing nearly two weeks before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
US diplomats moved some functions to the western city of Lviv before eventually relocating to neighbouring Poland.
“We listen to the security professionals, and when they tell us we can go back we will go back,” the charge d’affaires, Kristina Kvien, told a news briefing.
Some western countries have already moved their embassies back to Kyiv as the main focus of fighting in Ukraine has moved away from the capital to the east and south of the country.
Updated
Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre is canceling the performances directed by two directors who have spoken out against Russian’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Sunday, Russia’s top theatre announced that it would replace three performances of Nureev, a ballet directed by Kirill Serebrennikov with a production of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet, Spartacus.
Instead of Don Pasquale, a comic opera by Gaetano Donizetti. Directed by Timofey Kulyabin, audiences will see a production of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville this week.
The Bolshoi did not give reasons for the cancellations.
Kulyabin has used his Instagram account to express solidarity with Ukraine and ridicule Russia’s description of its actions there. In one post, he showed a mocked-up version of the cover of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, replacing the first word of the title with Special Operation - the term used by the Kremlin to describe the invasion.
Serebrennikov told France 24 in an interview last month that “it’s quite obvious that Russia started the war”, and that it was breaking his heart.
“It’s war, it’s killing people, it’s the worst thing (that) ever might happen with civilisation, with mankind... It’s a humanitarian catastrophe, it’s rivers of blood,” he said.
Both directors are currently outside Russia.
Updated
Israel has branded Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments that the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, “anti-Semitic and dangerous”.
Israel’s foreign minister Yair Lapid said the Russian ambassador would be summoned for “a tough talk” over the assertion, which Lavrov made on Sunday in an interview with Italian television in which he was asked how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” Ukraine, when the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was Jewish.
“It is an unforgivable, scandalous statement, a terrible historical mistake, and we expect an apology,” Lapid told the YNet news website.
In the interview, Lavrov said:
When they say ‘What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews’, well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing.
“For a long time now we’ve been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves.”
Updated
Russian rocket hits bridge in Odesa region
A Russian rocket strike has hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary in the Odesa region of southwest Ukraine, local authorities said.
Reuters reports:
The bridge, which has already been hit twice by Russian forces, provides the only road and rail link on Ukrainian territory to a large southern section of the Odesa region.
Serhiy Bratchuk, the Odesa regional administration’s spokesperson, reported the strike on the Telegram messaging app but gave no further details.
Rachel Hall here taking over the Ukraine blog for the rest of the day – please do send over any tips and ideas to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
Updated
Mariupol evacuations resume
Buses evacuating more civilians from Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine have left the city on Monday morning, an aide to the city’s mayor said.
The civilians on board the buses were not from the Azovstal steelworks, unlike some previous convoys. An unknown number of civilians and fighters remain trapped at Azovstal.
Updated
The European Commission may spare Hungary and Slovakia from an expected embargo on buying Russian oil, wary of how dependent the two countries are on Russian crude, Reuters quotes two EU officials as saying.
The commission is expected to finalise work on the sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, which is expected to include a ban on buying Russian oil – a major source of Moscow’s revenue.
Hungary, heavily dependent on Russian oil, has repeatedly said it would not sign up to sanctions involving energy. Slovakia is also one of the EU countries most reliant on Russian fossil fuels.
To keep the 27-nation bloc united, the commission might offer Slovakia and Hungary “an exemption or a long transition period”, one of the officials said.
The oil embargo is likely to be phased in anyway, most likely only taking full effect from the start of next year, officials said. The package is to be presented to ambassadors of EU governments on Wednesday.
Updated
Denmark will reopen its embassy in Ukraine on Monday, following its closure immediately after the Russian invasion, the Danish foreign minister Jeppe Kofod has said. He told the local broadcaster DR:
It’s a very strong symbol of the Danish support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people that today we are reopening the doors to the Danish embassy.
Several other countries, including France, the US and the UK, recently announced they were moving their embassies back to Kyiv.
Updated
The Finnish consortium Fennovoima has terminated its contract with Russia’s state-owned nuclear power supplier Rosatom for the delivery of a planned nuclear power plant in Finland, it has said.
The planned Hanhikivi plant was commissioned by Fennovoima, a Finnish-Russian consortium; in which Finnish stakeholders including Outokumpu, Fortum and SSAB own two-thirds and Rosatom’s subsidiary RAOS Voima holds the rest.
The plant’s future has been unclear since Russia’s attack on Ukraine forced the Finnish government to rethink the project; the final construction permit for which was set to be granted by the end of 2022.
The minister of economic affairs Mika Lintilä has repeatedly said it would now be “absolutely impossible” for the government to grant the permit.
Regardless, Rosatom’s Finnish unit RAOS Project, which is in charge of the construction, has insisted on proceeding. On Monday, following Fennovoima’s announcement, Lintila tweeted:
Fennovoima’s decision is clear. There’s reason to be satisfied with the owners’ decision. It would have been practically impossible to carry on with the project.
Fennovoima said the termination was due to significant delays and incapability by RAOS to deliver the project.
In recent years, the significant delays of the supplier have continued and grown. The war in Ukraine has worsened the risks of the project that RAOS Project has not been able to prevent.
It said its cooperation with RAOS Project would end with immediate effect.
Updated
Russia resumed shelling of the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol as soon as buses evacuating civilians from the plant had left on Sunday, Petro Andryushchenko – an aide to the city’s mayor – has said.
Mariupol, scene of the heaviest fighting of the war in Ukraine so far, is largely in Russian hands. An unknown number of civilians and fighters remain trapped at Azovstal, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter from weeks of Russian bombardment.
Updated
Moscow claims to have shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet near Sloviansk, in the east of Ukraine.
Russia’s defence ministry has said it has hit 38 military targets in Ukraine, including ammunition depots and control centres. Reuters reports that it has not been possible to independently confirm the information given in the Russian briefing.
Ukraine refugee total passes 5.5 million – UN
More than 5.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on 24 February, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said. The statistics are compiled from a variety of sources, mainly data provided by authorities from official border crossing points, the agency said.
A Ukrainian Bayraktar drone destroyed two Russian Raptor-class patrol ships in the Black Sea on Monday, Reuters reports, citing Ukraine’s military leader. The chief of general staff Valeriy Zaluzhniy wrote on the Telegram messaging app:
Two Russian Raptor-class boats were destroyed at dawn today near Zmiinyi (Snake) Island.
There has been no immediate reaction from Moscow.
Finland will decide to apply for Nato membership on 12 May, according to a local media report.
Citing anonymous government sources, the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reports the decision to join will come in two steps on that day, with the nation’s president Sauli Niinistö first announcing his approval for the Nordic neighbour of Russia to join the western defence alliance, followed by parliamentary groups giving their approval for the application.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed Finland and Sweden to the verge of applying for Nato membership and abandoning a belief held for decades that peace was best kept by not publicly choosing sides.
Reuters reports it has not immediately been able to verify the details provided by Iltalehti.
Under the Finnish constitution, the president leads Finland’s foreign and security policy in cooperation with the government.
The decision will be confirmed in a meeting between the president and the government’s key ministers after the president and parliament’s initial announcements, Iltalehti reports.
Russia, with which Finland shares an 810-mile (1,300km) border and a pre-1945 history of conflict, has warned it will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in its Baltic coast enclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden decide to join the alliance.
Updated
Hungary is still opposed to any EU embargo on Russian oil and gas imports, government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has said.
“The Hungarian stance regarding any oil and gas embargo has not changed: we do not support them,” Kovács told Reuters.
The EU is set to propose a phased ban of Russian oil imports as part of new sanctions package under discussion this week.
Several diplomats said the ban on oil was made possible after a U-turn by Germany, which had said the measure would do too much harm to its economy, AFP reported earlier. However, the ban would require unanimous backing from member states.
Updated
Millions of dollars-worth of farm equipment stolen by Russian troops from Ukraine and shipped to Chechnya has proven useless after it was locked remotely, CNN has reported.
The equipment, comprising 27 pieces of machinery including combine harvesters, was taken over a period of weeks from a John Deere dealership in the occupied city of Melitopol and was worth a total $5m.
A contact in Melitopol told the US broadcaster there were “rival groups” of Russian troops stealing the machinery, with some coming in the morning and others in the evening.
Some equipment was taken to a nearby village but other machinery was taken nearly 700 miles away to Chechnya, where it is apparently languishing on a farm outside Grozny, according to GPS trackers on the equipment.
“When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realised that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely,” the contact said.
Updated
Units from the armed forces of Belarus have been identified in the Ukrainian border regions of Volyn and Polissya, Ukraine’s general staff has said in its morning update, adding: “The threat of missile strikes on military and civilian infrastructure from the territory of the republic of Belarus by the Russian enemy remains.”
In a Facebook post, it also claimed Ukrainian forces had repulsed 10 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, destroying equipment including two tanks, 17 artillery systems and 38 armoured combat vehicles.
Updated
About 100 civilians were evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Sunday. “I can’t believe it,” evacuee Natalia Usmanova told Reuters:
Two months of darkness. When we were on the evacuation bus I told my husband, ‘Vasya, we won’t have to go to the toilet with a flashlight?’
Updated
The founder of one of Russia’s biggest banks, Oleg Tinkov, has denounced president Vladimir Putin in his first interview since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, and said he could be in physical danger.
“I’ve realised that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Tinkov told the New York Times from an undisclosed location, but predicted that Putin would stay in power a long time. “I believed that the Putin regime was bad. But of course, I had no idea that it would take on such catastrophic scale.
The 54-year-old made headlines in April when he offered some of the strongest criticism by a prominent Russian of the Kremlin’s military action, writing in an Instagram post that 90% of Russians were “against this war” and calling Russia’s forces a “shit army”.
“And how will the army be good, if everything else in the country is shit and mired in nepotism, sycophancy and servility?” he wrote.
In Sunday’s interview, he said that many of his acquaintances in the business and government elite had told him privately that they agreed with him, “but they are all afraid”.
He also said that he had been forced by the Kremlin to sell his 35% stake in the bank he founded, Tinkoff, to a Russian mining billionaire for a fraction of what it was worth. The “fire sale” took place last week, said Tinkov. “It was like a hostage – you take what you are offered.”
Tinkoff denied his characterisation of events.
Tinkov also said he had hired bodyguards after friends with contacts in the Russian security services told him he should fear for his life.
Updated
Explosions heard in Russian city of Belgorod, governor says
Two explosions have taken place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor has written in a social media post.
“There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote, according to Reuters.
On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged.
Posts on social media said fighter jets and loud explosions had been heard above the city overnight. The Guardian was unable to verify the reports.
Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot.
Another video showing Jet Aircraft deploying Flares over the Western Russian city of Belgorod, Sonic Booms and possible Explosions have also been reportedly heard over the City tonight, something very strange is occurring. pic.twitter.com/09ZKf1Mnt1
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 2, 2022
Possible explosion, or sonic boom from aircraft overhead in Belgorod. pic.twitter.com/lwwaeuPHxk
— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) May 2, 2022
Updated
Evacuation of civilians from Mariupol set to continue
Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol are expected to arrive in the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, as part of an effort led by the Red Cross and the UN and coordinated with Russia and Ukraine.
“Today we finally managed to start the evacuation of people from Azovstal,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Sunday.
Given all the complexities of the process, the first evacuees will arrive in Zaporizhzhia tomorrow morning. Hopefully this doesn’t fail. Our team will meet them there. I hope that tomorrow all the necessary conditions will be met to continue the evacuation of people from Mariupol. We plan to start at 8 am.
One group from the besieged plant, the last holdout of Ukrainian fighters in the city, has also arrived in the village of Bezimenne in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. In an interview with Reuters, one woman described the terror civilians holed up with the fighters endured as Russian forces bombarded the plant.
When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that. I was so worried the bunker would cave in,” Natalia Usmanova said.
Mariupol’s city council separately said an evacuation convoy coordinated by the UN and the Red Cross would also be able to leave the city on Monday.
As many as 100,000 people may still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians and an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era Azovstal plant.
Mariupol has been a key target for Vladimir Putin because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Updated
More than a quarter of the units dedicated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have likely since been rendered “combat ineffective”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
Some of the country’s most elite units had suffered the highest attrition rates, it continued, adding: “It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces.”
The update in full:
At the start of the conflict, Russia committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65% of its entire ground combat strength.
It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.
Some of Russia’s most elite units, including the VDV Airborne Forces, have suffered the highest levels of attrition. It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 02 May 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 2, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/ZuMXTmNRyd
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/S7E6h4WTgM
Summary
Hello, this is Helen Livingstone bringing you the latest news from the war in Ukraine. Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
-
Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol are expected to arrive in the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, as part of an effort led by the Red Cross and the UN. One group from the besieged plant has also arrived in the village of Bezimenne in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. Mariupol’s city council separately said an evacuation convoy coordinated by the UN and the Red Cross would also be able to leave the city on Monday.
- Two explosions took place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor said. “There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote. On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged. No further details were immediately available.
- Russia’s top uniformed officer, General Valery Gerasimov, visited dangerous frontline positions in eastern Ukraine last week in a bid to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there, the New York Times has reported citing Ukrainian and US officials. He left on Saturday shortly before a deadly Ukrainian attack on a school being used as a military base in the Russian-controlled city of Izium.
- US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is set to meet Polish president Andrzej Duda on Monday, after becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war. In a press conference after meeting Zelenskiy, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied by Russia. Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, meanwhile told CNN it was “only a matter of time” before US president Joe Biden visits Ukraine.
- Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia.”
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German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
- Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia,” he continued.
- South Korea has become the latest country to reopen its embassy in Kyiv, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul has said. Ambassador Kim Hyung-tae is set to resume working from Kyiv on Monday.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU.
- The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling. Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.”
- The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out.
- Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned. Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts.
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