Seven Ukrainians killed between Wednesday and Thursday; EU votes that Russian deportation of children is genocide
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is genocide.
At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office said, including one person killed and 23 wounded when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Russia said its patience should not be tested over nuclear weapons in another repeat of hardline rhetoric. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia will do “everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario … but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests”.
The Biden administration is sanctioning Russia’s Federal Security Service for wrongfully detaining Americans. The sanctions are largely symbolic, since the organisation is already under sweeping existing sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia welcomed anything that could hasten the end of the Ukraine conflict when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders. But Russia still needed to achieve the aims of its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said relations with European countries were at their “lowest possible level” amid more expulsions of diplomats.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, welcomed the discussion between China’s President Xi and Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy and repeated the possibility of the war ending at the “negotiating table”.
Stoltenberg said 98% of promised combat vehicles had been delivered to Ukraine, comprising 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Thursday he had been joking when he said his men would suspend artillery fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.
Putin has ordered the Russian government to create museums dedicated to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, according to instructions published on the Kremlin website.
A Moscow court on Thursday ordered the dissolution of a prominent research centre specialising in racism and xenophobia in Russia, in the latest move against critical voices since the start of the Ukraine conflict.
Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May. It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine. During a visit to the Vatican, he asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the Black Sea grain deal could only be saved by fully implementing it and that it was not “a buffet you can pick and choose from”. Moscow says parts of the deal meant to allow it to export its own agricultural goods are not being honoured.
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin, has said Germany is still failing to provide the support it should. “The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should,” he told Die Zeit.
Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and received a “gush of manpower”. The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.
Britain’s opposition Labour party has asked the government why there has been no new weapons announcement since February and no fresh update from ministers to parliament since January.
