Missile attack on Kharkiv; Japan’s foreign minister vows $37m in support for Ukraine via Nato; Russia can be reined in under international law – Zelenskiy
Homes in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv escaped being hit by a Russian missile attack on Sunday, said the mayor, Ihor Terekhov. “It landed near private residential houses in one of the city’s districts. Preliminary information indicates no damage or casualties.”
Russian S-300 missiles hit Kharkiv city twice, said Oleh Syniehubov, the regional governor, and strikes were also recorded in nearby Vovchansk, but so far no casualties had been reported. Kharkiv and Vovchansk lie close to the border near Belgorod in Russia.
The Japanese foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, forced into a bomb shelter by an air alert in Kyiv on Sunday, pledged $37m to a Nato fund that supports equipment such as a drone detection system. She also announced donations of five mobile gas turbine generators and seven transformers, to help with power cuts caused by Russian attacks.
In an intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Rosgvardia, the Russian National Guard, was having to bolster its resources and personnel because of upheavals in Russia’s internal security scene from the war in Ukraine.
Five children were among the 11 people killed by a Russian missile strike that hit in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Saturday, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said. According to Reuters, Vadym Filashkin told Ukrainian television that Russian forces engaged in “mass shelling” of Pokrovsk around 3pm.
The primary task of Sweden’s foreign policy in the coming years will be to support Ukraine, Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, told a defence conference.
The UK said it planned to spend £300m on a programme to produce advanced nuclear fuel suitable for the next generation of power-generating reactors, with the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Claire Coutinho, warning that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, won’t hold the UK “to ransom on nuclear fuel”. Ministers vowed to end Russia’s monopoly on producing advanced reactor fuel.
In Russia, more than 100 residents of the Russian border city of Belgorod had evacuated to an area farther from Ukraine, local officials said. Belgorod is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop in the supply lines of Russia’s invasion forces. The city has come under extensive shelling and drone attacks.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told a conference in Sweden via video link: “Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated.”
Charles Michel has announced he will step down early as European Council president after running in the European parliament elections set for June. The surprise move means EU leaders will have to swiftly agree on a successor to take up his vacated council post, and could pave the way for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to exert more influence over EU policymaking.
