No casualties reported after Russia strikes region in southern Ukraine overnight
Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Our top story this morning: Russian drones struck Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight and caused a fire at an infrastructure facility, the head of the military command of the Odesa region, Yuri Kruk, said on Wednesday. No casualties have been reported and firefighters were working at the scene, he said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited Ukrainian troops on Tuesday in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, his office have said. Zelenskiy listened to commanders’ reports on the battlefield situation and gave awards to soldiers, it said.
Zelenskiy and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy held a phone call on Tuesday in which they discussed Ukraine’s need for weapons as well as increasing sanctions pressure on Russia. On Twitter, Zelenskiy said he thanked McCarthy for bipartisan support in Congress for Ukraine.
A Moscow court rejected an appeal from US journalist Evan Gershkovich to be freed from pre-trial detention, meaning he will stay in a former KGB prison until at least 29 May while a spying case against him is investigated. Gershkovich denies the espionage charges.
The G7 has criticised Russia’s threat to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to intensify sanctions on Moscow for its war on neighbouring Ukraine. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Tuesday, the state-run Belta news agency reported.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the Black Sea grain export deal with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York next week, just weeks before the pact could expire unless Russian demands regarding its own exports are met.
Poland has said that it has reached an agreement on restarting transit of Ukrainian grains through its territory as of Friday, according to Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus.
Poland also announced plans to install thousands of cameras and motion sensors along its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave to prevent what Warsaw says are illegal migrant crossings orchestrated by Moscow. Polish interior minister Mariusz Kaminski said the system would join a barbed wire fence being built on the 200-kilometre frontier.
Russian forces are stepping up their use of heavy artillery and airstrikes in Bakhmut, the commander of Kyiv’s ground forces said on Tuesday. Russia is suffering significant losses in the battle, he said.
A Russian artillery attack killed one person and injured nine more in Kherson, regional officials said. Officials said a market in the city centre had been hit.
The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media, Agence France-Presse reported.
Security concerns have prompted Russian authorities this year to cancel traditional nationwide victory day processions where people carry portraits of relatives who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Russia is “not yet” planning to block Wikipedia, its minister of digital affairs said on Tuesday as a Moscow court handed the online encyclopedia another fine for failing to remove content Russia deems illegal.
