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India has in the past year emerged as a top buyer of Russian oil, Reuters reports, which has been rejected by Western nations amid sanctions.
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Access to cheap Russian crude has boosted output and profits at Indian refineries, enabling them to export refined products competitively to Europe and take bigger market share.
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“If diesel or gasoline is entering Europe … coming from India and being produced with Russian oil, that is certainly a circumvention of sanctions and member states have to take measures,” the bloc’s chief diplomat said.
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European leaders will travel to Iceland on Tuesday for a two-day summit meant to show their support for Ukraine, Reuters reports.
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In only the fourth summit of the Council of Europe (CoE) since it was founded after World War Two, the 46 members of the leading human rights body, which is entirely separate from the European Union, will gather to discuss emerging threats as the war in Ukraine rages on.
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“The Council of Europe is often underestimated in its importance,” Frank Schwabe, a German lawmaker who was closely involved in the planning of the summit told Reuters.
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The CoE’s democratic values are upheld by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, where citizens can take governments to court in case of human rights violations.
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Russia’s membership was suspended the day after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow then left the watchdog hours before a vote to expel it.
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“The summit will also be about saying what happens if you don’t respect the rules,” Schwabe said. “The threat of expulsion is already a sharp sword. Even Russia didn’t want to leave the Council of Europe, Turkey doesn’t want to leave either.”
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Russia launched an exceptionally intense air attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, using drones, cruise and probably ballistic missiles, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital suffered its eighth air raid this month.
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“It was exceptional in its density – the maximum number of attack missiles in the shortest period of time,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said in comments posted on the Telegram messaging app.
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“According to preliminary information, the vast majority of enemy targets in the airspace of Kyiv were detected and destroyed!”
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It was not immediately known how many objects were shot down over the city and if any of them managed to hit their target.
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On Tuesday, falling debris was reported in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Solomyanskyi and Darnytskyi districts, Reuters said, citing officials.
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Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
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Our top stories this morning: Russia launched an exceptionally intense air attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, using drones, cruise and probably ballistic missiles, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital suffered its eighth air raid this month.
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The attack comes as European leaders travel to Iceland today for a two-day summit meant to show their support for Ukraine.
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Falling debris was reported in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Solomyanskyi and Darnytskyi districts, officials said.
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We’ll bring you more on these stories shortly. Here are the other key recent developments:
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British prime minister Rishi Sunak said Britain would provide Ukraine with hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including new long-range attack drones with a range of more than 200km in the coming months, during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy’s visit comes off the back of trips to Berlin and Paris.
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The Ukrainian leader said he was also “very positive” about creating a “jets coalition” in the war against Russia, with a decision on the provision of western fighter jets expected soon. Sunak said the UK was preparing to open a flight school to train Ukrainian pilots and France has also now offered to train Ukrainian fighter pilots, president Emmanuel Macron said in Paris, though he ruled out sending war planes to Kyiv.
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The US is seeing more indications that Russia and Iran are expanding an unprecedented defence partnership that will help Moscow prolong its war in Ukraine as well as pose a threat to Iran’s neighbours. Iran has reportedly provided Russia with one-way attack drones, including more than 400 since august, US national security adviser John Kirby said at a news briefing.
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Ukraine hailed its first substantial battlefield advances for six months. Since last week, the Ukrainian military has started to push Russian forces back in and around the embattled city of Bakhmut, its first significant offensive operations since its troops recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November.
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The World Health Organization’s European office decided to close a specialised WHO office in Moscow and move its functions to Denmark. Calls from members to shut the office came last year over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, inadvertently confirmed that four military aircraft had been shot down over Russia last week near the borders of Ukraine and Belarus, saying the capital city Minsk had responded by putting its armed forces on high alert. Photos also emerged of Lukashenko today visiting an air force installation. The president had not been seen since 9 May, causing speculation about his health.
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Data published on the Federal Treasury’s online budget portal shows Russia spent 2tn roubles (£21bn) on defence in January and February alone. This is a 282% jump on the same period a year ago, illustrating the spiralling costs for Moscow of its conflict in Ukraine.
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Russia’s top army general, Gen. Oleg Salyukov, and his South African counterpart, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Mbatha discussed “military cooperation” at a meeting in Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The announcement came hours after South African president Cyril Ramaphosa denied US accusations that his country was siding with Russia in Ukraine and had sent weapons to help it.
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Seven people including a Russian-installed senior official and a teenager were wounded when an explosion ripped through a beauty salon in the centre of Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Monday, officials said.
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UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said that efforts will continue to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, a pact Moscow has threatened to quit on 18 May over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports, Reuters reports.
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Zelenskiy issued a new appeal to Nato to make a “positive political decision” on Kyiv’s membership at its July summit. Zelenskiy made his remarks in a video address to the Copenhagen democracy summit. He said that Finland joining Nato showed the strength of security guarantees, and thanked Denmark and other allies for their resolve in assisting Ukraine against Russia.
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Kyiv’s military administration has once again given the all-clear, after a night in which Russia launched a series of strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
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An air alert has been announced in Kyiv just 20 minutes after the last one ended.
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“We ask everyone to urgently go to the shelters of civil protection!” the Kyiv City State Administration said.
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This is the third air alert in Kyiv in the last 12 hours.
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The air alert in Kyiv has been turned off and officials have announced the “all clear” for now.
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The Kyiv City State Administration has asked residents to “keep an eye on reports and return to shelter if the siren sounds again.”
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Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko continues to warn of rocket debris that has fallen in multiple locations across the city, injuring at least three.
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Another Russian attack is underway in Kyiv, with a series of explosions at 3am local time.
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Ukrainian air defences lit up the night sky. There was tracer fire and car alarms went off across the capital. Several loud booms could be heard.
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It was unclear if the explosions came from enemy missiles, or from rockets being shot down.
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Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
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Air raid sirens have been going off in Ukraine as locals reported multiple explosions across Kyiv. Officials said air defence systems were repelling attacks on the capital and other areas of the country.
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“Air defence is working on targets,” the head of president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app without giving any further details.
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Other key developments:
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British prime minister Rishi Sunak said Britain would provide Ukraine with hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including new long-range attack drones with a range of more than 200km in the coming months, during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy’s visit comes off the back of trips to Berlin and Paris.
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The Ukrainian leader said he was also “very positive” about creating a “jets coalition” in the war against Russia, with a decision on the provision of western fighter jets expected soon. Sunak said the UK was preparing to open a flight school to train Ukrainian pilots and France has also now offered to train Ukrainian fighter pilots, president Emmanuel Macron said in Paris, though he ruled out sending war planes to Kyiv.
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The US is seeing more indications that Russia and Iran are expanding an unprecedented defence partnership that will help Moscow prolong its war in Ukraine as well as pose a threat to Iran’s neighbours. Iran has reportedly provided Russia with one-way attack drones, including more than 400 since august, US national security adviser John Kirby said at a news briefing.
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Ukraine hailed its first substantial battlefield advances for six months. Since last week, the Ukrainian military has started to push Russian forces back in and around the embattled city of Bakhmut, its first significant offensive operations since its troops recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November.
“The advance of our troops along the Bakhmut direction is the first success of offensive actions in the defence of Bakhmut,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of Ground Forces, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app. -
The World Health Organization’s European office decided to close a specialised WHO office in Moscow and move its functions to Denmark. Calls from members to shut the office came last year over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, inadvertently confirmed that four military aircraft had been shot down over Russia last week near the borders of Ukraine and Belarus, saying the capital city Minsk had responded by putting its armed forces on high alert. Photos also emerged of Lukashenko today visiting an air force installation. The president had not been seen since 9 May, causing speculation about his health.
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Data published on the Federal Treasury’s online budget portal shows Russia spent 2tn roubles (£21bn) on defence in January and February alone. This is a 282% jump on the same period a year ago, illustrating the spiralling costs for Moscow of its conflict in Ukraine.
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Russia’s top army general, Gen. Oleg Salyukov, and his South African counterpart, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Mbatha discussed “military cooperation” at a meeting in Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The announcement came hours after South African president Cyril Ramaphosa denied US accusations that his country was siding with Russia in Ukraine and had sent weapons to help it.
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Russia’s defence ministry said it scrambled a fighter jet to prevent French and German patrol aircraft from entering its airspace over the Baltic Sea after it detected them flying towards Russia. Russia said the flights were being conducted by a German P-3C patrol aircraft and a French Atlantic-2 maritime patrol jet.
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Russia’s defence ministry claimed for the first time that it had downed a long-range Storm Shadow missile supplied to Ukraine by Britain, which announced last week that it was providing them. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Monday that Russia viewed Britain’s decision to supply the missiles “extremely negatively”.
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Ukraine’s state security agency served businessman Dmytro Firtash and top managers of companies he controls with “notices of suspicion” of embezzlement, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement. The SBU said that, acting with the Economic Security Bureau, it had uncovered the alleged theft of up to $485m between 2016 and 2022 as part of a “large-scale scheme” involving Ukraine’s gas transit system.
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Seven people including a Russian-installed senior official and a teenager were wounded when an explosion ripped through a beauty salon in the centre of Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Monday, officials said.
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UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said that efforts will continue to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, a pact Moscow has threatened to quit on 18 May over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports, Reuters reports.
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Zelenskiy issued a new appeal to Nato to make a “positive political decision” on Kyiv’s membership at its July summit. Zelenskiy made his remarks in a video address to the Copenhagen democracy summit. He said that Finland joining Nato showed the strength of security guarantees, and thanked Denmark and other allies for their resolve in assisting Ukraine against Russia.
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Key events
There are no encouraging prospects for extending the Black Sea grain export initiative at the moment, a source familiar with the negotiations told the Russian RIA state news agency in remarks published early on Tuesday.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Monday efforts will continue in coming days to extend a deal allowing for the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain, a pact Russia has threatened to quit on 18 May over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports.
“Technical-level” discussions will continue, the unidentified source told RIA, but when asked about the prospects for extending the grain deal, the source said that “at the moment there are no encouraging prospect”.
“It’s hard for me to say what will happen tomorrow. Perhaps progress will be made, but if we are talking about today, there are no [prospects]” RIA cited the source as saying.
“But we all want and are determined to ensure that the work of the mechanism does not stop.”
EU chief diplomat calls for crackdown on India’s resales of Russian oil
The EU should crack down on India reselling Russian oil into Europe as refined fuels including diesel, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
India has in the past year emerged as a top buyer of Russian oil, Reuters reports, which has been rejected by Western nations amid sanctions.
Access to cheap Russian crude has boosted output and profits at Indian refineries, enabling them to export refined products competitively to Europe and take bigger market share.
“If diesel or gasoline is entering Europe … coming from India and being produced with Russian oil, that is certainly a circumvention of sanctions and member states have to take measures,” the bloc’s chief diplomat said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said falling debris from Russian strikes set several cars on fire and damaged a building in the Solomyanskyi district in the capital’s west. Three people were injured.
Klitschko said that south of Boryspil, air defence systems were repelling a drone attack. Boryspil, a city just southeast of Kyiv, is home to the capital’s main passenger airport, which is now closed.
The damage in other districts was not significant and there was no immediate information on potential casualties there, the military administration said. Air raid sirens blared across nearly all of Ukraine in the early hours of Tuesday, and were heard over Kyiv and its region for more than three hours.
EU leaders meet in Iceland
European leaders will travel to Iceland on Tuesday for a two-day summit meant to show their support for Ukraine, Reuters reports.
In only the fourth summit of the Council of Europe (CoE) since it was founded after World War Two, the 46 members of the leading human rights body, which is entirely separate from the European Union, will gather to discuss emerging threats as the war in Ukraine rages on.
“The Council of Europe is often underestimated in its importance,” Frank Schwabe, a German lawmaker who was closely involved in the planning of the summit told Reuters.
The CoE’s democratic values are upheld by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, where citizens can take governments to court in case of human rights violations.
Russia’s membership was suspended the day after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow then left the watchdog hours before a vote to expel it.
“The summit will also be about saying what happens if you don’t respect the rules,” Schwabe said. “The threat of expulsion is already a sharp sword. Even Russia didn’t want to leave the Council of Europe, Turkey doesn’t want to leave either.”
‘Exceptionally’ intense air atacks on Kyiv overnight
Russia launched an exceptionally intense air attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, using drones, cruise and probably ballistic missiles, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital suffered its eighth air raid this month.
“It was exceptional in its density – the maximum number of attack missiles in the shortest period of time,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said in comments posted on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to preliminary information, the vast majority of enemy targets in the airspace of Kyiv were detected and destroyed!”
It was not immediately known how many objects were shot down over the city and if any of them managed to hit their target.
On Tuesday, falling debris was reported in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Solomyanskyi and Darnytskyi districts, Reuters said, citing officials.
Summary
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: Russia launched an exceptionally intense air attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, using drones, cruise and probably ballistic missiles, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital suffered its eighth air raid this month.
The attack comes as European leaders travel to Iceland today for a two-day summit meant to show their support for Ukraine.
Falling debris was reported in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Solomyanskyi and Darnytskyi districts, officials said.
We’ll bring you more on these stories shortly. Here are the other key recent developments:
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British prime minister Rishi Sunak said Britain would provide Ukraine with hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including new long-range attack drones with a range of more than 200km in the coming months, during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy’s visit comes off the back of trips to Berlin and Paris.
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The Ukrainian leader said he was also “very positive” about creating a “jets coalition” in the war against Russia, with a decision on the provision of western fighter jets expected soon. Sunak said the UK was preparing to open a flight school to train Ukrainian pilots and France has also now offered to train Ukrainian fighter pilots, president Emmanuel Macron said in Paris, though he ruled out sending war planes to Kyiv.
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The US is seeing more indications that Russia and Iran are expanding an unprecedented defence partnership that will help Moscow prolong its war in Ukraine as well as pose a threat to Iran’s neighbours. Iran has reportedly provided Russia with one-way attack drones, including more than 400 since august, US national security adviser John Kirby said at a news briefing.
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Ukraine hailed its first substantial battlefield advances for six months. Since last week, the Ukrainian military has started to push Russian forces back in and around the embattled city of Bakhmut, its first significant offensive operations since its troops recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November.
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The World Health Organization’s European office decided to close a specialised WHO office in Moscow and move its functions to Denmark. Calls from members to shut the office came last year over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, inadvertently confirmed that four military aircraft had been shot down over Russia last week near the borders of Ukraine and Belarus, saying the capital city Minsk had responded by putting its armed forces on high alert. Photos also emerged of Lukashenko today visiting an air force installation. The president had not been seen since 9 May, causing speculation about his health.
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Data published on the Federal Treasury’s online budget portal shows Russia spent 2tn roubles (£21bn) on defence in January and February alone. This is a 282% jump on the same period a year ago, illustrating the spiralling costs for Moscow of its conflict in Ukraine.
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Russia’s top army general, Gen. Oleg Salyukov, and his South African counterpart, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Mbatha discussed “military cooperation” at a meeting in Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The announcement came hours after South African president Cyril Ramaphosa denied US accusations that his country was siding with Russia in Ukraine and had sent weapons to help it.
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Seven people including a Russian-installed senior official and a teenager were wounded when an explosion ripped through a beauty salon in the centre of Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Monday, officials said.
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UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said that efforts will continue to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, a pact Moscow has threatened to quit on 18 May over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports, Reuters reports.
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Zelenskiy issued a new appeal to Nato to make a “positive political decision” on Kyiv’s membership at its July summit. Zelenskiy made his remarks in a video address to the Copenhagen democracy summit. He said that Finland joining Nato showed the strength of security guarantees, and thanked Denmark and other allies for their resolve in assisting Ukraine against Russia.
We’re going to pause the blog here but will be back to bring you any breaking news as it happens.
Tonight’s attack on Kyiv was the eighth since the beginning of May and it was “exceptional in its density,” the head of the city’s military administration, Serhii Popko, has said in a post on Telegram.
“This time, the enemy launched a complex attack from different directions simultaneously, using UAVs, cruise missiles and probably ballistic missiles. It was exceptional in its density – the maximum number of attacking missiles in the shortest period of time,” he said.
The “vast majority” of missiles and rockets aimed at Kyiv had been destroyed, he said, adding that more information about the number and type of missiles used in the attack would be available soon.
Rockets debris had fallen in the Solomyansky, Shevchenkivskyi, Svyatoshynskyi, Obolonskyi and Darnytskyi districts, with the most damage recorded in Solomyansk, where there was a fire in a non-residential building.
Damage elsewhere was mostly “not significant”, he said, with most rocket debris falling on parked cars, or parks. There was currently no information about injuries or deaths, he said.
Kyiv authorities give all-clear
Kyiv’s military administration has once again given the all-clear, after a night in which Russia launched a series of strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
The Institute for the Study of War has been looking into a Washington Post report based on US intelligence which said that Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin offered to reveal Russian positions in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from the devastated city of Bakhmut back in January.
The thinktank says that an attempt to cooperate with Ukrainian intelligence would have been part of his feud with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) rather than an attack on president Vladimir Putin.
ISW assessed on March 12 that Prigozhin is competing with the Russian MoD for Putin’s favor but had unintentionally alarmed Putin with his military-political ambitions.
Prigozhin’s reported outreach to Ukranian intelligence would likely have been part of an effort to win Putin’s favor, in fact, by facilitating a rapid Wagner victory in Bakhmut while harming Russian conventional forces behind the scenes.
Prigozhin recently retracted his May 9 comments that indirectly mocked Putin, further indicating that Prigozhin is aware of his dependence on Putin and does not mean to antagonize him.
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