Russia-Ukraine updates: Belgorod attackers ‘pushed back’
Moscow claims to have overcome an assault that started on Monday, saying dozens of attackers have been killed.
This blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Tuesday, May 23.
This blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Tuesday, May 23.
- Russia says it has crushed one of the biggest cross-border incursions by pushing fighters back into Ukraine and killing dozens of attackers.
- Ukraine denies Russia’s allegation that Kyiv was behind the Belgorod attacks. Ukrainian military intelligence was quoted as saying two armed Russian opposition groups – the Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps, both consisting of Russian citizens – were responsible.
- Hungary’s Viktor Orban tells a forum in Qatar that Ukraine’s troops are unlikely to win the war against Russia.
- Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warns Western powers against sending more arms to Ukraine, saying shipments increase the risk of a “nuclear apocalypse”.
Moscow’s WHO draft resolution on Ukraine health situation slammed as ‘cynical’
Kyiv’s allies have condemned Moscow for proposing a “cynical” draft resolution on the “health emergency in and around Ukraine” at the World Health Organization’s annual meeting.
The draft resolution, brought jointly by Russia and Syria, is set to vie with another submitted by Ukraine and its allies, which denounces Russia’s invasion and attacks on healthcare facilities.
The latest Russian draft resolution does not mention the year-long war in Ukraine launched by Moscow.
France’s United Nations envoy Jerome Bonnafont said the draft was a “new cynical attack against the truth”, adding: “According to the WHO, there are over 20,000 civilian victims, health centres and workers have been targeted, there have been numerous cases of sexual assault”.
The vote on the two new resolutions could take place on Wednesday due to the length of the debate.
Biden deeply concerned about US journalist after Moscow extends his detention
President Joe Biden is deeply concerned about Russia security service’s decision to extend the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre has said.
Gershkovich, arrested in Russia in March on espionage charges, was remanded in custody until August 30 in Moscow on Tuesday, state news agency RIA reported, citing the court.
Jean-Pierre said Gershkovich and American citizen Paul Whelan should be released from Russian detention immediately.
Ukraine investigating alleged role of Belarus in children’s forced transfer
Ukraine is investigating the alleged role of Belarus in the forced transfer of children from Russian-occupied territories, the office of the prosecutor general has said.
The announcement came in response to a report by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.
The National Anti-Crisis Management, a group of political opponents to the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, said in its preliminary report that the children were taken to at least three locations in Belarus.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s office told Reuters it has launched criminal proceedings into “the forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children” from the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv, including to Belarus.
Ukraine probes Russian commander
Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) has said it launched a criminal investigation into Andrei Ruzinsky, a Russian commander who helped lead the military occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Ruzinsky was commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s 11th Army Corps, which crossed into Ukraine in early 2022 and took control of a chain of towns south of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
The SBU said in a statement that it had served notice on Ruzinsky, who is on Russian soil, that he was suspected of entering into a conspiracy to conduct acts of military aggression.
It said he had ordered attacks using heavy weapons on populated areas, and that he had given orders to the military commandant in the town of Balakliya, where there were multiple cases of civilians being detained and tortured, according to Ukrainian officials and residents.
Russia withdrew from the area in September last year.
The SBU said Buslov organised the “illegal detention of local residents” in Balakliya.
It said investigators found evidence he personally interrogated detainees and used “psychological and physical violence” against them, including threatening them with murder and the forced deportation of their relatives to Russia.
No missile attacks in Ukraine over past 24 hours: Armed Forces
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in an evening report there had been no missile attacks in Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
“But the enemy launched 25 air strikes and engaged in more than 20 shelling episodes on towns and villages,” the report said. “There are, unfortunately, dead and wounded civilians and private homes and administrative infrastructure have been damaged.”
US-made weapons unlikely used in Belgorod attack: US Department of State
The United States is sceptical of reports that US-supplied weapons were used in an attack inside Russian territory, a Department of State spokesman has said, adding that Washington does not encourage or enable attacks inside Russia.
Moscow said on Tuesday it had routed and killed dozens of “Ukrainian nationalists” who crossed into Russia’s Belgorod region from Ukraine after two days of combat, in what appeared to be one of the biggest incursions of its kind of the 15-month-old war.
The fighting forced Russia to evacuate towns along the border with northeast Ukraine. Russia has blamed Ukraine for the attack, which Kyiv has denied. The two groups that claimed responsibility describe themselves as Russian armed dissidents.
Russian villages bordering Ukraine without power after drone strike
Three villages in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine were left without power on Tuesday after a drone dropped explosives on an electrical substation, the region’s governor has said.
“Repair crews are currently carrying out restoration work. None of the residents were injured,” Governor Roman Starovoit said on Telegram.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russian regions near the Ukrainian border have repeatedly reported drone strikes on their civilian infrastructure.
Moscow says Kyiv is directly responsible for attacks inside its territory, but Ukraine denies this.
Czechs sign deal to end country’s dependence on Russian oil
The Czech state-run Mero energy firm has said it has signed a deal to end the country’s dependence on Russian oil, more than a year into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mero will finance a $73m expansion of the Transalpine oil pipeline (TAL), which supplies oil from the Italian port of Trieste to central Europe.
The EU member of 10.5 million people already weaned itself off Russian gas earlier this year.
The EU slapped a ban on most oil imports from Russia in May 2022, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, but the Druzhba pipeline was exempted.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said Tuesday the exemption gave Prague time to negotiate the TAL deal.
He hailed the agreement as “a major step, a milestone for our energy independence from Russia”.
Pope’s Ukraine peace envoy blasts war as ‘pandemic’
Pope Francis’s peace envoy for Ukraine, a veteran of the Catholic Church’s conflict-mediation efforts, has blasted war as a “pandemic” and said all Christians are called to be peacemakers.
In his first public comments since being named Ukraine envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi called for the creation of a culture of peace to respond to the “deep anxiety, sometimes unexpressed, often unheard, of peoples who need peace”.
The Vatican had confirmed that Francis tasked Zuppi with a mission “to help ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine, in the never-ending hope by the Holy Father, that this can initiate paths of peace”. No further details were released, with the Vatican saying that they were still under study.
Saying all Christians are called to do their part to bring peace, he said, “War is a pandemic. It involves all of us.”
“The church and Christians believe in peace, we are all called to be peacemakers, even more so in the terrible storm of conflicts,” he said.
Francis announced the existence of a peace mission while en route home last month from Hungary, where he met with an envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has strongly supported the war.
In the weeks since, Francis has met at the Vatican with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who made clear he would not accept territorial concessions and rejected Francis’s reference to victims on both sides of the conflict, saying there can be no equivalence between victim and aggressor.
Russia criticises planned visit of US aircraft carrier to Oslo
Russia’s embassy in Norway has criticised a planned visit by a US aircraft carrier to Oslo as an “illogical and harmful” show of force.
The 337-metre (1,106-foot) USS General Ford is scheduled to dock in the Norwegian capital this week.
“There are no issues in the North that require a military solution, nor issues that require outside intervention,” Russian embassy spokesman Timur Chekanov said.
“Considering that Oslo admits that Russia poses no direct military threat to Norway, such shows of force seem illogical and harmful,” he added.
The first-in-class aircraft carrier is a nuclear-powered ship with a displacement of more than 100,000 tonnes.
Poland to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets
Poland is ready to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, the Polish defence minister has said, after the United States gave its green light.
“We’re ready. The Polish side is ready to train pilots on F-16 aircraft. Such training has not yet begun,” Mariusz Blaszczak said, after talks with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
Blaszczak said he wanted the training to be part of a broader EU programme to ready Ukrainian military personnel for the fight against Russia.
The minister’s comments came after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that training of pilots for the F-16 jets had already started in “several countries”, including Poland.
Gazprom says net profit fell by 41% last year
Russian energy giant Gazprom, whose gas exports have plummeted in the wake of the Ukraine conflict, has said its net profit fell by 41 percent last year due to a tax increase.
The company reported a profit of $15bn for 2022, down from $26bn in the previous year.
In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the group said, “Profit margins were impacted by an increase in tax payments in the second half of the year.”
Western sanctions have heavily affected the state company headed by Alexei Miller, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Gazprom, which employs approximately a half-million people and has the biggest gas reserves in the world, is one of the key drivers of Russian growth.
Russia says one person killed in Belgorod attack
The Belgorod regional governor has said one civilian had been killed “at the hands of the Ukrainian forces”.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram:
“To our great regret, we do have casualties. A peaceful civilian — a resident of the settlement of Kozinka, died at the hands of Ukrainian forces. Our most sincere condolences go to all their relatives and loved ones.”
The fighting forced Russia to evacuate towns along the border with northeast Ukraine. Russia has blamed Ukraine for the attack, which Kyiv has denied. The two groups that claimed responsibility describe themselves as Russian armed dissidents.
EU plan to send weapons, ammunition to Ukraine is worth at least $2.2bn
The EU’s plan to send weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, worth at least $2.2bn, is composed of three elements, all tied to financial incentives. The first two elements offer partial refunds for weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine, using a fund named the European Peace Facility.
The first element of the plan encourages EU members to send ammunition from stockpiles, the second provides incentives for countries to place joint orders and the third focuses on helping arms firms increase their production capacities.
220,000 shells that were sent to Ukraine were provided under the first part of the plan, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. The first joint procurement contracts under the second part of the plan are expected to be signed later in the year, according to officials.
US calls for the immediate release of WSJ reporter
The US has called for the immediate release of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich after Russia’s security service extended his detention.
“He shouldn’t be detained at all. Journalism is not a crime. He needs to be released immediately,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN.
“We’re still going to work very, very hard to see if we can get him home with his family where he belongs.”
Kirby said US officials are still pressing for consular access to Gershkovich.
“There is no grounds for denying consular access … We really want to get that consular access going,” he said
Russia’s FSB to keep WSJ journalist for another three months
Russia’s Security Service (FSB) will keep the Wall Street Journal reporter in custody for another three months, the TASS news agency reported.
Evan Gershkovich was expected to remain in pre-trial detention until May 29, but that has now been extended until August 30.
The FSB arrested Gershkovich, a US citizen, on March 29 in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on charges that he was collecting state secrets, which carry a possible 20-year prison sentence.
US President Joe Biden called his arrest “illegal”, and Washington had officially deemed him “wrongfully detained”.
The Kremlin has said Gershkovich, the first US journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, was caught “red-handed”.
EU delivers 220,000 artillery shells, 1,300 missiles to Ukraine
EU countries have sent 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles to Ukraine under a plan agreed by ministers in March, the bloc’s foreign policy chief says.
What we know about the Belgorod attack so far
A cross-border raid in the Russian region of Belgorod has continued for a second day, injuring 12 people.
While Russia has blamed Ukrainian armed groups and launched what it called a terrorism investigation, Kyiv has denied the accusation.
The Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion have since claimed responsibility for the attacks on administrative buildings and civilian infrastructure.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Training pilots does not make NATO part of the conflict: Stoltenberg
Training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets does not make NATO a party to the conflict, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg said Ukraine had the right to defend itself, and told reporters in Brussels, “We help Ukraine to uphold that right.”
“That doesn’t make NATO and NATO allies a party to the conflict.”
Senior Russian diplomats on Monday said the transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine would raise the question of NATO’s role in the conflict.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden backed a training programme for Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, which Zelenskyy assured would only be used on defensive manoeuvres and would not cross into Russian territory.
Ukraine says Russia is blocking ships in Pivdennyi
The Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi has halted operations because Russia is not allowing ships to enter it, affecting the promised safe transport of exports under the Black Sea deal, a Ukrainian official said.
The United Nations, which, together with Turkey, brokered the deal and its extension, expressed concern on Monday that Pivdennyi, a Ukrainian port, had not received any ships since May 2.
“Formally, the port of Pivdennyi is in the Initiative, but in fact it hasn’t been there for a month. It has no incoming fleet,” Ukrainian Deputy Renovation Minister Yuriy Vaskov told the Reuters news agency.
“They [Russia] have now found an effective way to significantly reduce [Ukrainian] grain exports by excluding the port of Pivdennyi, which handles large tonnage vessels, from the initiative,” he said in written comments.
Vaskov added that it was a “gross violation” of the agreement.
EU welcomes decision to train Ukrainian pilots
The European Union’s foreign policy chief says the US decision to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets has created momentum that will inevitably bring the jets to Ukraine.
“You know, it’s always the same thing: We discuss. At the beginning, everybody is reluctant,” Josep Borrell said. “And at the end – with the Leopards, with the F-16 at the end – the decision comes to provide this military support because it is absolutely needed.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed Borrell’s comments and said the training decision was the push needed to make the jets available to Ukraine.
“Announcing clearly that they will start training – this is an important step that partly will enable us to deliver fighter jets at some stage,” Stoltenberg said before meeting with EU defence ministers.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 454
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Chinese special envoy to visit Russia on May 26
Chinese Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will visit Russia on May 26, TASS reported, citing an unnamed source.
Li has been on an extended tour to Ukraine, Poland, France, and Germany.
Last week, he became the most senior Chinese official to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded.
Earlier on Tuesday, China’s Premier Li Qiang said Beijing is willing to expand economic and trade exchanges with Moscow in a congratulatory letter to the China-Russia Business Forum, which is being held in Shanghai.
Taipei shares Ukraine’s fight for democracy: Envoy
Taipei’s envoy to the European Union told Al Jazeera that it understands Ukraine’s plight as it fortifies its borders amid continuing tensions with China.
Remus Li-Kuo Chen said, “Since the war began, Ukraine and its people have been very brave and courageous fighting for their territorial integrity and sovereignty.
“As a democracy also guarding our borders, we understand the plight of the Ukrainian people.”
Read more here.
Belgorod attackers pushed back into Ukraine, Russia says
Russia’s Ministry of Defence says the remaining units it blamed for Monday’s cross-border attack in the Belgorod region have been forced back into Ukrainian territory.
“In the course of the counterterrorist operation, the nationalist formations were blocked and defeated by air strikes, artillery fire and the active actions of the units covering the state border of the Western Military District,” the TASS news agency quoted ministry spokesperson Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov as saying.
“The remnants of the nationalists were driven back to the territory of Ukraine, where they continued to be hit by fire until they were completely eliminated. More than 70 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles and five pickups were destroyed,” he said.