May 29, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Russia has attacked warehouses, including a military facility, in Ukraine's western Khmelnytskyi region overnight, local officials said Monday. 

It is rare for Ukraine to publicize attacks on military facilities. 

"Five aerial vehicles have been put out of action. The runway is being repaired," the post said, adding that data on victims is being clarified.

Ukrainian air defenses destroyed 67 out of 75 "air targets" launched overnight in the latest Russian attack on Kyiv, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Monday.

Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said 37 cruise missiles, 29 Shahed drones and one reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle were shot down by Kyiv’s forces.

Kyiv's military administration previously estimated Ukrainian air defenses had shot down more than 40 "air targets."

Kyiv police Chief Andrii Nebytov said "almost all enemy targets were destroyed," but some buildings were damaged.

"As a result of the attack, residential buildings and infrastructure facilities in several districts of the region were damaged. No one was killed or injured,” Nebytov said.  

The new attack comes a day after a huge wave of Russian drones targeted Kyiv, marking the largest such assault on the capital since the conflict began, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who has emerged as a key power broker since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year — on Sunday won a presidential election in a runoff vote, stretching his rule into a third decade.

Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Erdogan for his victory.

Erdogan has adopted a crucial balancing act between Kyiv and Moscow, widely known as “pro-Ukrainian neutrality.”

He helped broker a key agreement known as the Black Sea Grain Corridor Initiative that unlocked millions of tons of wheat caught up in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, averting a global hunger crisis. The agreement was extended for another two months last Wednesday, one day before it was set to expire.

In remarks published on the Kremlin’s website, Putin said the election provided “clear evidence of the Turkish people’s support” for Erdogan’s efforts “to strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy.”

On Putin and NATO: Though Turkey is a member of the NATO alliance that Russia views as an existential threat, Erdogan and Putin have what the Turkish President called a "special" relationship. Erdogan said in an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson last week that the two nations "need each other in every field possible."

In the interview, Erdogan also said he would continue to block Sweden’s access to NATO, despite Western criticism that he was obstructing a unified front against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Erdogan accused Sweden of harboring Kurdish terror groups and has preconditioned Stockholm’s accession on the extradition of wanted individuals.

Sweden has refused Turkey’s repeated requests to extradite individuals Ankara describes as terrorists, arguing that the issue can only be decided by Swedish courts.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson congratulated Erdogan for his victory Sunday. “Our common security is a future priority,” he tweeted.

Read more about Erdogan's victory here.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down more than 40 "air targets," including drones and missiles, moving toward Kyiv early Monday, officials said.

The new attack comes a day after a huge wave of Russian drones targeted Kyiv, marking the largest such assault on the capital since the conflict began, according to Ukrainian authorities.

One person was killed by falling debris on Sunday. No casualties have yet been reported Monday.

Here's what you need to know:

Ukrainian air defenses shot down more than 40 "air targets," including drones and missiles, that were moving toward Kyiv early Monday, the city's military administration said. 

The attack Monday comes a day after a huge wave of Russian drones targeted Kyiv, marking the largest such assault on the capital since the conflict began, according to Ukrainian officials.

The administration said initial reports of the early Monday attacks indicate a barrage of Shahed drones, as well as cruise missiles that may have been launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers in the Caspian Sea region.

Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said there had been no reports of casualties. 

At least one residential building in Kyiv's Podilskyi district had sustained damage to its roof from falling debris, he added. 

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed that nations who are willing “to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus” will be given nuclear weapons, days after confirming the transfer of some tactical nuclear weapons from Moscow to Minsk had begun.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the comments in an on-camera interview released Sunday on the state-run Russia 1 channel.

During the interview, Lukashenko said, “no one minds Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation.”

Signed in 1999, the Agreement on Establishment of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Treaty set up a legal basis for a wide-ranging alliance that spanned economic, information, technology, agriculture, and border security among other things between the two countries, according to the Belarus government website.

It was not clear how wide Lukashenko’s invitation to join the Union State extended, and he offered no other specifics.

But his comments on handing out nuclear weapons to like-minded allies are likely to heighten concerns at a time of growing global proliferation and as Moscow threatens the world with its own atomic arsenal as its war against Ukraine falters.

On Thursday the Belarusian autocrat said the transfer of some tactical nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus had begun, following an agreement signed by Moscow and Minsk.

He also promised the safety of those weapons, saying: “This is not even up for discussion. Don’t worry about nuclear weapons. We are responsible for this. These are serious issues. Everything will be alright here.”

Read the full story here.

Explosions were reported in multiple districts across the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Monday, a local official said on Telegram. 

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said there were explosions in the southwestern district of Holosiivskyi and the Podilskyi district.

So far there have been no reports of injuries. 

Klitschko said a house in the Podilskyi district had caught fire from falling debris and that debris had also fallen on a home in the Sviatoshynskyi district that had already been evacuated.

"We currently know of no casualties or serious damage," the Kyiv City Military Administration said about the situation in Sviatoshynskyi.

A series of explosions happened in and around the Russian-occupied southern cities of Berdiansk and Mariupol on Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The Ukrainian-backed Berdiansk municipal military administration said Sunday there had been at least “5 strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian positions in the Berdiansk community.” 

Also on Sunday, several explosions happened around the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, according to Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's Ukrainian mayor. 

One of the blasts happened in Nikolske, a settlement just northwest of the city, in the area “where the occupiers were stationed,” he said. Andriushchenko said there were casualties, without mentioning how many. 

He also claimed there were casualties after a hit on the village of Yurivka, near Mariupol. 

Andriushchenko did not specify the cause the explosions.

“At least six times air defense systems were activated in the Mangush-Nikolske-Mariupol triangle,” Andriushchenko posted on his Telegram channel Sunday. 

What the Russians say: Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sunday that “the air defense system worked in the evening in the sky over Mariupol, where the Ukrainian missile was shot down, as well as over Volnovakha,” citing authorities from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

DPR officials posted on Telegram that a “strike from the Armed Forces of Ukraine was recorded on Sunday in Yurivka village direction.”

“Two Storm Shadow missiles were fired,” the DPR officials added.

 The Russian side did not report any casualties. 

A top Ukrainian government official warned Iran there will be “consequences” after the capital Kyiv was targeted with Iranian Shahed drones early Sunday..

“Tehran has become a key ally of Moscow in this war, deliberately supplying it with weapons for attacks on civilian cities," Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on Twitter. 

Threat of sanctions: Podolyak said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would propose to the government sanctions on Iran for 50 years. The head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, specified the sanctions proposed would include trade, financial and technological restrictions on Iranians, barring Iranian shipments and flights through Ukrainian territory, and a ban on Iranian citizens from withdrawing funds from Ukraine.

Moscow and Tehran: Relations between Tehran and Moscow have grown much closer during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia wants Iranian drones and ballistic missiles; Iran wants Russian investment and trade. Russia has become the largest foreign investor in Iran over the past year, according to Iranian officials.

About the attack drones: Shahed-series drones — the Shahed-129 and Shahed-191 — are unmanned aerial vehicles capable of carrying precision guided munitions, and can also be used for surveillance. Iran appears to be modifying the drones so that their explosive warheads can inflict maximum damage on infrastructure targets inside Ukraine, according to an investigative report obtained exclusively by CNN.

CNN's Tim Lister and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.