May 31, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The first groups of children to be evacuated from border areas of the Belgorod region have arrived in the Voronezh area, according to Russian state media and other outlets.

"The first groups of children from Shebekino, Belgorod Oblast, which is being shelled by Ukraine, arrived at a recreation camp near Voronezh," state news agency RIA Novosti said.

The Shebekino area is one of several near the border with Ukraine that has come under more persistent mortar and artillery fire in recent days.

The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said there was renewed shelling of border areas late Wednesday by Ukrainian forces. He said an industrial plant close to the city of Shebekino had been struck.

Gladkov said that some 300 children from the Shebekino and Grayvoron districts would be evacuated to Voronezh.

Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have stepped up shelling in the Kupyansk area of Kharkiv, where the front lines have moved little since last autumn.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said Russian strikes had damaged civilian infrastructure and civilian settlements rather than military positions. He said nine people were injured in missile strikes on the settlement of Kivsharivka on Tuesday, and the area had been struck again Wednesday.

"Today the north and north-east direction were fired upon again. 15 settlements have been fired upon," Syniehubov said on Ukrainian television. Northern Kharkiv borders the Russian region of Belgorod, which has come under fire from the Ukrainian side of the frontier.

Syniehubov also claimed that a Russian sabotage group had made an unsuccessful attempt to cross the border in northern Kharkiv.

He said they had been forced to retreat and had suffered losses. 

Russian shelling had also spread to the border town of Vovchansk on Wednesday, Syniehubov said. One man was killed and another person was injured. Vovchansk has regularly come under cross-border fire, while Ukrainian mortar and artillery fire in the other direction has recently increased, according to Russian authorities.

The area on the east bank of the Oskil River, near Kupyansk, has seen considerable combat in recent weeks, but Russian efforts to establish a bridgehead west of the river appear to have failed, Ukrainian officials said.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi told CNN on Wednesday that he believes Russia and Ukraine are “committing” to the organization’s five principles for averting a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia Power Plant. 

Grossi laid out the “five concrete principles” to ensure the plant’s safety and security on Tuesday at the UN Security Council in New York. They include “no attacks of any kind from or against the plant”, and a commitment against using it as a storage base for heavy weaponry. 

“They [Moscow and Kyiv] haven’t opposed what I said as an indispensable thing, and I am monitoring it,” Grossi told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Wednesday. 

“So I believe that they are committing to it indeed, yes.” 

Some background: The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine is Europe’s largest nuclear power station and has seen frequent military activity in and around the area, sparking concerns of a possible nuclear catastrophe. 

The area, and the nuclear complex, have been under Russian control since the beginning of the war, but the plant is still mostly operated by Ukrainian workers.

From weaponized consumer quadcopters to loitering munitions that can cause devastation from nearly a thousand miles away, UN, NATO and UK Parliament drone adviser Dr James Rogers breaks down the role drones are playing in the war in Ukraine.

A senior Russian-appointed official in occupied southern Ukraine says there has been a series of explosions in the town of Polohy close to the front lines.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-formed council of the civil-military administration of Zaporizhzhia, said on Telegram: "It's loud in Polohy. A series of explosions is heard in town."

Some context: Polohy has been regularly struck by Ukrainian fire. Last week it lost electrical power, according to Rogov, after Ukrainian shelling targeted the power substation.

Ukrainian officials have claimed that Russian infrastructure and concentrations of troops in the area have been repeatedly struck.

Polohy is in a part of Zaporizhzhia that many observers expect to be a focus of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Under international law Ukraine has a "legitimate" right to defend itself against Russian attacks, German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said.

His comments come in reference to Tuesday’s drone attacks that took place in Moscow that injured two people and damaged several buildings, according to Russian state media. Ukraine has denied any involvement. 

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call on Tuesday, Hebestreit added. “The air defense worked well there and reacted well, but there was also damage, he said at a news conference in Berlin.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also acknowledged Tuesday Ukraine has the right to “project force” beyond its own borders for self-defense. “Legitimate military targets beyond its own border are part of Ukraine’s self-defense. And we should recognise that,” he had said.

What the US says: Earlier Wednesday, John Kirby, the White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, reiterated that the Biden administration has “been clear, privately and publicly, with the Ukrainians that we don't support attacks on Russian soil."

The Biden administration has “been clear, privately and publicly, with the Ukrainians that we don't support attacks on Russian soil,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told CNN Wednesday following a spate of drone attacks in the Moscow region.

Kirby would not say, however, if the US had concluded that Ukraine was behind the drone incursions, telling CNN’s Poppy Harlow, “We're still trying to get information here and develop some sort of sense of what happened… but I can’t tell you that we have any definitive information at this point.”

Ukraine has denied involvement in Tuesday’s attack in Moscow, even as one top official made it clear that Russia was getting a taste of its own medicine after months of bombarding Ukrainian cities. 

“Of course, we enjoy watching and predicting an increase in attacks,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. “But of course, we have nothing to do directly with it.”

But Kirby reiterated Wednesday that Ukrainian officials have assured the United States they will not use equipment contributed from the United States to strike inside Russia.

“I think we can all understand that if we give Putin what he's claiming, this is a war against the West, a war against the United States, a war against NATO, there's going to be a whole lot more suffering across the European continent, so we don't want to see this war escalate,” he said. “Now, look, once we provide systems to the Ukrainians, and this is an important point, they get to decide what they're going to do with them. They have given us assurances that they won't use our equipment to strike inside Russia. But once it goes to them, it belongs to them.”

Shelling has continued to spill over into Russian territory, with four people injured in a "massive strike" in the town of Shebekino in the southwestern Belgorod region.

It follows a series of rare drone attacks on Moscow early Tuesday which reportedly left two injured and several buildings damaged.

Here are the latest developments:

Four people were injured in a "massive strike" on the town of Shebekino in Russia's southwestern Belgorod region, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. 

Gladkov earlier reported that one woman was injured in shelling of the region, which borders northeastern Ukraine

Eight apartment buildings, four homes, a school and two administrative buildings were damaged in the shelling, Gladkov said.

Children will be evacuated from Shebekino and the border town of Grayvoron, with the first 300 taken on Wednesday further east to the town of Voronezh, he added.

On Tuesday, Gladkov reported dozens of strikes by Ukrainian mortar and artillery fire in several areas of Belgorod. One person was killed and two others were injured in an attack on a temporary accommodation center, he said.

CNN cannot independently verify the governor's claims.

It comes after a group of anti-Putin Russian nationals, who are aligned with the Ukrainian army, claimed responsibility for an attack in Belgorod last week. The Ukrainian government distanced itself from the Russian fighters, saying: “In Ukraine these units are part of defense and security forces. In Russia they are acting as independent entities.”