May 13, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of the war in Ukraine has moved here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky say Ukraine has retaken six settlements from Russian forces on Friday, and 1,015 overall since the start of the conflict in February.

”We continue to restore the de-occupied territories of Ukraine. As of today, 1,015 settlements have been de-occupied, which is plus six in the past 24 hours,” he said in his nightly address.

It is unclear exactly how much territory those settlements constitute. Zelensky did outline other gains by Ukraine’s military in those areas.

“We return electricity, water supply, communications, transport, social services there,” he said.

He also stated that “the gradual liberation of Kharkiv region” proves that Ukraine “will not leave anyone to the enemy.”  

A Ukrainian lawmaker called on the United States to provide air defense systems and fighter jets to Ukraine, saying that the situation on the battlefield is “far worse” than it was at the beginning of the war. 

“It is hell” on the frontlines right now, Oleksandra Ustinova told reporters at a German Marshall Fund roundtable in Washington Friday. “We keep losing many more men now than it was at the beginning of the war.” 

Daria Kaleniuk, a leading Ukrainian civil society activist, explained “we can’t win this war with Soviet equipment because A. Russia has much more Soviet equipment, B. we don’t have anywhere to get ammunition for this, and C. Russia simply has more people and more troops.”

Ustinova said Ukraine no longer seeks the Soviet-era MiG fighter jets because “the war has changed.”

Instead, she said Ukraine needs the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), Paladin self-propelled howitzers, and fighter jets like the F-16s in order to effectively counter Russia, and called on the US to begin training Ukrainian pilots to use such jets. 

Kaleniuk, who said she recently met with Ukrainian defense officials in Kyiv, noted that Ukraine has “combat-experienced pilots, who are willing and ready to go now for trainings. They were willing to go yesterday for trainings. But there is no decision to accept them and to provide that because there is no decision to provide fighter jets.”

The US has begun to send heavy weaponry to Ukraine, but has yet to give them MLRS or fighter jets. 

Ustinova and Kaleniuk, who were in Washington this week for meetings, said that they believe there is a lack of “political will that is needed” for the administration to decide to send such kinds of heavy weaponry – and quickly — and the feeling that there is still fear about provoking Moscow. 

They decried the fact that it took so long for the US to decide to send the heavy weaponry it is sending now, with Ustinova saying, “if we had Howitzers two months ago, Mariupol would not happen because they wouldn’t be able to surround like they did, to surround the city and literally destroy it.”

“For us time means lives, thousands of lives. We’ve been hearing that it has been unprecedented how fast everything is moving and how fast the decisions are taking. But there has never been a war since World War Two like that. And unfortunately, we keep asking here to take the decisions faster,” she said.

Difficult negotiations are continuing over the fate of Ukrainian soldiers still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Donetsk region military administration, said.

“Difficult negotiations are underway, and they are still going on at this time, in order to save the defenders — gradually — because the Russian Federation is trying to dictate its conditions and requirements as much as possible. Therefore, in the first place, it will be seriously wounded fighters,” he said.

Kyrylenko echoed the comments of Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk that the Ukrainian side would not offer detailed comments about the process.

“We have to talk about it only when people will be safe. Only then we shall give any comments. Negotiations are ongoing and they are really very difficult. Because, first, the Russian Federation always changes them [the conditions]. And even those agreements that are reached are not a 100% agreement with Russia,” he explained.

In the meantime, he said, the Russians continued to attack Avozstal from the air. “These are heavy, vacuum, high-explosive bombs,” the official said.

Vereshchuk has also been speaking about the Azovstal negotiations, apparently seeking to tamp down expectations.

“There are no miracles in war. There are harsh realities. Therefore, only a sober and pragmatic approach works,” she said Friday. “The team is working. Negotiations with the enemy are very difficult. The result may not please everyone. But our task is to get our boys out. Everyone. Alive.”

If Congress does not pass the $40 billion Ukraine aid supplemental by May 19, “it’ll start impacting” the United States’ ability to provide Ukraine military aid “uninterrupted,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing at the Pentagon on Friday.

“May 19 is the day we really, without additional authorities, we begin to not have the ability to send new stuff in,” Kirby said. “By the 19th of May, it’ll start impacting our ability to provide aid uninterrupted.”

The House of Representatives passed the $40 billion supplemental this week, but the Senate failed to pass the bill after Sen. Rand Paul blocked its passage. Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, wanted more oversight of how the funds will be spent before agreeing to let the bill go to the Senate floor for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has started procedural steps to override Paul’s objection, but the bill likely won’t pass until next week at the earliest.

There is still “about $100 million dollars left in current” presidential drawdown authority funding, Kirby said. That funding has not been “allocated or announced” yet, he added.

“We would like to get approval for additional authorities before the third week of this month so that we could continue uninterrupted the flow of aid and assistance into Ukraine, so obviously we continue to urge the Senate to act as quickly as possible so we don’t get to the end of May and not have any additional authorities to draw back, to draw upon,” Kirby said.

A Russian General, identified in a CNN investigation as responsible for targeting civilians in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and his role as the architect of the siege of Aleppo, was involved in high-level defense talks with his UK counterpart in 2017 after receiving Russia’s highest military honor for his role in its war in Syria.

Col-General Alexander Zhuravlyov, in his capacity as then Deputy Chief of General Staff, met with the UK’s then Vice Chief of Defence Staff General Messenger for high-level talks, during a trip to Moscow in 2017 in what was characterized by the UK’s Ministry of Defence as “military to military dialogue.” Zhuravlyov discussed with Messenger “a restart of military interaction,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on February 28, 2017, quoting Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

CNN’s investigation found that Zhuravlyov’s leadership in 2016 catalyzed the assault on eastern Aleppo. After he took the reins, the Russian military rapidly ramped up its attacks on the rebel-held territory and completed the siege of the densely populated city, exacting a large death toll and setting the wheels in motion for a tactic that has defined Russia’s intervention in Syria: besiege, starve, bombard and grind into submission.

His period of command also saw a dramatic increase in documented cluster munition attacks in Aleppo.

European intelligence agency analysts who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity said the pattern of Zhuravlyov’s behavior in Syria and Ukraine is the same, subjugating cities through terror. “Zhuravlyov was brought in with the purpose of bringing about a swift capitulation of Aleppo. He did that using much of the same methodology we see in Ukraine. Ordering the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions against dense civilian infrastructure and populations,” the analyst said.

Syrian human rights activists have long called for Russia’s General to be held accountable, and a leading UK human rights lawyer at the law firm Payne Hicks Beach, Matthew Ingham, told CNN: “Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlyov should have been sanctioned for his actions in Syria” adding, “It is a shame that there was not a stronger response to alleged war crimes at that stage, because that may have affected Putin’s Ukrainian strategic calculations from the outset. 

Neither the US nor the UK have taken public action against Zhuravlyov or other key Russian generals implicated in war crimes. The US State Department wouldn’t comment on the specific findings of CNN’s investigation but said they continued to track and assess war crimes and reports of ongoing violence and abuses. 

In a statement to CNN, the UK Ministry of Defense said a previous statement issued in 2017 “made it clear” that they supported military to military dialogue to minimize risk and miscalculation

“We stand by that principle, which is why we gave Russia every opportunity to engage in dialogue this year over Ukraine before they launched their reprehensible and unprovoked invasion,” an MOD spokesperson said. 

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report

Two convoys of civilian cars in one northeastern Ukrainian village speak of Russia’s retreat from the area and the brutality it left behind.

The first — three cars, laden with a priest, dogs and troubled frowns — is headed hurriedly through the village of Staryi Saltiv from the north, fleeing the violence as Ukraine pushes Russian forces out of Rubizhne.

Ukrainian officials said this week that they continue to push toward the Russian border, liberating tiny villages on the outskirts of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city before the invasion began. The Ukrainian advances threaten the symbolic embarrassment of expelling the Kremlin’s forces back to their own border while posing the strategic threat of cutting Russia’s supply lines into Ukraine and its forces further south in the Donbas region. The advances have been swift over the past weeks.

The second convoy speaks of what Ukraine has found in Russia’s wake — five vehicles riddled with bullets, two torched to cinders.

On May 4, Ukrainian officials have said, this convoy was trying to leave the town when it was shot up by Russian troops. The bullet holes concentrate on some of the drivers’ doors. Children’s clothes and toys litter the area around the vehicles. Ukrainian officials said that four civilians, including a 13-year-old girl, were killed when Russian troops opened fire on this convoy.

CNN’s escorts from the Kharkiv city territorial defense force say a tank shell hit one of the cars, explaining how its front section is twisted beyond recognition.

Moscow says its forces don’t target civilians, a claim contradicted by evidence of apparent atrocities witnessed by CNN here and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Continue reading here:

The remains of a Russian T90M tank destroyed days earlier. The Ukrainian defense ministry released a drone video of the tank being destroyed in the apparent strike.

Related article Russia's retreat from Kharkiv, another key Ukrainian city, reveals new evidence of atrocities

Signs of Ukrainian pride are on display all over downtown Lviv, in everything from the blue and yellow flags hanging on walls to billboards condemning the Russian invasion and celebrating Ukrainian soldiers.

In tourist shops in and around the historic downtown of the western Ukrainian city, the national colors are printed on a bevy of items.

CNN spoke to Oksana Gordiychiek who works in one of those shops. Before the war, tourists would buy souvenirs featuring the city’s historic architecture or other local symbols, she said. But since March, her shop began selling products that reference the conflict.

Some T-shirts tout Ukrainian greatness, while others call for peace. Stickers feature a cartoon couple filling Molotov cocktails together or killing a Russian soldier.

The more popular items include words straight from the battlefield, including the now-famous line “Russian warship, go f*** yourself,” said by a Ukrainian soldier at Snake Island. The defiant statement is printed on coffee mugs and hats in both English and Ukrainian. The print of the postage stamp celebrating those words, which features a soldier giving the middle finger to a Russian warship, is one of the best-selling T-shirts, according to Gordiychiek.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky is also showcased on chocolate wrappers, pillows and stickers.

While Gordiychiek is grateful these items are good for business, she said it’s “also sad” as it serves as a reminder of the reality of war in the country.

Gordiychiek said her shop used to sell to tourists who came every year to admire the city. Now, they sell to volunteers coming to help with the war efforts, journalists or locals sending souvenirs to friends and relatives abroad.

Gordiychiek said that they are also benefiting from patriotism and nostalgia among Ukrainians living abroad who want traditional clothing, shirts and and blouses embroidered with colorful colors.

“Ukrainians who live in other countries are asking for these shirts,” she said.

These types of purchases have helped keep businesses like these afloat. Numbers from the Center for Tourism Development of Lviv show the city welcomed 1.5 million visitors in 2021 — up from 2020 at the height of the pandemic — but still short of the 2.2 million who visited in 2018.

Russia will suspend power exports to Finland starting Saturday due to problems in receiving payments, Finland’s transmission system operator Fingrid said in a statement on Friday.

“RAO Nordic Oy, a subsidiary of the Russian entity Inter RAO, which trades electricity over the 400 kV interconnectors, will suspend imports of electricity to Finland at 1 am on Saturday 14 May 2022,” according to Fingrid.

The subsidiary said that it has not received payments for the volumes sold since May 6 and that this is the first time it has happened in over 20 years of its trading history.

“Unfortunately, in the current situation of lack of cash income, RAO Nordic is not able to make payments for the imported electricity from Russia. Therefore we are forced to suspend the electricity import starting from 14th of May,” RAO Nordic Oy said.

According to Fingrid, the adequacy of electricity in Finland is not under threat, with Russian imports in recent years covering 10% of Finland’s total consumption.

“The lack of electricity import from Russia will be compensated by importing more electricity from Sweden and by generating more electricity in Finland,” said Reima Päivinen, senior vice president of power system operations at Fingrid.  

Some context: The Finnish government is planning to issue a second white paper on Sunday proposing that the country joins NATO, Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on Thursday. The proposal would then be put into a parliamentary vote with a plenary scheduled for Monday morning.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Finland’s possible accession to NATO marked a “radical change in the country’s foreign policy” and warned of countermeasures.

“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard,” it said.

In late April, Gazprom said it fully halted supplies to Polish gas company PGNiG and Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz after they refused to meet a demand by Moscow to pay in rubles rather than euros or dollars.

CNN’s Luke McGee contributed reporting to this post. 

Hungary still has to “play its part” and decide whether it wants to display unity with the European Union in sanctioning Russia as the bloc works on its sixth round of proposals, a senior EU diplomat said on Friday.

Speaking during a news briefing in Brussels to journalists, the diplomat said the proposed sixth round of sanctions would include an oil embargo with the purpose of “having a lasting impact on Russia’s capacity to earn money and to inflict the heavy costs.” 

The diplomat said the proposal still needed to be fine-tuned, as most European countries “need to phase out from oil, and obviously there are realistic economic considerations that should be taken into account and the availability of alternatives are obviously different from member state to member state.”

“So, we need to solve … these concerns one way or the other,” the diplomat added.

The diplomat said they understood that there is an “existential oil dependency on Russia as far as Hungary is concerned.”

“The commission is coming up with proposals, and at a certain point, you have to bite the bullet, you know, and see where you want to be in this, and we hope Hungary will be more forthcoming,” the diplomat said.

Hungary has been offered “reasonable proposals,” the diplomat said, adding that the country will have to decide where it stands “so that we can continue to have this important EU unity and send out the same signals to Russia that it should stop the war effort,” the diplomat said. 

“Negotiations are ongoing every day, including the weekends. So I don’t know where this will end,” the diplomat said. 

On Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Hungary will only vote for EU sanctions on Russian oil if the bloc comes up with solutions to issues it would start.

“We have made it clear to the European Commission that we can only vote for this proposal if Brussels offers a solution for the problems Brussels would create,” Szijjártó said in a video posted on Facebook Wednesday.

“We are expecting a solution not only relating to the transformation of our refineries that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, not only relating to the capacity increase of the oil pipeline [that runs] across Croatia to Hungary that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars but also with regard to the future of the Hungarian economy, as, like I said before, this current proposal is like ‘an atomic bomb’ for the Hungarian economy,” Szijjártó continued.

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Boglarka Kosztolanyi in London and Mayumi Maruyama in Tokyo contributed previous reporting to this post.

The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general told CNN that a total of 11,239 alleged war crimes by Russian soldiers are being investigated, involving some 8,000 prosecutors nationwide.

The prosecutor general’s office said the vast majority of crimes involve breaking the laws and customs of war.

On May 5, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova claimed that the Russian army had committed more than 9,800 war crimes in 70 days of war while testifying to the Helsinki Commission.

Today, a 21-year-old Russian soldier appeared in court for the first war crimes trial since Russia invaded Ukraine back in February. He is accused of killing an unarmed 62-year-old man in Ukraine’s Sumy region, according to the prosecutor general’s office.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he is not looking at Finland and Sweden joining NATO “positively,” accusing both counties of housing Kurdish “terrorist organizations.”

“We are following the developments but do not view it positively,” Erdoğan said in a presser following Friday prayers in Istanbul.

“Unfortunately, Scandinavian countries are like guesthouses of terror organizations,” Erdoğan alleged. “PKK and DHKP-C have taken shelter in Sweden and Netherlands. They have even taken place in their parliaments. At this stage, it is not possible for us to see this positively.” 

The PKK, or Kurdistan Worker’s Party, which seeks an independent state in Turkey, has been in an armed struggle with Turkey for decades and has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the EU.

DHKP-C is an extreme left organization hostile to the Turkish state, the United States and NATO. 

Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ann Linde responded, saying that “the Turkish government has not delivered this kind of message directly to us.”

“My Turkish foreign minister colleague, with whom I have a very good and constructive relationship, is coming to this weekend’s informal NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Berlin, where both Sweden and Finland have been invited,” Linde said.

“We will then have the opportunity to talk to each other about a possible Swedish NATO application, and I hope that we will continue to receive positive messages from all 30 NATO countries. Many of the 30 allies have publicly expressed very strong support for Sweden and Finland,” she added.

NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Germany on Saturday, and Finnish, Swedish, and Turkish ministers of foreign affairs will have the opportunity to discuss Turkey’s reaction. 

CNN has reached out to the Netherlands for comment, and it has yet to respond.

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday, according to Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu. 

In a brief update late Friday, the Ukrainian armed forces said that Russian forces are focused on ensuring the withdrawal of troops from the Kharkiv region.

Those troops have come under growing pressure from Ukrainian counter-attacks along a wide front to the west of their supply lines.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said there had been more artillery shelling of Ukrainian held territory as the Russians tried to make progress towards Sloviansk, a key objective. The village of Nova Dmytrivka had come under fire, it said, as it has done since late April. 

It also said that there had been airstrikes around Dolyna, which is 20 kilometers (more than 12 miles) north of Sloviansk and nearby Adamivka. Airstrikes in the area earlier this week damaged two religious’ sites, according to Ukrainian authorities.

In the Luhansk region, a Russian attack on the town of Zolote had been repulsed, the General Staff said, adding that more cross-border shelling was reported far from the current area of hostilities in the northeastern region of Sumy as well as an airstrike against a village in the region.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart for the first time on Friday since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon announced.

“On May 13, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu for the first time since February 18,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement.

Austin “urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication,” Kirby said.

The phone call between Austin and Shoygu lasted for about an hour on Friday, a senior US defense official told reporters Friday.

Austin requested the two leaders speak, the official said, noting that the US secretary of state “initiated it.”

“Both leaders had a chance to talk back and forth with one another, but I’m not gonna get any more into the context of it,” the official added, saying Austin expressed an “interest in keeping the line of communication,” between the two leaders open. 

This is the first time the two leaders have spoken in 84 days, since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Ukrainian artillery is “frustrating” Russian efforts to advance in the Donbas, according to a senior US defense official, particularly as Russia attempts to move forces across the Donets River to reinforce their position in the northern Donbas.

The official said there is a lot of fighting between Izium and Sloviansk, but the Russians have not been able to make much progress there.

However, Russian forces have made “incremental” gains to the west of Popasna, according to the official.

Meanwhile, the “vast majority” of the 89 M777 howitzer artillery systems the US has given to Ukraine are “in the fight” and are in a “forward-deployed setting,” the official told reporters Friday.

“The feedback we’re getting from artillery men inside Ukraine is very positive about the usefulness of the M777s,” the official said.

About 30 Ukrainian soldiers have completed a maintenance course for the M777 howitzers, and another 17 are in the two-week maintenance course now, the official said, adding that 370 Ukrainian soldiers have completed training on how to use the howitzers.

About 20 Ukrainians are “in the midst of the training on the Puma,” which is an unmanned aerial system, and training on the Phoenix Ghost has also been completed, the official added. 

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said he discussed “Finland’s next steps towards NATO membership” in a call with US President Joe Biden and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson today.

The call was about 40 minutes long, according to The White House.

It comes one day after Finland’s president and prime minister announced their support for joining NATO, moving the Nordic nation which shares an 800-mile border with Russia one step closer to membership of the US-led military alliance. The Kremlin has responded by saying the move would be a threat to Russia and warned of possible retaliation.

The Swedish prime minister also tweeted about the call, saying the leaders discussed “Russian aggression against Ukraine,” as well as Swedish and Finnish security policy. Andersson also expressed gratitude for America’s “support for our security and respective security policy choices.” 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Støre met on Friday, giving their “full support” for Nordic countries to make their own “sovereign choice” on security, according to a statement from Downing Street.

“The Prime Minister and Prime Minister Støre agreed that neither NATO nor the Nordic region posed a threat and that the longstanding policy of ‘High North, low tension’ had created decades of stability and prosperity for the area,” the statement said.

The statement stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and hostility toward neighboring states was “unjustified” and was “already proving to be a miscalculation,” adding that the two leaders agreed to provide training and equipment to the Ukrainian military.

“They also agreed on the need for NATO allies to back Ukraine politically, taking a unified approach that avoids giving Putin license to further twist the knife in the wound of Ukraine,” according to the statement.

The statement concluded by saying that the two leaders signed a joint declaration on the UK-Norway relationship, meaning the two countries will cooperate “more extensively” than any country in the world.

On the road from Kyiv to Bucha, a short stretch of scorched ground in the middle of the woods has become something of an attraction in recent weeks.

It’s known as the Russian tank graveyard.

A dozen or so blown up tanks and armored vehicles lie scattered around. Rusty and grotesquely deformed, they attract the attention of many of those passing by.

They’ve been sitting there ever since the Ukrainian army managed to liberate the area after it was under Russian occupation for several weeks in March.

With the seemingly constant stream of bad news coming from eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, many come to this place to see first hand what a victory looks like. Some make a brief stop to look at the damage and take a quick picture or two. But many stay here for a while.

They carefully examine the burnt wreckage, looking inside the vehicles. One man takes a smiling selfie in front of a burnt vehicle with the letter V still visible on it.

Liza Maramon and her boyfriend stopped by the tank graveyard on their way to visit Maramon’s mother who lives in the area. She recently returned home after being evacuated in early March.

“She spent five days sitting in a basement, without electricity, without anything, it was very horrible,” the 26-year old charity worker said. Her mother left when the Russian tanks started closing in on the town. Two days after they managed to flee, the Russians took control of the town.

Nearby, a couple of kids happily climb up a rusty Russian tank as if it was a set of monkey bars at a playground.

Maramon herself took several photos of the destroyed vehicles and planned to share them with friends and post them on social media.

“I can’t explain how I feel. Everyone should remember this. We need to show people, the whole world. It’s not normal,” she said.

German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir on Friday accused Russia of theft from Ukrainian farmers, saying it is “an especially repugnant form of war that Russia is leading, in that it is stealing, robbing, taking for itself grain from eastern Ukraine.”

Speaking in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart, where agriculture ministers of the G7 met together with their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss how to head off a looming international food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Özdemir said it’s “a particularly disgusting component within the war that [Putin] uses starvation.”

“All people, everyone, will pay the price for this war worldwide, even if they live on another continent,” Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said at the conference.

“People will have to pay more for food, and they must be aware that they will have to pay more each day,” he said.

On Thursday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the foreign ministers of the G7, along with their counterparts from Ukraine and Moldova, will discuss how to end a blockade of Ukrainian grain so it can be exported to the world.

Ukraine is among the top five global exporters for a variety of key agricultural products, including corn, wheat and barley, according to the US Department of Agriculture. It’s also the leading exporter of both sunflower oil and meal.

CNN found earlier this month that a Russian merchant ship loaded with grain stolen in Ukraine has been turned away from at least one Mediterranean port and is now in the Syrian port of Latakia, according to shipping sources and Ukrainian officials. It had nearly 30,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat, according to Ukrainian officials.

The Ukrainian defense ministry estimates that at least 400,000 tons of grain has been stolen and taken out of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian officials say there is a growing humanitarian crisis in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson in the south of the country, with hundreds of civilians trying to escape the area every day and Russian troops raiding villages. 

Getting a true picture of what’s going on in Kherson is difficult as the operations of Ukrainian telecom companies have been blocked and people are finding it more difficult to get in and out of the region. 

Those who do try to leave face considerable risk.

Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih military administration, said on Thursday that Russian artillery had fired on a column of civilian vehicles trying to leave the town of Beryslav in Kherson. He said there were about 5,000 people in the convoy altogether.

Vilkul said the Russians had halted about 1,000 vehicles and only began to release them in the afternoon in batches of 200. They had then shelled one of the columns as it crossed into Ukrainian-held territory. Two people had been wounded, a woman and an 11-year old boy. Both were taken to hospital in Kryvyi Rih, Vilkul said.

Ukrainian officials estimate that as much as 45% of the population of Kherson region has left. Those still in the region are facing growing hardship, according to Ukrainian officials.

Yurii Sobolievskyi, first deputy head of the Kherson region council, said on Ukrainian television that in the city of Kherson, there is a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Food shortages and claims of stealing: Sobolievskyi said that farmers and businesses were still trying to provide the city with food and some volunteers were able to bring supplies from neighboring regions.

There were also volunteers bringing food and medicine from Mykolaiv and Odesa. “That’s how we scratch along,” he said.

He said a number of civilians had to accept food from the Russians to survive. 

The Russians “just want to create a vacuum in the Kherson region, create a humanitarian catastrophe, and then fill it with their humanitarian aid. If we had humanitarian corridors, they would not be able to show that they are helping the population.” 

Sobolievskyi also said that “the robbery of our farmers continues.”

“They steal not only grain, but also equipment; they just take it out, and then it floats to the Crimea and the Russian Federation itself.” CNN has reported that thousands of metric tons of grain and farm equipment worth millions of dollars has been stolen in Kherson. 

Services disrupted and violence documented: Serhii Khlan, a deputy on Kherson’s regional council, said Thursday that Russian forces were raiding villages and launching intensive searches, as well as carrying out a census of those left in some areas.

Khlan also said that the Russians have indicated “they will import teachers from the Crimea because our teachers do not agree to work on Russian programs. Those few teachers that agree to work — we know them personally — and they will be held criminally liable for it.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said this week that Ukrainian authorities are documenting alleged Russian crimes in Kherson, including “violence against people, mass abductions, torture in basements, theft of property, attempts to create fictitious management structures.” 

Status of resistance: Podolyak also said that “resistance to the Russian invasion in southern Ukraine is very strong at all levels.” 

But there has been less evidence of street protests in Kherson recent weeks compared to their regular occurrence in March. On May 9, when the newly installed Russian-backed administration held Victory Day commemorations, there were no counter-protests evident. 

It’s unclear whether this is due to the arrest of activists or because so many people have left the region. Sobolievskyi said that there was a great risk to the lives and health of people who came onto the streets and acknowledged the protests were smaller. It may also be in part because people are unable to connect through Ukrainian mobile operators.

Ukrainian officials say that the military is “enjoying some victories” in destroying Russian ammunition depots and equipment in Kherson, but there has been little movement on the ground in recent weeks, and fresh Russian convoys have been seen in recent days traveling through Kherson toward front lines in neighboring Zaporizhzhia. Beyond taking Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the Russians seem intent on separating Kherson from the rest of Ukraine. 

The Khimki Court of the Moscow Region extended the arrest of US Olympic basketball champion Brittney Griner on charges of drug smuggling for another month,  Russian state news agency TASS reported on Friday, citing the press service of the court.

“The court granted the petition of the investigation and extended the term of detention of US citizen Griner until June 18,” the court said, according to TASS.

The athlete was arrested on suspicion of trying to illegally import hash oil into the Russian Federation through Sheremetyevo Airport, TASS added.

Russia has denied the US State Department’s claim that the detention of Griner is “illegal,” saying her arrest was based “on objective facts and evidence.” 

A statement issued to CNN on Thursday read: “She was caught red-handed while trying to smuggle hash oil. In Russia, this is a crime. In accordance with paragraph “c” of part 2 of Article 229.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (drug smuggling), she faces a prison term of up to 10 years.”

According to the statement, Griner was taken into custody on the basis of the decision of the Khimki District Court of Moscow Region on Feb. 18 and is being held in one of the detention facilities.

“The charges are serious, based on objective facts and evidence that is available. Attempts by the State Department to cast doubt on the validity of the detention of B. Griner are explained solely by the desire to influence justice by politicizing a generally understandable situation,” the ministry said. 

“The final point in this case should be made by the court,” the statement added.

Response from the State Department: An official from the US Embassy in Moscow was able to talk with Griner on the sidelines of her hearing in Russia Friday morning, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

Price, who said the department was monitoring the hearing in Moscow “very closely,” said “a consular officer at our embassy in Moscow was able to speak to her on the margins of the hearing.”

“The officer was able to confirm that Brittney Griner is doing as well as can be expected under what can only be described as exceedingly difficult circumstances,” Price said on a briefing call Friday.

More background: Griner, who plays for Russian powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, was arrested by Russian authorities in February at a Moscow airport and accused of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance — an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Griner won the 2014 World Championships in Turkey, the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the 2018 World Championships in Spain, and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo with Team USA. 

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Ellie Kaufman contributed reporting to this post.

The Russian Foreign Ministry declared 10 employees of the Romanian Embassy and one employee of the Bulgarian embassy in Moscow as “persona non grata,” it announced in two separate statements released Friday.

The ambassadors of their respective countries were summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Friday and notified about the employees that were now “persona non grata.”

In the statement for Romania, the ministry noted that this measure is a response to the “unjustified decision” taken on April 5 by the Romanian side to declare 10 diplomats of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest as “persona non grata.”

In its statement for Bulgaria, Moscow called the measure a response to “unmotivated decision” from Bulgaria to expel a Russian diplomat from Sofia.

The Kremlin said Russia doesn’t plan to stop gas supplies to Finland starting Friday, calling Finnish media reports alleging it would happen a “hoax.”

“Gazprom supplies gas to various consumers in Europe, including NATO member countries,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday on a conference call with journalists.

“Most likely, these reports are just another newspaper hoax,” he said.

Peskov added, however, that he is unaware of the payment details referring to the Russian energy giant Gazprom, “because there is a presidential decree on a new regime of payment for gas supplies.”

Some context: The Finnish government is planning to issue a second white paper on Sunday proposing that the country joins NATO, Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on Thursday. The proposal would then be put into a parliamentary vote with a plenary scheduled for Monday morning.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Finland’s possible accession to NATO marked a “radical change in the country’s foreign policy” and warned of countermeasures.

“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard,” it said.

In late April, Gazprom said it fully halted supplies to Polish gas company PGNiG and Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz after they refused to meet a demand by Moscow to pay in rubles rather than euros or dollars.

Ukrainian refugees entering the United Kingdom illegally could be sent to Rwanda for processing, as the UK’s Home Office has been unable to rule out the possibility despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisting it is “simply not going to happen.”

Under the government’s controversial new policy, undocumented migrants could be transferred over 4,000 miles away to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed, if deemed to have entered the UK illegally, such as by crossing the English Channel.  

The scheme has sparked outrage from humanitarian activists and garnered criticism from lawyers, faith leaders and British lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum.

Despite the UK positioning itself as a global leader in supporting Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians are seemingly not exempt. 

When asked to clearly state if it was possible that an undocumented Ukrainian individual could be sent to Rwanda if they entered the UK through illegal routes, the Home Office on Thursday pointed CNN to the “range of safe and legal routes to the UK” available for Ukrainians, such as the uncapped Ukraine Family scheme and the Homes for Ukraine scheme. 

“Nobody from Ukraine needs to pay a people smuggler to get to the UK […]. There is no need to make dangerous journeys,” a spokesperson said. 

The refusal to rule out the prospect comes after Johnson said Wednesday it is “simply not going to happen” in an interview with LBC Radio.

Johnson admitted he had not seen a parliamentary committee hearing earlier that day in which the Dan Hobbs, the Home Office’s director of asylum, protection and enforcement left open the possibility when grilled by lawmakers if Ukrainians fell under the policy’s scope. 

“Depending on the individual circumstances, they may not fall in the ‘inadmissibility’ criteria,” he said when asked what would happen if a Ukrainian entered the UK via Ireland.   

Downing Street did not respond to CNN’s request for clarification on the prime minister’s comments. 

According to the UK government, granting exemptions to the scheme would encourage smuggling gangs to step up their targeting and exploitation of those refugees. 

The government said more than 120,000 visas have been granted to Ukrainians since the launch of two separate, unlimited resettlement programs since Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine’s defense minister said the country is now entering a “long” phase of war with Russia. Here are the latest developments:

Where fighting is happening: In northern Ukraine, a Ukrainian counterattack has taken back a number of villages in the area east of Kharkiv. But as the Russian forces retreated in the region, three bridges vital to continuing the Ukrainian advance were blown up, satellite images from BlackSky and the European Space Agency show. 

In the east, Ukrainian troops have pulled back from the city of Rubizhne in Luhansk region after weeks of resistance, according to multiple reports from the area. Video from the city showed intense fighting in its industrial outskirts on Thursday.

In the south, the Ukrainian military said Russia is using “strategic aviation” and reinforcing units. In the city of Enerhodar, occupied by Russian forces since early March, the regional administration reported on Friday that “the city is almost out of medicine, and humanitarian aid is not always available.”

In Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say that the besieged soldiers at the Azovstal steel plant have again come under Russian bombardment. An adviser to the mayor said Russian troops may try to start ground attacks. Negotiations continue to try to extract wounded soldiers, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, and the Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had discussed evacuations.

Snake Island: The 46 acres of rock and grass (but no snakes) — the site of the now-famous “Russian warship, go f**k yourself” exchange — is playing an outsized role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The Russians are expending so much effort on holding Snake Island because it has the potential to be an unsinkable — if static — aircraft carrier, crammed with electronic warfare and anti-ship capabilities. On Thursday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said Russian troops were trying to “improve their position on the island in an effort to block Ukrainian maritime communications and capabilities in the northwestern Black Sea, particularly toward Odesa.”

In recent weeks, the Ukrainians have repeatedly — and successfully — destroyed Russian forces and vehicles on the island. A new satellite image from Maxar Technologies appears to show a missile strike Thursday near the island. Two plumes of smoke are seen near a Russian Serna-class landing ship in the Black Sea, identified by Maxar.

War crimes trial: 21-year-old soldier Vadim Shishimarin is set to become the first Russian to be tried for war crimes at a trial in Kyiv on Friday. He is accused of killing an unarmed 62-year-old man in Ukraine’s Sumy region, according to the country’s prosecutor general’s office.

Nordic NATO developments: The Finnish government is planning to issue a second white paper on Sunday proposing that the country joins NATO, Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on Thursday. The proposal would then be put into a parliamentary vote with a plenary scheduled for Monday morning.

And Sweden said joining NATO would enhance deterrence across northern Europe, according to a cross-party review published by the government on Friday. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine on Friday, following a conversation earlier this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Friday in a statement.

”The Chancellor and the Russian President also discussed the global food situation, which is particularly tense as a result of the Russian war of aggression. The Chancellor recalled that Russia has a special responsibility here,” according to the German government statement. 

”Given the seriousness of the military situation and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, particularly in Mariupol, the Chancellor urged the Russian President to bring about a ceasefire as soon as possible,” the statement said. 

Scholz also discussed ”an improvement in the humanitarian situation and progress in the search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”

Ukraine forced Russia to reduce its targets to an operational and tactical level and is entering a “long” phase of war, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in a statement posted on Facebook on Friday.  

“In order to win it now, we must carefully plan resources, avoid mistakes, project our strength so that the enemy, in the end, cannot stand up to us,” the defense minister said.   

Reznikov said that after the initial Russian attack on Feb. 24, Moscow was expecting that Ukraine would capitulate in couple of days and the Kremlin would establish a new Russian system in Ukraine.   

However, Reznikov said, the “Ukrainian army and the entire Ukrainian population repulsed the occupiers and thwarted their plans.” 

According to Reznikov, an important change also took place at the international level. 

“In a month, Ukraine achieved integration in the field of defense, which could not be achieved for 30 years. We receive heavy weapons from our partners. In particular, American 155 mm M777 howitzers are already deployed at the front. Three months ago, this was considered impossible,” Reznikov said. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Finland and Sweden potentially joining NATO, as well as the course of the war in Ukraine, with members of Russia’s Security Council on Friday, the Kremlin told state news agency RIA Novosti.

“Defense Minister [Sergei] Shoigu informed the meeting participants about the progress of the special military operation [in Ukraine],” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti, commenting on the meeting.

Peskov went on to say, “An exchange of views took place on the topic of the decision of Finland and Sweden to join NATO and the potential threats to Russia’s security arising in this regard.” 

A number of issues in the context of the upcoming Collective Security Treaty Organization summit on Monday were also discussed, Peskov added.

Ukrainian officials say that the besieged soldiers at the Azovstal steel plant have again come under Russian bombardment.

Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, said that aircraft had dropped heavy bombs on the plant, “because very powerful explosions are being heard. People also saw pillars of smoke. 

“As far as I understand, after the bombing is over, the Russians may try to start ground attacks,” he said.

“The territory of the plant is huge, they [the Russians] are trying to break through the facility, gain a foothold and find entrances and exits to the underground areas – where the field hospital is, where our defenders are,” Andriushcheko said.

So far their efforts to penetrate the plant had not been very successful. “And this is what provokes the new shelling, the new artillery cover for these ground operations,” Andriushchenko said.

He also said that more people were returning to Mariupol because the Russians were not allowing them into Ukrainian-held territory.

“People are returning due to the actual closure of all green corridors by the Russian Federation. People who have settled in Mariupol district, Nikolske district, Berdiansk district, who cannot get to Zaporizhzhia, are forced to move back to the city, to their homes. At the same time we haven’t seen an increase in food supplies,” he said.

The International Red Cross is discussing with Russian officials the fate of those badly wounded and still trapped at Azovstal, according to Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy Prime Minister.

“We have started a new round of negotiations around the road map of the special operation. Let’s start with the severely wounded,” she said.

“We want a document to be signed: how exactly the evacuation from Azovstal will take place, we are preparing to sign it.”

Vereshchuk said Turkey has agreed to act as a mediator in the current round of talks.

Joining NATO would enhance deterrence across northern Europe, according to a cross-party review published by the government on Friday. 

The review assessed the changed security environment following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and what NATO membership would mean for the Nordic country. It concluded that “Swedish NATO membership would raise the threshold for military conflicts and thus have a deterrent effect in northern Europe.”

Sweden is expected to decide on whether it intends to join NATO soon, after the leaders of neighboring Finland announced its support for membership on Thursday.

The report, presented in Stockholm by Foreign Minister Ann Linde and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist alongside party representatives, states that “Russian provocation and retaliatory measures against Sweden cannot be ruled out during a transition period in connection with a Swedish application for NATO membership.”

“There is a readiness to respond to Russian threats, but it is not possible to eliminate with certainty all the risks of Russian retaliatory measures,” it added.

The report added: “If both Sweden and Finland were NATO members, all Nordic and Baltic countries would be covered by collective defence guarantees. The current uncertainty as to what form collective action would take if a security crisis or armed attack occurred would decrease.”

Alina Kabaeva, a woman who has been romantically linked to Vladimir Putin, and the Russian leader’s ex-wife Lyudmila Ocheretnaya have been included in the latest list of UK government sanctions against Russia.

In a press release published on Friday, the UK government said the sanctions were intended to target “Putin’s financial network, tightening the vice on the President and his inner circle.”

The UK has now sanctioned more than 1,000 individuals and 100 entities from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, according to the release.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast who was first linked to Putin more than a decade ago, was also included in the sixth proposed package of European Union sanctions, according to two European diplomatic sources. Putin has denied he has or had a personal relationship with her.

The UK Foreign Office said Kabaeva “has risen to become Chair of the Board of the National Media Group, reportedly the largest private Russian media company” and “previously sat as a Deputy in the Duma for Putin’s United Russia.”

Ocheretnaya, who divorced from Putin in 2014, has been included in the latest UK sanctions as she has “benefited from preferential business relationships with state-owned entities” since the divorce, according to the government press release.

Others included in the UK’s latest sanctions include Putin’s first cousins Igor Putin and Mikhail Shelomov and the President’s first cousin once removed, Roman Putin.

“Today’s sanctions isolate the family members and financiers deep within Putin’s inner circle, compounding the pressure on Putin as he continues his senseless invasion into Ukraine,” the press release said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Ukraine and the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, the Kremlin has said.

Putin told Scholz that civilians have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal plant, according to a readout of the call issued by Moscow.

“It was also mentioned that, with the participation of representatives of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, civilians were evacuated, who were held by the Ukrainian security forces at the Mariupol Azovstal plant,” the statement said. Ukraine rejects Russia’s claim that civilians were held in the besieged plant, and had repeatedly called for the evacuation of the hundreds trapped there while sheltering from the Russian assault.

Putin also shared his view of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, suggesting they were blocked by Kyiv.

“A fundamental assessment of the state of affairs in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, which are essentially blocked by Kyiv, was given,” the readout went on to say.

Putin and Scholz agreed to continue their contacts through various channels, according to the Kremlin. 

China’s Foreign Ministry has criticized the UN Human Rights Council after it adopted a resolution on Russian abuses in Ukraine, saying the body portrays “double standards.”

Speaking at a regular press briefing on Friday, spokesman Zhao Lijan accused the council of tolerating aggression by some nations while condemning others.

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Thursday for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses by Russian troops in Ukraine. All members except China and Eritrea voted in favor of the resolution.

“Politicized double standards and selective practices are on the rise in the Human Rights Council. The reason why China voted against Ukraine is based on China’s principled position on the Ukrainian issue,” Zhao said.

“The Human Rights Council held special meetings frequently in some countries, but it has not been able to take actions against some other countries,” added Zhao, who questioned the UN’s record on unrelated issues including disinformation, racism, gun violence and migrant abuse.

A 21-year-old soldier is to become the first Russian to be tried for war crimes at a trial in Kyiv on Friday.

Vadim Shishimarin will appear before the first war crimes trial since Russia invaded Ukraine back in February. He is accused of killing a 62-year-old man in Ukraine’s Sumy region, according to the country’s prosecutor general’s office.

The investigation alleges that Shishimarin fatally shot an unarmed civilian who was riding a bicycle along the roadside in the village of Chupakhivka on February 28. According to the prosecutor, Russian troops drove into the village in a stolen car with punctured wheels, after their convoy came under attack by Ukrainian forces.

When they saw a man cycling home while on the phone, one of the group ordered the sergeant to kill him so he would not report them to the Ukrainian army. Shishimarin allegedly fired a Kalashnikov several times through an open window at the civilian’s head, prosecutors say.

“Shishimarin is currently in custody. Prosecutors and SBU investigators have gathered enough evidence of his involvement in violating the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said in a statement on Facebook.

If found guilty, Shishimarin faces from ten years to life in prison.

When asked to comment on the trial, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday he has “no information” about the case. 

“I have no information about this court session or about this case. I don’t know if this is true. I have no information at all on this,” Peskov said during a daily call with journalists. 

See the defendant’s appearance in court:

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02:00 - Source: cnn

An extensive excavation of the bombed Mariupol drama theater remains ongoing, new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show.

The area is now under Russian control, and the clearance of debris from the fighting is underway in several parts of the city. The site was bombed on March 16 and Ukrainian officials believe at least 300 people who were taking shelter in the building were killed.

On April 29, a satellite image showed a crane at the side of the building. The sidewalks on the northern and southern side of the drama theater, which had been covered in debris from the bombing, were by then cleared.

In a May 2 satellite image, the crane was behind the drama theater. Trucks were parked at the front, but it’s unclear from the image what their purpose was.

Then in a satellite image taken on May 6, even more activity is seen at the theater. The crane is seen sitting next to the large hole in the theater’s roof, the likely epicenter of the explosion that tore the building apart.

More trucks are seen outside and around the building. Some trucks are parked on top of the large sign that said children in Cyrillic, written before the bombing to deter Russian attacks.

CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment about the excavations.

When it was bombed, the drama theater was being used as a shelter by women, children, and the elderly.

The Ukrainian government has accused the Russians of conducting an airstrike on the theater. Russia has repeatedly denied that it hit the theater and has claimed without offering evidence that the Azov Regiment – one of the Ukrainian army’s units in Mariupol – blew it up.

The European Union will provide $521 million (€500 million) in military support to Ukraine, according to the bloc’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell. 

”We will provide a new tranche of 500 more millions in military support to Ukraine,” the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy told reporters on his way into a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Weissenhaus in Germany on Friday. 

The G7 will also ”put more pressure on Russia” in terms of economic sanctions, according to Borrell. The diplomat said he was ”optimistic” that a deal can be reached on an EU embargo on Russian oil imports, stressing the need to “get rid of the oil dependency on Russia.”

The group of the world’s richest nations are also set to discuss wartime disinformation and rising energy and food prices, Borrell said.

He added that when it comes to dealing with Russia, the G7 will ”present a united front” and “come out with a strong message.”

More weapons need to be sent to Ukraine to help “keep up the pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Friday.

”It is very important at this time that we keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin by supplying more weapons to Ukraine, by increasing the sanctions,” Truss said, speaking on her way into a meeting of The Group of Seven (G7) Foreign Ministers in Weissenhaus, Germany.

The foreign minister said ”G7 unity has been vital during this crisis to protect freedom and democracy,” referring to relations between, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Truss is set to meet the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell as part of Friday’s G7 events. 

Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces are continuing to “launch artillery and air strikes on Mariupol” while blocking Ukrainian units near the Azovstal plant.

Azovstal has been under constant shelling from Russian forces for about two months and while a Ukrainian officer inside the facility said that all trapped civilians have likely been evacuated, Ukrainian fighters continue to hold out.

“In order to establish full control over the city and suppress the resistance of Ukrainian defenders, it uses strategic aviation. Given the evacuation of the local residents, increase of the firing should be expected in the near future,” the General Staff said. 

Zaporizhzhia: In the south, the regional administration in Zaporizhzhia said there are signs the Russians are trying to reinforce their units by bringing in more equipment and troops. It said a new Russian contingent had arrived in Mykhailivka, just south of current frontlines. 

Enerhodar: In the nearby city of Enerhodar, occupied by Russian forces since early March, the regional administration reported on Friday that, “The city is almost out of medicine, and humanitarian aid is not always available.” Enerhodar residents, it said, are “already afraid to go to protests and organize rallies” because of constant patrols and intimidation by Russian soldiers.

In his daily address on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian offensive was hiding behind missile, air and artillery strikes. 

“Russia’s strategic defeat is already obvious to everyone in the world and even to those who still continue to communicate with them. Russia simply lacks courage to admit it so far. They are cowards,” Zelensky said.
“Therefore, our task is to fight until we achieve our goals in this war. “

A Ukrainian counterattack in the north continues to disrupt Russian supply lines.

Russian forces “did not conduct offensive operations in the Kharkiv direction. The main efforts were focused on preventing the advance of our troops in the area of ​​the settlement of Vesele,” the Ukrainian General Staff said on Friday.

The Ukrainians have taken a number of villages in this area east of Kharkiv. 

CNN reported early on Friday that at least three bridges in the area had been demolished, according to satellite imagery. It seems likely that Russian units destroyed the bridges in an effort to protect their supply lines from further Ukrainian advances.

Elsewhere in Kharkiv region, the Russians appear to be using artillery sporadically but with deadly effect.

On Thursday, shelling of the town of Derhachi killed two people, according to the local administration, and destroyed the humanitarian center and medical facilities.

Derhachi is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Kharkiv, which is Ukraine’s second-largest city.

After weeks of resistance, Ukrainian troops have pulled back from the city of Rubizhne in Luhansk region, according to multiple reports from the area.

Video from the city shows intense fighting in its industrial outskirts on Thursday.

A bridge linking Rubizhne with neighboring Severodonetsk has been destroyed, suggesting the Ukrainians are taking up new defensive lines.

There has been no official confirmation from the Ukrainian General Staff that Ukrainian troops have left the outskirts of Rubizhne. 

The General Staff reported on Friday only that “the enemy continues to focus its efforts on establishing full control over the settlement of Rubizhne,” a description repeated by the regional military administration.

Ukrainian officials reported earlier on Thursday that a nearby town had fallen to advancing Russian forces. And in its latest analysis, the Institute for the Study of War said that “Russian forces likely control almost all of Rubizhne as of May 12, and have likely seized the town of Voevodivka, north of Severdonetsk.”

Ukrainian troops continue to defend Severodonetsk, which has been pummelled by Russian shelling and air attacks for weeks. Some 15,000 civilians are still thought to be in Severodonetsk, out of a pre-war population of 100,000. The city is more than 70% destroyed according to the local government.

“Evacuation is suspended because it is impossible to drive on a road that is constantly being shelled. As soon as the situation stabilizes, the evacuation will resume,” said the head of the Severodonetsk Military-Civil Administration Oleksandr Stryuk on Thursday.

Satellite images of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol show the extent of the destruction the Russian bombardment has had on the complex.

The images from Maxar Technologies, taken on May 12, show the heavily damaged plant from above.

Azovstal has been under constant shelling from Russian forces for about two months.

Prior to evacuation efforts, hundreds of civilians had been sheltering in the complex along with the last remaining Ukrainian defenders of the city.

A Ukrainian officer inside the facility said on Thursday that all the trapped civilians have likely been evacuated, though he added it was difficult to make a full assessment of the situation across the plant given the constant shelling.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Thursday that “very difficult negotiations” are ongoing on the evacuation of seriously wounded fighters from the plant in exchange for Russian prisoners of war.

There are thought to be several hundred soldiers still at Mariupol’s last Ukrainian stronghold.

Their families have sent an emotional appeal to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him to “be a hero” and initiate an extraction procedure for all remaining fighters at the plant. 

As the Russian forces retreated due to a sustained Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, three bridges vital to continuing the Ukrainian advance were blown up, satellite images from BlackSky and the European Space Agency show. 

The images from Black Sky, taken on May 12, show collapsed sections of the bridges crossing the Siverskyi Donets River near the villages of Rubizhne and Staryi Saltiv, which are about 10 miles south of the Russian border.

The village of Rubizhne is near Staryi Saltiv, although it shares the same name with the city further south in Luhansk.

The villages were recently liberated by Ukrainian forces. 

Another satellite image, taken on May 8, by the European Space Agency shows the bridge across the Pecheneg hydroelectric power station — the nearest bridge to the south — has also been blown up. 

There are only two smaller bridges to the north, in the currently Russian-occupied villages of Ohirtseve and Buhrukuvatka, which cross the river. Their current status is unknown, as clouds have obscured any recent satellite imaging. 

Why the bridges are important: If those bridges are compromised, the momentum of the Ukrainian advance will be significantly hampered.

It’s not just momentum that’s important for the Ukrainian forces. Major Russian supply lines, which are vital to the Russian military advance near the city of Izium and into the Luhansk region, are just east of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Kharkiv region.

 While it’s not entirely clear when the bridges were blown, or who is responsible for doing so, it’s unlikely the Ukrainians are responsible for their destruction. The bridges are just too vital to their counteroffensive, and to targeting the supply lines.

Two battlegrounds are emerging in Ukraine, with the Russians trying to take the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, while the Ukrainians are trying to both hold them back and cut them off. And the boundaries of one river in the east are hindering both sides.

Here are the latest updates on the war in Ukraine:

A new satellite image from Maxar Technology appears to show a missile strike Thursday near Snake Island, in southern Ukraine.

Two plumes of smoke are seen near to a Russian Serna-class landing ship in the Black Sea, identified by Maxar.

The ship appears to be making a sharp turn where the missile hits the water.

Near the island, a barge with a heavy-lift crane is seen next to another sunken vessel, which Maxar has also identified as a Serna-class landing ship. 

It’s unclear how the ship sank, but on Sunday, spokesman for Odesa region military administration Serhiy Bratchuk said that a landing boat was hit, in addition to two Raptor-class patrol boats.

Bratchuk also claimed the Ukrainian military had destroyed a Russian helicopter on the island. The Ukraine Armed Forces Southern Operational Command released video showing a helicopter being destroyed by a missile on Sunday.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainians have repeatedly — and successfully — destroyed Russian forces and vehicles on the island. 

Bratchuk claimed on Thursday that a Russian support ship, the ‘Vsevolod Bobrov’ was on fire and being towed to Sevastopol from the area of Snake Island. That support ship is not seen in this satellite image, and the claim remains unverified by CNN. 

So far Russia has not confirmed the loss of any of the ships mentioned.

The Russian military is continuing to use a Ukrainian air base outside the occupied city of Melitopol, satellite images from BlackSky show.

At least seven helicopters are seen at the air base in a satellite image taken on May 12 at 3:58 p.m. local time. Only one helicopter is seen in a satellite image from May 7 at 6:02 a.m.

Some context: The use of the air base by the Russians is important, given its strategic location between the occupied cities of Kherson, Mariupol and parts of the Russian-backed separatist-held Donbas region.

Although the air base is deep within Russian-occupied territory, it doesn’t mean the aircraft there are safe. In late March, Ukrainian forces successfully targeted the airport outside of Kherson, blowing up a number of Russian military helicopters. 

As a result of that successful Ukrainian military strike, the Russian military has had to largely abandon the airport as a base for its aircraft.

The Ukrainians are continuing to pushback a Russian advance across the Siverskyi Donets River near Bilohorivka, a satellite image from BlackSky shows.

The fighting is taking place along the same bend in the river where the Russians constructed two pontoon bridges, which the Ukrainians blew up.

The satellite image, taken Thursday afternoon, shows large plumes of smoke rising from a dense forest just west of the river. Fighting also appears to be occurring in the area where the Russian pontoon bridges were deployed.

Smoke is obscuring much of that area, but through it, an object — a possible third Russian pontoon bridge — is seen bridging the river. The object seen crosses the entire river; drone photos of the first two destroyed pontoon bridges show they no longer cross the body of water.

Serhiy Hayday, the Luhansk regional military administrator, said on Wednesday the Russians are continuing to try to construct bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River. He also said that the Ukrainians have repeatedly blown them up. 

Russia’s Ambassador to the European Union said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is on track but not proceeding at the speed certain people in the country wanted.

Calling the invasion a “special military operation,” Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov told Sky News Russia could have “steamrolled” Ukraine by now if it had wanted.

“It is continuing at a certain speed, having in mind the various aspects of the situation in Ukraine, including the need to protect the troops — the Russian troops and the allies of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics — as well as the civilian population,” Chizhov said.
“Had the Russian army followed the pattern of the United States and other Western countries, we would have steamrolled Ukraine several times by now. But that was never the intention. Actually, I should repeat that it was not the intention of Russia to capture territory in Ukraine.”

When asked about the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine Chizhov said:

“You mean whether NATO will deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine? I hope not.” He added, “As distinctly different from the United States, Russia does not deploy nuclear weapons anywhere beyond its own territory.”

Chizhov said he is “deeply disappointed and saddened” by Finland and Sweden making moves to join NATO.

“Why the current Finish government has chosen to turn the country into a backwater periphery of NATO, I cannot understand,” he said.

If Finland joins, Russia will take “certain military technical measures,” he said.

“Like improving or raising the degree of defense preparations along the Finish border…not necessarily troops and tanks but certain preparations like radars, perhaps, but I’m not a military expert.”

The United States assesses that Russian forces have sent “at least several thousand Ukrainians” to be processed at Russia’s so-called filtration centers “and evacuated at least tens of thousands more to Russia or Russia-controlled territory,” US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter said Thursday.

The forced displacement – and reported violence that are faced by those at the so-called filtration centers – amount to war crimes, Carpenter said according to the transcript of his remarks to the OSCE Permanent Council.

“Numerous eyewitness accounts indicate that ‘filtering out’ entails beating and torturing individuals to determine whether they owe even the slightest allegiance to the Ukrainian state,” Carpenter said.

Some background: A CNN investigation in April revealed that Russian forces and allied separatist soldiers were taking Mariupol residents to a so-called “filtration center” set up in Bezimenne, where they were registered before being sent on to Russia, many against their will. Ukrainian government and local Mariupol officials say that tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forcibly deported to the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia since the war began.

“Survivors of this process describe a coercive, multi-destination journey through various ‘filtration’ waypoints in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine, and eventually across the border into Russia itself,” Carpenter noted. “Survivors describe these centers as either makeshift encampments composed of military tents or civilian infrastructure such as schools or sports centers. Commercial satellite images show these encampments in various locations across Ukraine’s southeast.”

The US Mission to the OSCE declined to discuss the sources of the information, but said it is confident in the assessment and the scale of the numbers stated.

According to Carpenter, victims described an “invasive and humiliating” inspection process at these centers.

“Russia’s soldiers photograph victims from various angles, fingerprint and physically examine them for tattoos, inspect their cell phones and download their contacts and data onto devices, and record their biographic information in a variety of databases … In some cases, Russia’s soldiers confiscated passports, identification documents, and cell phones altogether,” Carpenter said.

“Once in Russia, survivors report that some Ukrainian citizens are permitted to stay with friends and family living in Russia but that people without money or documents are put onto trains destined for cities hundreds of miles away, to be given jobs by Russian authorities,” he added.

Th Finnish government is planning to issue a second white paper on Sunday proposing that the country joins NATO, Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters in a media briefing in Helsinki on Thursday.

The proposal would then be put into a parliamentary vote with a plenary scheduled for Monday morning.

Haavisto noted that it is “important to go through a proper parliamentary debate”

The Finnish foreign minister said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “changed very much the security landscape in Europe,” adding that it also changed the public opinion on NATO membership.

Haavisto told reporters that the country is in close contact with the Swedish Foreign Ministry as Sweden also considers joining NATO. He added that he is in talks with European partners and the UK as applicant countries are not covered by security guarantees.