May 11, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Ukrainian forces have begun “shaping” operations in advance of a highly-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, a senior US military official and senior Western official tell CNN.

Shaping involves striking targets such as weapons depots, command centers and armor and artillery systems to prepare the battlefield for advancing forces. It’s a standard tactic made prior to major combined operations.

When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive late last summer in the southern and northeastern parts of the country, it was similarly preceded by air attacks to shape the battlefield. These shaping operations could continue for many days before the bulk of any planned Ukrainian offensive, according to the senior US military official.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country still needs “a bit more time” before it launches the counteroffensive, in order to allow some more of the promised Western military aid to arrive in the country.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,” Zelensky told European public service broadcasters in an interview published on Thursday. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable.”
“So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” he said.

Among the supplies Ukraine is still waiting for are armored vehicles — including tanks —which Zelensky said were “arriving in batches.”

Shaping operations can also be designed to confuse the enemy. 

Last summer, Kharkiv had very little in the way of softening up; it was a lightning ground offensive. Most of the shaping came in Kherson, through long-range attacks on bridges, ammo stores and command centers. Most of these were carried out by HIMARS. There were some, but not many, air strikes.

CNN’s Tim Lister contributed reporting.

In an unusual late-night post on its Telegram channel, the Russian Ministry of Defense has pushed back on claims that Ukrainian forces broke through parts of the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

“The statements spread by individual telegram channels about ‘defense breakthroughs’ in various sections of the line of contact are not true,” the ministry statement reads.

At least two Russian military bloggers have reported a deteriorating situation for Russian forces around the city, where a battle of attrition has been grinding on for months.

The defense ministry said Russian assault units are making progress in the western part of Bakhmut with air and artillery support. It said troops are battling to repel Ukrainian troops “in the direction of Maloilyinovka” — apparently a reference to a village in the Bakhmut area.

“The enemy suffers significant losses in manpower and hardware,” the defense officials claimed.

What Ukraine says: A report from the Ukrainian military’s General Staff Thursday described a “dynamic” situation in Bakhmut, claiming Kyiv’s forces are heaping pressure on Russian fighters and probing weak spots in their lines.

A Ukrainian military officer said Ukraine is on the offensive in Bakhmut this week after months of defense. Kyiv has reported “effective counterattacks” around the eastern city despite constant Russian bombardment.

Russia’s military shelled several towns and villages in the Zaporizhzhia region, injuring civilians and damaging property, according to the Ukrainian official leading the regional military administration there.

Meanwhile, the Russians have claimed they are eliminating deployment points of the Ukrainian military. Indirect fire in the region has intensified ahead of what observers expect to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Here are other key headlines to know:

International aid. The UK has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, the British defense ministry confirmed Thursday. And Japan’s finance minister announced Thursday that Japan will provide $1 billion to help Ukraine’s neighbors in taking refugees from the war-stricken country.

The battle for Bakhmut. The Ukrainian military says Russia launched nearly 50 airstrikes over the last day as intense fighting puts pressure on forward Russian positions west of the city of Bakhmut. The military’s General Staff said Thursday that Russia also carried out six missile attacks. In an unusual late-night post on its Telegram channel, the Russian Ministry of Defense has pushed back on claims that Ukrainian forces broke through parts of the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, the head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has again complained that areas captured by his fighters around the eastern city of Bakhmut at the expense of heavy casualties are now being lost to the Ukrainians. And this week, the Ukrainian commander of a battalion involved in the country’s attack on Russian positions near Bakhmut told CNN the first Russians to abandon the area were Wagner fighters, contradicting claims made by Prigozhin that regular Russian troops initially fled the battleground in eastern Ukraine.

Assassination attempt. The Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said an assassination attempt was made on a Russian-appointed court chairman there. The Zaporizhzhia judge is the latest target in a string of assassination attempts in Russian-occupied Melitopol in the last few weeks. 

Potential prisoner swap. US President Joe Biden’s administration is scouring the globe for offers that could entice Russia to release detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The US considers both men wrongfully detained. It does not currently have any high-level Russian spies in its custody, current and former US officials say, driving the need to turn to allies for help.

US President Joe Biden’s administration is scouring the globe for offers that could entice Russia to release detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The US considers both men wrongfully detained. It does not currently have any high-level Russian spies in its custody, current and former US officials say, driving the need to turn to allies for help.

The Biden administration is casting a wide net, approaching allied countries who have Russian spies in custody to gauge whether they would be willing to make a trade as part of a larger prisoner swap package.

But US officials have also been surveying allies without Russians in their custody, officials said, for ideas on what might entice Moscow to release US prisoners.

The White House is also exploring narrow sanctions relief, senior administration officials said.

The goal is to bring home Whelan and Gershkovich as part of the same deal, US officials have said privately, with two US officials telling CNN the administration wants to see what creative offers could gin up Russian interest.

US officials’ outreach extends to some countries that have recently arrested alleged Russian spies, including Brazil, Norway and Germany, as well as a former Soviet bloc country, to discuss the possibility of including them in any potential prisoner swaps.

Germany has a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy agency named Vadim Krasikov in its custody. He is widely seen as being atop Russia’s list of prisoners it wants back.

While some of these efforts predate Gershkovich’s detention, they have continued to intensify since The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in March, with White House officials directly engaged on the matter, officials said.

“Efforts to reach out to allies and partners have been intense for many months and intensified even further once it became clear that there was no way to bring Whelan home at the same time as Brittney Griner, given Russian refusal to release Whelan,” said a senior administration official. “That recognition led the US government to redouble efforts with new creativity to find a way to bring Whelan home, too.”

In context with the war in Ukraine: Gershkovich’s arrest marked the first time an American journalist has been detained on accusations by Moscow of spying since the Cold War. It has been viewed by news organizations as another sign of the Kremlin’s crackdown on foreign media outlets since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Russia’s detentions of Griner, Whelan and Gershkovich have raised fears they could be used as pawns in the geopolitics surrounding the war.

Read more here.

The Ukrainian military says Russia launched nearly 50 airstrikes over the last day as intense fighting puts pressure on forward Russian positions west of the city of Bakhmut.

The military’s General Staff said Thursday that Russia also carried out six missile attacks.

Russian forces continue to advance around Bakhmut and have carried out a number of airstrikes in the area, Kyiv’s military said. But Ukrainian forces have exploited gaps in Russian flanks south and west of the city to recapture some territory, according to the General Staff.

One officer deployed in the area said Ukraine was in an “active offensive phase” around Bakhmut, after months of mainly defensive action.

“Right now, dynamic events are taking place on both the southern and northern flanks of Bakhmut, but we will not talk about the result yet,” Maj. Maksym Zhorin said on Telegram.

Russian writers weigh in: Some Russian military bloggers have painted a gloomy picture of Russia’s prospects around Bakhmut.

One of them, Sasha Simonov, said units of Russia’s 4th Army Brigade had withdrawn from an area west of the city. This is consistent with Ukrainian reports of advances there earlier this week.

Ukrainian fighters have also attempted a breakthrough near Bohdanivka, which is northwest of Bakhmut, Simonov said.

Elsewhere: Russia’s efforts to advance in eastern Ukraine are focused on four parts of the front line in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military said. Russia has failed in recent efforts to break through to the town of Lyman in Donetsk, it added.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, it appears there has been less fighting around Kupyansk, which Russia frequently targeted with shelling and ground attacks earlier this year, the General Staff said.

In recent days, the boss of the Russian private military company Wagner seems to have gone into social media meltdown, flooding his Telegram channel and other accounts with ever-more outrageous and provocative statements.

Among other things, Prigozhin revealed an apparently humiliating battlefield setback for Russia, saying a Russian brigade had “fled” around the eastern city of Bakhmut, threatening his troops with encirclement by Ukrainian forces.

Earlier in the week, Prigozhin marred Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations with public and profanity-laced criticisms of the country’s top military brass.

And then there was a more cryptic comment that raised eyebrows on social media. Continuing a longstanding public complaint that Russia’s uniformed military was starving his troops of shells, Prigozhin suggested that the higher-ups were dithering while Wagner fighters died.

A political operator: The Wagner boss has seen his political star rise in Russia in recent months as his fighters seemed to be the only ones capable of delivering tangible battlefield progress in the grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. And he has used his social media clout to lobby for what he wants, including those sought-after ammunition supplies.

But amid those successes — particularly in the meat grinder of Bakhmut — Prigozhin has revived and amplified a feud with Russia’s military leadership. A canny political entrepreneur, Prigozhin has cast himself as a competent, ruthless patriot — in contrast with Russia’s inept military establishment.

It may seem surprising in a country where criticizing the military can potentially cost a person a spell in prison that Prigozhin gets away with strident criticism of Putin’s generals. But Putin presides over what is often described as a court system, where infighting and competition among elites is in fact encouraged to produce results, as long as the “vertical of power” remains loyal to and answers to the head of state.

A step too far? But Prigozhin’s online tantrums seem to be crossing the line to open disloyalty, some observers say.

In a recent Twitter thread, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said, “If the Kremlin does not respond to Prigozhin’s escalating attacks on Putin it may further erode the norm in Putin’s system in which individual actors can jockey for position and influence (and drop in and out of Putin’s favor) but cannot directly criticize Putin.”

Speculation then centers on whether Prigozhin is politically expendable, whether his outbursts are a sort of clever deception operation — or, more troublingly for Putin, whether the system of loyalty that keeps the Kremlin running smoothly is starting to break down.

Read more here.

The Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said an assassination attempt was made on a Russian-appointed court chairman there.

“As a result of the assassination attempt, the judge was not injured, but two guards were injured, they are in a medical facility, they are provided with all the necessary assistance,” the governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on his Telegram channel. 

The Zaporizhzhia judge is the latest target in a string of assassination attempts in Russian-occupied Melitopol in the last few weeks. 

Last week, the deputy head of Melitopol’s regional police department was hospitalized after an improvised explosive device went off outside a gate of a residential building. 

On April 27, another police chief in Melitopol, Oleksandr Mishchenko, was killed when an improvised device exploded at the entrance to an apartment building. 

The head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has again complained that areas captured by his fighters around the eastern city of Bakhmut at the expense of heavy casualties are now being lost to the Ukrainians.

“The situation on the western flanks is developing according to the worst of the predicted scenarios. Those territories that were liberated with blood and lives of our comrades every day progressing by dozens or hundreds of meters during many months, today are abandoned almost without any fight by those who are supposed to hold our flanks,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram message Thursday.

His perspective is in stark contrast to the views of one Ukrainian battalion commander in the area, who told CNN that it was Russian regular forces that were putting up the stiffest resistance, while Wagner units had been the first to run.

According to one well-known Russian military blogger in the area, the task of defending the flanks around Bakhmut was passed to regular Russian forces, while Wagner has consolidated its presence in the city itself.

One Ukrainian commander in the Bakhmut area said Thursday that Ukrainian units had struck at the Russians’ flanks and the enemy had retreated. However, Taras Deyak of the Karpatska Sich tactical group told Radio Liberty, that the situation remains “very difficult, very tense and at times uncontrollable.”

Geolocated footage published since Tuesday also shows that “Ukrainian forces likely conducted successful limited counterattacks north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) and northwest of Bila Hora (southwest of Bakhmut) and made marginal advances in these areas,” according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Here’s a look at the state of control:

The United Nations, Turkey and Ukraine have called for the extension of a crucial grain deal agreement that enabled the passage of Ukrainian ships carrying agriculture products to depart the country, as the latest negotiations in Istanbul between the three parties and Russia ends Thursday. 

Turkey, alongside the UN, helped broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July. The agreement, which is set to expire on May 18, established a procedure that guaranteed the safety of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, fertilizer and other foodstuffs through a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea.

Moscow stopped the ships from leaving in the early days of the war, exacerbating a global food crisis.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said after Thursday’s meeting that the implementation of the Russian part of the agreement is “unsatisfactory,” Russian state media TASS reported.  

“So far, we can say that a lot has been said and promised. We appreciate the efforts of the UN and the UN Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres]. However, no concrete results for us have been observed yet,” Vershinin said, according to the state media.  

The UN’s representative Martin Griffiths said on Thursday: “The United Nations will continue to work closely with all sides to achieve the continuation and full implementation of the Initiative, in pursuit of their broader shared commitment to addressing global food insecurity.”

Griffiths added that over 30 million tons of grains and other food have been exported from Ukraine since the beginning of the initiative in July 2022. 

All parties at the meeting agreed to “engage with those elements going forwards,” according to the statement. 

Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Thursday “our wish is the extension of the grain agreement,” according to Turkish state media Andalou Angency. 

Kyiv wishes to see the deal not only be extended but also expand to cover more ground, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Vice President Oleksandr Kubrakov, adding that future talks will take place virtually at the proposal of UN and Turkey.

The Ukrainian commander of a battalion involved in the country’s attack on Russian positions near Bakhmut this week has told CNN the first Russians to abandon the area were Wagner fighters, contradicting claims by the mercenary group’s chief that regular Russian troops initially fled the battleground in eastern Ukraine.

The commander of the First Battalion of the 3rd Assault Brigade, whose call-sign is Rollo, told a CNN team in eastern Ukraine that while Wagner units left their station southwest of the city of Bakhmut, the troops of the Russian army’s 72nd Brigade stayed and fought.

His remarks contradict those of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who accused the 72nd Brigade of deserting their positions.

At one point, Rollo said, Kyiv’s forces used powerful HIMARS rockets against Russian infantry, who were gathering to reinforce positions. HIMARS rockets, provided by the United States, are normally used on more long-range targets such as ammunition depots and have a reputation for pinpoint accuracy.

Rollo added that the Russian soldiers only capitulated after being surrounded. “We spent two hours trying to persuade them to surrender.”

He said Prigozhin wanted to blame the Russian army for the failure, but they were good soldiers and fought hard. Prigozhin was a liar, he added.

Much of the fighting occurred in close quarters, and sometimes the enemy was just 20 meters away, according to Rollo.

Rollo commented that at least 200 to 300 Russian soldiers were killed and it may have been more.

CNN was not on the ground in Bakhmut to independently verify the death toll.

Some background: Prigozhin accused Moscow’s troops of “abandoning their positions” in front-line Bakhmut, laying bare deep fissures between the Wagner head and the Kremlin amid Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this week, he said that “one of the units of the Ministry of Defense fled from one of our flanks, abandoning their positions. They all fled and [laid] bare a front nearly 2 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep.”

In comments on Tuesday, Prighozhin claimed the “72nd brigade f***ed up three square kilometers today, on which I had about 500 people killed. Because it was a strategic bridgehead. They just ran the hell out of there.”

CNN’s David VonBlohn and Olha Konovalova contributed reporting from eastern Ukraine.

Japan will provide $1 billion to help Ukraine’s neighbors in taking refugees from the war-stricken country, Japanese finance minister announced Thursday.

“Besides confirming the results of our financial aids [to Ukraine] so far, we would also like to discuss how to strengthen our cooperation with international financial institutions and help Ukraine’s neighboring countries, including in taking in Ukrainian refugees,” Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki told reporters, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Suzuki was speaking at the G7 Finance Minister and Central Bank chief meeting in Niigata.

“I would like to achieve concrete results and bring them forward to the Hiroshima summit,” Suzuki said.

Japan is scheduled to host this year’s G7 summit in Hiroshima starting on May 19.

The Ukrainian official leading the regional military administration in Zaporizhzhia, Yurii Malashko, said Thursday that the Russian military had shelled several towns and villages in the region, injuring civilians and damaging property. The Russians have claimed they are eliminating deployment points of the Ukrainian military.

Indirect fire in the region has intensified ahead of what observers expect to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“After 70 attacks, more than three dozen destructions were recorded in 20 settlements,” Malashko said on Telegram. “The enemy fired 60 times from artillery, 5 times from multiple rocket launchers, launched 3 air strikes and one missile attack, and carried out one attack from a UAV.”

Malashko said that in the village of Malokaterynivka, eight people were injured by cluster shells. Three of them were ambulance workers who went to the scene, he said. There was also damage in the settlements of Huliaipole, Orikhiv and Stepnohirsk.

What Russia says: The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday issued a statement claiming that Russian air defenses and Akatsiya self-propelled artillery crews had destroyed Ukraine’s temporary deployment point close to Huliaipole. The ministry claimed that an ammunition depot of the Ukrainian’s 102th Artillery Brigade had been destroyed.

“In South Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions, the attacks, launched by aviation and artillery of the Vostok Group of Forces have resulted in the neutralisation of the enemy units close to Vuhledar and Prechistivka (Donetsk People’s Republic), Malinivka, Huliapole, Novodanilivka and Kamianske (Zaporizhzhia region),” the ministry claimed.

A Russian military blogger said that elsewhere in the south – in Kherson region – the Russian air force had used powerful FAB-500 bombs to attack Ukrainian storage facilities. CNN is unable to independently verify the claim.

The UK has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, the British defense ministry confirmed Thursday.

This follows exclusive CNN reporting earlier Thursday that the UK had supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, citing conversations with senior Western officials.

The donation of the Storm Shadow missiles “complements” long-range systems previously gifted to Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s own Neptune cruise missiles, Ben Wallace told lawmakers Thursday.

“The donation of these weapon systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend themselves against Russia’s continued brutality, especially the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, which is against international law,” Wallace said in parliament. 

For weeks, a question has hung over the war: When will Ukraine launch its long-anticipated counteroffensive? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to pour cold water on the speculation Thursday, claiming that his forces needed “a bit more time” to wait for equipment to arrive. But, after Ukrainian troops made significant gains around Bakhmut this week, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed the counteroffensive is already underway.

Here are the latest developments:

Russian forces have evacuated more than 12,000 people from frontline areas in the Zaporizhzhia region, a member of the Russian-installed main council of the military-civilian administration Vladimir Rogov said Thursday.

“Over 12,000 residents of frontline districts left for safe areas of Zaporizhzhia region,” Rogov said on his official Telegram account on Thursday. “More than 4,000 of them left by buses and more than 8,000 by their own vehicles.”

CNN could not independently verify the numbers put forward by the local Russian administration.

Rogov called on those still in these areas to take advantage of the opportunity to evacuate under what he called the “temporary relocation program,” with residents being given 10,000 rubles ($130), accommodation and meals.

Some background: Russian authorities began evacuating towns and cities in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia last week, amid rumors that Ukraine is set to launch a long-anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow’s invasion.

Wagner founder and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks saying Kyiv still needs “a bit more time” before it launches a much anticipated counteroffensive.

 “Zelensky is lying,” Prigozhin said on his official social media channels on Thursday. “The counteroffensive is in full swing.” 
“In the Artemovsk (Russian name for Bakhmut) direction, AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) units are entering the flanks. And, unfortunately, in some places they are successful,” he added. 

Prigozhin’s remarks came after Zelensky said in an interview on Thursday his country needed “a bit more time” to allow additional Western supplies to arrive, before they could launch the counteroffensive. The Wagner founder went on to claim Ukrainian forces first had to resolve the situation in and around Bakhmut before trying to advance in other areas.

“That is why the offensive of the AFU has begun. Those units that have been trained, received the necessary weapons, equipment, tanks, everything else, they are already fully engaged,” he said, repeating his complaints against the Russian Ministry of Defense over the lack of ammunition supplies.

“Wagner continues to carry out combat missions in a terrible shortage of ammunition and shell hunger, because the promises made by the Ministry of Defense are not kept.”

What Ukraine says: Ukrainian military officials have previously said the counterattacks around Bakhmut mentioned by Prigozhin are part of a “positional struggle” and not necessarily related to a larger counteroffensive effort.

“Sometimes the enemy has some success after a powerful artillery strike and the destruction of infrastructure, and they can move forward,” the spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevaty said on May 1, explaining the frontline was constantly shifting. “But we counterattack and often win back our positions after inflicting fire on the enemy.”

Russia’s Investigative Committee will soon put on the country’s wanted list the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another official, the chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said Thursday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

“The Investigative Committee then very quickly opened a criminal case against the chairman and three judges, who actively influenced the adoption of this decision. They will soon be put on the wanted list,” Bastrykin said, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

Some background: The International Criminal Court issued on March 17 an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

The court said there “are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the alleged crimes, for having committed them directly alongside others, and for “his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”

Some context: The ICC charges were the first to be formally lodged against officials in Moscow since it began its unprovoked attack on Ukraine last year.

Russia is not a member of the ICC. As the court does not conduct trials in absentia, any Russian officials charged would either have to be handed over by Moscow or arrested outside of Russia.

The Kremlin has labeled the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The Kremlin has warned its armed forces will provide an “adequate response’ to the United Kingdom’s decision to supply long-range missiles to Kyiv.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov condemned the move during a conference call with journalists on Thursday, promising a Russian reply.

“This will require an adequate response from our military who will naturally make relevant decisions with this in view,” Peskov added.

Some background: Earlier on Thursday, CNN reported that the United Kingdom had supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, citing multiple senior Western officials.

The missiles have a maximum range of 250 km (155 miles) and give Ukrainian forces a new long-range strike capability in advance of a highly anticipated counteroffensive.

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce to the House of Commons that the UK is sending Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.

The missile is “a real game changer from a range perspective,” a senior US military official told CNN and gives Kyiv a capability it has been requesting since the outset of the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is not worried about the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election and what it could mean in terms of Washington’s support for Kyiv, because he believes Ukraine will win before then.

“Who knows where we’ll be [when the election happens]?” he told European public broadcasters in an interview published on Thursday, according to one of the outlets, the BBC. “I believe we’ll win by then.”

Zelensky added that Ukraine continues to enjoy bipartisan support in the US Congress.

Some context: The US has provided significant financial support for Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion. On Tuesday, the US announced a $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine to support the long-anticipated launch of its counteroffensive against Russian forces. With the new package announcement, the US has committed $36.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

Zelensky’s comments came after former President Donald Trump would not say Wednesday night who he thinks should prevail in the war, instead telling New Hampshire GOP primary voters that he wants “everybody to stop dying” and that he doesn’t “think in terms of winning and losing.”

Speaking at CNN’s town hall, Trump – asked whether he supports providing US military aid to Ukraine – would not commit to sending aid to the war-torn country, should he win the Republican presidential nomination and then the White House.

While Trump said he would meet with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin and solve the war in Ukraine “in one day, 24 hours,” he would not say whether he believed Putin was a war criminal but that it “should be discussed later.”

CNN’s Jack Forrest contributed to this post.

Ukraine still needs “a bit more time” before it launches its long-awaited counteroffensive, as Kyiv’s forces await the arrival of more weapons from their Western allies, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,” Zelensky told European public service broadcasters in an interview published Thursday. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.”

Among the supplies Ukraine is waiting for are armored vehicles, including tanks, which Zelensky said were “arriving in batches.”

They include German Leopard 2s and British Challenger 2s, along with other armored vehicles like American Bradleys and Strykers.

Zelensky’s comments came a day after the US announced a new $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine intended to bolster air defenses and sustain ammunition supplies.

“We’re still expecting some things. They will reinforce our counter offensive and most importantly, they will protect our people,” he said. “We’re expecting armoured vehicles, they arrive in batches.”

However, Zelensky said Ukrainian forces are prepared.

“Mentally, we’re ready; in terms of how motivated our military are, we’re ready; in terms of enough personnel and our brigades, we’re ready,” he said. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet.”

Ukrainian forces say they are conducting “effective counterattacks” in the Bakhmut area, in comments that are in line with claims from Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin that Kyiv has recaptured some territory.

Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday accused a Russian brigade of abandoning its position in front-line Bakhmut, allowing Ukraine to seize territory. He has repeatedly accused the defense ministry of failing to give his forces the supplies they need.

The commander of the Ukrainian land forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, confirmed in a Telegram post Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have made significant gains in the area.

“Thanks to our well-thought-out defense in the Bakhmut sector, we are getting results from the effective actions of our units. In particular, we are conducting effective counterattacks. In some areas of the front, the enemy was unable to withstand the onslaught of Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company, also indicated that Ukrainian forces have been able to advance south of Bakhmut.

In comments made Tuesday, Prigozhin said that “one of the units of the Ministry of Defense fled from one of our flanks, abandoning their positions. They all fled and [laid] bare a front nearly 2 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep.”

Syrski said Ukrainian troops had “exhausted the trained forces of the Wagner PMC and forced them to be replaced in certain areas by less trained units of the Russian regular army, which were defeated and retreated.”

“Despite a significant concentration of troops and loud statements by Russian war criminals about their intentions to take Bakhmut by May 9, the enemy failed to capture the Ukrainian city,” Syrskyi said. “Our defense forces are holding the frontline securely and preventing the enemy from advancing. The battle for Bakhmut continues.”

He singled out the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, which was involved in an assault on the positions of the 72nd Brigade, and “inflicted a powerful strike on the enemy in the battle,” Syrskyi said.

Some context: Bakhmut is the site of a months-long assault by Russian forces, including Wagner mercenaries, that has driven thousands from their homes and left the area devastated. But despite the vast amounts of manpower Russia has poured into capturing the city, they have been unable to take total control, and on Wednesday suffered heavy losses in the area.

Russian authorities claimed Ukrainian forces launched several attacks on the Russian border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod on Thursday – the second consecutive day of such allegations.

No casualties were reported in any of the alleged attacks.

The Governor of Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov said shelling in the village of Cheremoshnoye by the Ukrainian military damaged a power line and left seven settlements without electricity.

Separately, the Governor of Bryansk region Alexander Bogomaz reported two alleged Ukrainian attacks — one overnight and one Thursday morning.

An alleged Ukrainian drone attacked an oil depot of Russia’s largest state-owned oil producer Rosneft on Thursday and an administrative building overnight, Bogomaz said.

“The munitions dropped [from the drone on the oil depot] partially damaged the cement foundation and a tank for storing petroleum products,” he said.

As well as Thursday’s alleged attacks, Russian authorities also claimed that the Belgorod and Bryansk regions had been attacked by drones on Wednesday.

No casualties were reported in Wednesday’s alleged attack, according to the governors of each of the two regions.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Wednesday that the first transfer of forfeited Russian assets for use in Ukraine were transferred Tuesday to the State Department.

Garland first revealed in February that he had authorized the first transfer of forfeited assets from sanctions against a Russian oligarch that would go toward aiding Ukraine.

In June, millions were seized from a US bank account belonging to Russian oligarch Konstantin  Malofeyev, whom the US announced sanctions against in April “for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly” the Russian government, the Treasury Department said at the time.

“During a meeting with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin on February 3rd of this year, I announced that, pursuant to the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2023, I had authorized the transfer of those forfeited funds for use in Ukraine to remediate the harms of Russia’s unjust war,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday. “Those forfeited Russian assets have now been transferred to the State Department and will be dedicated to that purpose.”

“While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last,” Garland added.

Some background: The US and its allies have blocked or seized more than $58 billion worth of assets owned or controlled by Russians in the past year, according to a joint statement from a multinational sanctions enforcement task force in March.

However, the question of what to do with Russian assets has long been the subject of debate. Many countries have simply frozen such assets – but there have been growing calls to transfer these assets to government accounts to allow them to be used to rebuild Ukraine.

Will Europe follow? The European Union said in February it was setting up a working group to examine whether this was possible. “In principle, it is clear-cut: Russia must pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. At the same time, this poses difficult questions,” said Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the time.

The head of the Ukrainian nuclear energy agency Energoatom, Petro Kotin, says his country’s military understands it will have to go around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant when it launches its long-awaited counteroffensive, to avoid damaging the facility. 

“There is a responsibility that they have to preserve the integrity even if it is occupied by the Russians,” he told CNN’s Sam Kiley during an interview in Kyiv. “This is completely understood by everybody, by our military.” 

Kotin went on to explain that Ukraine could retake the nuclear power plant (NPP) without using force, simply by cutting off supply lines to the facility.

“It is not needed [to use force]. What you need is just to cut the connection between Zaporizhzhia NPP and Crimea. What is required to do is just to re-take Melitopol and then you this communication between Russians [at NPP] and supply chain and supply lines where they can actually get out,” he said.

“They will be surrounded by Ukrainian forces and the only road to go out to Crimea will be captured by us. That means they will have only two options, either surrender or just get out from there,” he added.

Kotin went on to say that Russian forces had been evacuating people from the nearby town of Enerhodar over the past ten days, adding they could also evacuate some of the staff from the plant.

He explained that “at least five” rotating shifts of staff were needed to operate the plant.

Kotin described the situation as “critical” but said the danger of a major disaster remained “quite low.”

“They [the Russians] are crazy, but not crazy enough. They still have nuclear workers from Rosatom (Russian nuclear agency), who are operators of nuclear power plants and technically these people understand the risks,” he added.

“There are a lot of militaries (soldiers), thousands, who do not understand the risks.”

Some context: The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, is held by Russian forces but mostly operated by a Ukrainian workforce. Russian-appointed authorities have not allowed the Ukrainian plant workers to evacuate the region with their families.

As the prospect of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the region looms, the International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi said Monday that he was concerned about “the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.”

“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequences for the population and the environment,” Grossi warned.

The United Kingdom has supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, giving Ukrainian forces a new long-range strike capability in advance of a highly anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, multiple senior Western officials told CNN. 

The Storm Shadow is a long-range cruise missile with stealth capabilities, jointly developed by the UK and France, which is typically launched from the air. With a firing range in excess of 250km, or 155 miles, it is just short of the 185-mile range capability of the US-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, that Ukraine has long asked for. 

Critically, the Storm Shadow has the range to strike deep into Russian-held territory in Eastern Ukraine. A Western official told CNN that the UK has received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia. UK officials have made frequent public statements identifying Crimea as Ukrainian sovereign territory, describing it as “illegally annexed.” 

The missile is “a real game changer from a range perspective,” a senior US military official told CNN and gives Kyiv a capability it has been requesting since the outset of the war.  As CNN has reported, Ukraine’s current maximum range on US-provided weapons is around 49 miles.

The deployment of the missiles comes as Ukrainian forces prepare to launch a counteroffensive intended to retake Kremlin-held territory in the eastern and the southern parts of the country.

Read the full report here.

The number of lootings and robberies allegedly committed by Russian troops has increased during Russia’s evacuation of occupied territories, according to Ukraine’s deputy defense minister.

In a statement released Thursday morning, Hanna Maliar said Russian troops have been using “the alleged need to ensure the evacuation of the population” in the southern Zaporizhzhia region as a “pretext” to seize vehicles and other private belongings.

CNN could not independently verify the claims.

“In particular, in the settlements of Tokmak, Polohy, Kamianka, Rozivka, Mykhailivka, Molochansk, Enerhodar, Chernihivka in the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia region, Russian occupiers, under the guise of so-called evacuation measures, stole property of local enterprises and citizens,” Maliar said.

“In Enerhodar, at night, about 20 vehicles were stolen from the territory of the private enterprise Elektropivdenmontazh-10 and a warehouse was looted.”

Maliar added that Russian troops “will use another cargo ship that arrived at the port of Berdiansk on May 7 to move the stolen property to the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea.”

Some background: Russian authorities began evacuating towns and cities in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia last week, amid rumors that Ukraine is set to launch a long-anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow’s invasion. More than 1,600 people, including 660 children, have been evacuated from towns on the frontlines, according to the Russia-appointed acting head of the region.

Zaporizhzhia is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which has witnessed intense fighting since the start of the war and sparked concern among the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned Monday of the “increasingly unpredictable” situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that Russian soldiers prevented Ukrainian employees of the occupied plant from evacuating Enerhodar – a nearby frontline town – with their families.

The Ukrainian military says its troops are conducting “effective counterattacks” in the Bakhmut area after they inflicted “huge losses” on Russian forces Wednesday.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin conceded that Ukrainian forces have been able to advance south of the eastern city and he accused one Russian unit of fleeing from the fight, leading to many casualties among his mercenaries.

The 72nd brigade “just ran the hell out of there,” Prigozhin said.

If you’re just joining us, here are the latest developments:

Former US President Donald Trump, who is running to retake the White House in 2024, would not say Wednesday night who he thinks should prevail in Russia’s war against Ukraine, instead telling New Hampshire GOP primary voters that he wants “everybody to stop dying.”

“I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying,” Trump said at CNN’s town hall moderated by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins. “And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

Trump, who would not say whether he wants Ukraine to successfully deter Russia when pressed by Collins, told the audience gathered at Saint Anselm College that he doesn’t “think in terms of winning and losing.”

Read the full story here.

Additional drone attacks were conducted over Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post Wednesday.

Two drones detonated and fell over a residential area in the region, Gladkov said. No casualties were reported, but two residential buildings and a car were damaged, he added.

Another drone was shot down by Russian air defense systems over the region, Gladkov said. The governor said there were no casualties and that response teams are assessing the aftermath on the ground.

A drone strike hit Bryansk, another Russian region on the Ukraine border, said Bryansk Gov. Alexander Bogomaz.

Bogomaz said there were no casualties, and that an administrative building was struck in Stardoub. Response teams are working on site, he added.

The “special military operation” in Ukraine has been what Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described as “very difficult,” but said certain goals have been achieved over the past year.

Speaking to Bosnian Serb channel ATV in remarks carried by Russian state news agency TASS on Wednesday, Peskov said Russia is acting “slowly” In Ukraine because it is conducting a “special military operation, not a war.”

He acknowledged Ukraine’s stronghold in the eastern city of Bakhmut and said “a large amount of AFU troops are concentrated there, which is constantly receiving reinforcements.”

Peskov said the West has made “many mistakes” and “deceived Russia,” which prompted Russia to launch the operation in Ukraine — something he said the West became a participant in.

He maintained that the recent drone attacks on the Kremlin were an “attempted terrorist attack” against Russian President Vladimir Putin. By doing so, Peskov insisted, Ukraine has “equated itself with the state sponsors of terrorism.”

He said Russia will implement all necessary security measures following the incident. Ukrainian officials and the United States have repeatedly denied being behind a drone attack on the Kremlin.

Referring to the International Criminal Court warrant issued against Putin earlier this year, Peskov said, “It’s difficult to imagine that anyone in the world would seriously consider issuing an ICC warrant against Putin, the leader of a nuclear power.”

Peskov told the channel that his country is “too strong a state” to give up its positions under pressure from the West, and said the Kremlin would not communicate with Western media “until they begin to show some interest in the truth.”

The Russian offensive is concentrated in four different parts of the Donetsk region, with the “fiercest battles” in the cities of Bakhmut and Mariinka, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

Russia conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in Bakhmut and the Avdiivka and Mariinka areas, it said. Russian forces claimed earlier Wednesday that they had taken the village of Kamianka, north of Avdiivka, where Ukrainian forces have been surrounded on three sides for several months.

Further south — where observers expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive to be focused — Russian forces are conducting “defensive operations in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions,” and had carried out a number of airstrikes, the General Staff said.

Settlements close to the front lines had also been shelled, including 35 airstrikes and four attacks from MLRS [rocket systems] on the positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements of the Kherson region, it added.

The General Staff also claimed that Russians were evacuating civilians in the town of Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhia region to “terrible living conditions” further south.

“Russian occupiers, under the pretext of evacuating civilians, continue to take away looted property from the frontline settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region,” it said, adding that medical institutions in the city of Enerhodar had been looted.

The Ukrainian air force had carried out several strikes, it said, including against a Russian electronic warfare unit. The Ukrainians appear to be trying to disrupt both Russian military communications and electronic warfare capabilities ahead of a counteroffensive.

The boss of Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused a Russian brigade of abandoning its position in frontline Bakhmut, allowing Ukraine to seize territory.

The remarks are the latest in a series of public criticisms from him of Moscow’s Ministry of Defense for the faltering invasion of Ukraine — and, in particular, the failure to capture the city of Bakhmut. But while Prigozhin has frequently poured scorn on the Russian military and its leadership, he has not previously accused Russian units of running from battle and allowing Ukrainian forces to recapture territory.

Prigozhin said the 72nd brigade “just ran the hell out of there.”

“At the moment, within the city of Bakhmut, there is only Wagner PMC, there are no other units. Outside Bakhmut [there is] only the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. PMC Wagner is not there,” he said.

Bakhmut is the site of a months-long assault by Russian forces, including Wagner mercenaries, that has driven thousands from their homes and left the area devastated. But despite the vast amounts of manpower Russia has poured into capturing the city — using tactics that have been compared to a “meat grinder” — they have been unable to take total control, and on Wednesday suffered heavy losses in the area.

Read more here.