June 2, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The “Akhmat” group of Chechen special forces had launched an offensive in the Marinka direction in eastern Ukraine, the Russian defense ministry said on Friday.

On Wednesday, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov had said that the Chechen special forces were preparing for the offensive amid intensifying attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod. 

“According to the order, the fighters of the Chechen units must begin active combat operations and liberate a number of settlements,” he said.

Some background: The city of Marinka, which is now in ruins, has been on the front lines since the beginning of the invasion, with fighting at close-quarters among the rubble continuing almost daily. The Ukrainian military has said there are Chechen units at various points along the front lines in Donetsk region. 

Kadyrov leads sizeable paramilitary forces that, while formally a part of Russian security structures, have personal loyalty to him. During a visit to the Kremlin in March, the Chechen leader told Putin his forces in Ukraine will help Russia "fight to the victorious end."

Nine people were injured in shelling in the Russian-occupied port city of Berdiansk on Friday, according to a Russian-appointed local official. 

“Information about the dead is being clarified,” Vladimir Rogov said.

The strike on "peaceful Berdiansk was carried out by the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] militants," Rogov had said earlier.

Some background: Berdiansk is a port city on Sea of Azov on Ukraine's southern coast. It has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the conflict. Its port has previously been targeted by Ukrainian forces. The city lies along the coast from Mariupol, an area that is believed to be among the sites Ukraine will attempt to reclaim in its counteroffensive.

Berdiansk is deep in Russian-controlled territory, around 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) from the front line. That means that if Ukraine was behind the alleged strike, the use of Storm Shadow missiles would be a likely option.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has berated the US for “interfering” in South Africa’s affairs and has asked America’s envoy to the country to “mind his own business,” following allegations that South Africa supplied arms and ammunition to Russia last year.

In an explosive revelation last month, US ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety told South African media he was confident that its government “uploaded weapons and ammunition” onto a Russian cargo vessel “between the 6th to the 8th of December 2022.”

Lavrov, who is on an African tour to strengthen his country’s bilateral relations with the continent, addressed Brigety’s accusations at a news conference in Mozambique Wednesday, claiming that Russia’s relations with South Africa comply with international law.

“If the American or any other overseas ambassador thought he or she saw something, they should mind their own business and not get involved in other people’s affairs,” Russia’s foreign affairs ministry quoted Lavrov to have said while responding to questions at the Wednesday press conference in the Mozambican capital Maputo.

Some background: The South African government has come under intense criticism for its stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has routinely abstained from votes condemning Russia at the United Nations General Assembly.

While South African leadership has repeatedly stated that they are neutral in the conflict and have frequently called for a negotiated settlement, their actions have come under increasing scrutiny from Western powers.

In February of this year, South Africa convened naval war games off its coast including both the Russian and Chinese military.

Later this year, South Africa will host the BRICS summit, a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Russian President Vladimir Putin was invited to that summit.

CNN's David McKenzie contributed to this post.

A Russian special forces unit has been deployed to Russia’s Belgorod border region because of “partisan” activity, Ukraine’s National Resistance Center – an official body — said Friday.

It comes after the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video showing Russian forces purportedly hitting targets in Belgorod. Russian combat aircraft "delivered nine strikes against retreating Ukrainian formations and enemy reserves," the ministry added. Earlier, this week the Kremlin said it is concerned about the situation in Belgorod.

Recent developments: Shelling in the Belgorod region, killed two women, the region's governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post Friday.

He blamed Ukrainian forces for the shelling, saying they had fired at a road in the village of Maslova Pristan, in the Shebekino district. Ukraine has not commented on the claim.

Russia’s drone and missile strikes on Kyiv continued into Friday as air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian officials reported attacks on several regions including Kursk and Belgorod.

Here are the latest developments:

President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered an audit of all bomb shelters in Ukraine after three people were killed Thursday when they were unable to access a closed shelter in Kyiv.

Participants of a high-level government security meeting "reacted harshly to the people's deaths near a closed bomb shelter," he said in a statement Friday, adding that he has instructed a Ukrainian minister, Alexander Kamyshin, to "conduct a full audit of all Kyiv's defense structures" and deliver a report in 10 days.

Another minister, Ihor Klymenko, is tasked with doing the same for the whole of Ukraine, Zelensky added.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been a "strategic failure" that has diminished the country's influence and interests "for years to come," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Helsinki, Finland, on Friday.

Reiterating US support for Ukraine and its commitment to "just and lasting peace," he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has only strengthened large-scale international resolve.

“Where Putin aimed to project strength, he’s revealed weakness,” Blinken said, “Where he sought to divide, he’s united. What he tried to prevent, he’s precipitated.”

The Biden administration is seeking to draw Russia to the negotiating table to discuss nuclear arms control, after President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the agreement earlier this year. 

The US is hoping to reimplement the deal and negotiate a follow-on agreement after it expires in 2026. So far these efforts have been rebuffed.

However, the US will on Friday couple a major speech by national security adviser Jake Sullivan with a move to withhold information from Russia that would have been shared as part of the key nuclear arms control agreement between the two countries.

The official said the Biden administration was willing to engage in talks with Russia without preconditions. 

The countermeasures that the US is putting into place on Friday include: US withholding notifications under the treaty such as the location of missiles and launchers included in the treaty and some day-to-day notifications movements of US nuclear forces. 

The State Department on Thursday expressed the US’ willingness to reverse the actions taken if Russia came back into compliance with the treaty.

The Biden administration’s efforts to focus on nuclear nonproliferation come as some Republican lawmakers have urged the administration to evaluate the current and planned US nuclear force. For now, the US has not made any announcements about changing the size of its nuclear force. 

Some context: Putin announced in February that he would suspend his country’s participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, which imperiled the last remaining pact that regulates the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.

The treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. It was last extended in early 2021 for five years, meaning the two sides would soon need to begin negotiating on another arms control agreement.

Under the key nuclear arms control treaty, both the United States and Russia are permitted to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites, though inspections had been halted since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But only hours after Putin announced his decision in a speech, Russia’s foreign ministry said the decision to suspend participation in the treaty was reversible.

Recent developments: Since then, however, Putin said he plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the neighboring ally from which he staged part of his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow will complete the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by the end of July, Putin told state broadcaster Russia 1 last week.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been leading the charge in Ukraine – and stealing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s limelight for months.

Initially a shadowy figure operating under a lower profile in the early months of the war, Prigozhin's growing power on the ground has translated into a far more open political confrontation with Moscow.

He previously accused Russia’s military leadership of sitting “like fat cats” while his troops died in Bakhmut. This week, he berated them after drone attacks on Moscow brought the war far too close to home.

Rarely can Russians issue such direct criticism of their government and emerge unscathed.

After securing Russia’s only meaningful gains in Ukraine in months, has Prigozhin’s authority become unassailable?

Watch the full report here.