June 2, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Ukraine news here or read through the updates below.

Ukraine has opened a new front in its battle to drive out the Russian invader — in Russia. But it is oddly coy about admitting that it has sent troops, fired artillery and flown drones into its neighbor’s territory.

The operations of Russian citizens, carrying Ukrainian military ID, wearing Ukrainian uniforms and attacking from Ukraine, remain officially opaque. It is Kyiv’s contribution to what’s become known as “hybrid warfare” in the “grey zone” of contemporary conflict.

The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion – which fall under Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence structure – have been conducting short cross-border raids into Russia.

The principal aim? Destabilization.

In Ukraine, it suits Kyiv to have Russians invade Russia on its behalf.

The tactical results may be limited. Brief incursions into small border villages. But the desired effect of destabilization in Russia is achieved.

The point is to make the attacks inside Russia feel like they have a significant Russian flavor – to suggest that more Russians are heeding the dissident “Cry Freedom” and joining in a homegrown effort to depose Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, the more Russians think that their compatriots are involved in attacking the Russian regime the better. Doubt itself is destabilizing.

Judging by the rhetoric coming from Russia, it’s working.

Read more here

Rafael Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said he plans to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) as it has been in an “extremely vulnerable” state for the past three months. 

The visit would be the third time he has done so during the war in Ukraine, the IAEA said in a statement published on their website on Friday, adding that the plant “has been without external back-up power for three months now, leaving it extremely vulnerable in case the sole functioning main power line goes down again.”  

The IAEA did not note when Grossi plans to visit the plant in Zaporizhzhia.

The statement said the plant being without external back-up power undermines one of “the five concrete principles” that Grossi presented to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that states off-site power to the ZNPP “should not be put at risk” and that “all efforts should be made to ensure that off-site power remains available and secure at all times.”  

“The general situation at the site remains highly precarious and potentially dangerous,” Grossi noted. “There is a need for intensified efforts to ensure a more stable and predictable external electricity supply.”  

According to the IAEA statement, “the planned rotation of the current team of IAEA experts at the site – the eighth since the mission was established last September – has been delayed because of local weather conditions.” 

“The ZNPP continues to rely on the only remaining operational 750 kilovolt (kV) power line for the external electricity it needs for reactor cooling and other essential nuclear safety and security functions. Before the conflict, the plant had four such off-site power lines available,” the IAEA noted. 

The agency reported hearing two landmine explosions near the power plant site, “highlighting the tense situation in the region.”

It’s early morning in Kyiv, and Ukraine’s military reported another day of fierce fighting with Russia on Friday.

If you’re just catching up on the day’s news, here’s the latest from the war in Ukraine:

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company, claimed in a Telegram post on Friday that the representatives of the Russian defense ministry had placed mines on Wagner Group’s fighters’ exit routes from Bakhmut. 

Prigozhin didn’t provide any evidence that supports his claim.

“Shortly before our departure, we detected suspicious activity along our exit route. […] we called law enforcement and began to investigate our exit routes along the roads,” Prigozhin said. “We found about a dozen places where various explosive devices were placed, ranging from hundreds of anti-tank mines to tonnes of plastic explosives […] Those who rigged those areas with explosives were representatives of the Ministry of Defense.” 
“When asked why they did it, they point their fingers up,” Prigozhin said referring to pointing at the Russian leadership. 

Prigozhin noted that “there was no need to place those devices to hold the enemy forces back, as it was located in the rear zone.” 

“We can therefore assume that those explosives were destined to meet the Wagner’s units, although we do not walk in columns,” he added.  

The Wagner chief said, as of Friday, “almost all, 99% of the Wagner PMC units left Bakhmut.” 

“All positions have been handed over to the Ministry of Defense at the appropriate time,” he said. 

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina refused to shake hands with her Russian opponent after winning a match Friday, saying she did so out of respect for the men and women defending Ukraine from Moscow’s invasion.

“I’m standing for my country. I’m doing everything possible in a way to support, to give a good spirit for the men and for the women who are right now in the front lines, fighting for our land and for our country. So, can you imagine the guy or the girl who is right now on the front lines, looking at me, and I’m like, acting like nothing is happening?” Svitolina said, following her three-set win over Russian Anna Blinkova in the third round of the French Open.

After Friday’s victory, Svitolina avoided Blinkova while the two took turns shaking the hand of the chair umpire.

The Ukrainian said she would continue to snub any opponents from Russia or Belarus, the close Moscow ally.

“What the Russian government and Russian soldiers are doing on our land is really, really terrible,” the 28-year-old Svitolina said. “It touches many different areas. It touches sport. It touches acting. It touches all different areas. So, we are all united Ukrainians and this is our position.”

Svitolina said she would like to see Russian and Belarusian players speak out and call for their countries to end the war.

Belarusian bows out of media appearance: World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, meanwhile, did not participate in a customary post-match news conference Friday.

In her last media appearance Wednesday, the Belarusian had been repeatedly asked to comment on the war in Ukraine and Belarus’ role, but she repeatedly declined to do so. This continued until the moderator halted the line of questioning.

Sabalenka said she had not felt safe during the Wednesday news conference.

“For my own mental health and well-being, I have decided to take myself out of this situation today, and the tournament has supported me in this decision,” she said in an interview released by tournament organizers.

Top Russian player weighs in: Last month, Daria Kasatkina, Russia’s top-ranked women’s tennis player, expressed her sympathy for Ukrainian players who refuse to shake her hand after matches.

“Well, the saddest part is the war still going on,” Kasatkina said. “So, of course, players from Ukraine have got a lot of reasons to not shake our hands. I accept it and it is how it is. It’s a very sad situation and I understand.”

Kasatkina, a ninth seed, will face the unseeded Svitolina in the fourth round Sunday.

At least two people were killed and six others were injured in shelling in Russia’s Belgorod region on Friday, the governor there said.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post that the people killed were in the yards of their homes when the attack came. Two children were among those injured, he said, adding that they were hurt by shrapnel.

Gladkov said that the two injured children were “a 13-year-old boy [who] suffered a closed fracture of the left shoulder and an 11-year-old girl [who] sustained shrapnel wounds to the left eye.”  

 The Belgorod region, which is located near the border with Ukraine, has seen intensified violence in the last several days, the governor previously said.

“A direct hit from a shell set an outbuilding and a garage in two private residences on fire” and there is damage to four more houses in the area, according to Gladkov. 

A deadly car bombing targeted “Kremlin collaborators” in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region Friday, according to Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol.

Ukrainian and Russian-appointed officials offered differing accounts on the ultimate toll of the attack.

Fedorov claimed on Telegram that four Kremlin “collaborators and occupiers” were headed to a cafe in the town of Mykhailivka — north of Melitopol — but they “didn’t quite make it.” The group’s car “flew skyward just outside their destination,” the mayor said.

Fedorov, who is himself not in the region, said a businessman who owned a local cafe was among those killed.

A Russian-appointed official in the occupied southern region also reported the car bombing, publishing an initial post on his Telegram account and then sharing an updated message.

Vladimir Rogov, who serves on the council of the Russia-backed administration for the Zaporizhzhia region, said a car carrying three people was blown up, killing the cafe owner and leaving two others wounded.

“They are being provided with all the necessary medical care, and doctors assess their condition as stable,” Rogov said in his updated Telegram post.

Rogov called the explosion “a terrorist attack” and identified the businessman as 53-year-old Sergey Gidovodyuk, who Rogov said had become active with the ruling “United Russia” party.

Several Russian-appointed officials in occupied parts of southern Ukraine have been wounded or killed, usually with improvised explosive devices, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

This post has been updated with new information about the attack.

Russia carried out at least 62 airstrikes and 15 missile strikes in the last 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian military, while its forces also rebuffed more than a dozen ground assaults.

Areas that came under attack, according to Ukraine’s General Staff, included Kupyansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where mortar and artillery fire hit a number of settlements.

Further south, “the enemy conducted unsuccessful offensives near Makiivka in Luhansk region and Spirne in Donetsk region over the last day,” the General Staff said.

In both areas, as well as around the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, there were Russian airstrikes, it said. Russia has been trying to surround Avdiivka for months.

Elsewhere in eastern Ukraine: Earlier Friday, the Russian defense ministry said Chechen units were launching an assault against the ruined town of Marinka in the Donetsk region. “Our defenders repelled all 8 enemy attacks,” the General Staff said.

On Russian soil: Ukraine’s military also claimed the Russian military was sending cadets to help defend Russia’s border after settlements in the Belgorod region have come under increased fire by anti-Putin groups.

CNN is unable to verify claims on battlefield developments. 

Ukraine will be inspecting civilian bomb shelters across the country after three people died in Kyiv earlier this week when they were unable to access a shelter during a Russian missile barrage.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deaths have caused an “obviously strong reaction” and orders are in place to check shelters in the capital and elsewhere.

“Unfortunately, even today, after all this, Kyiv residents are still publishing information about the inaccessibility of shelters,” Zelesnksy said. “Not just about closed shelters, but about welded entrances to shelters, about the absence of shelters in some parts of the city. This level of negligence in the city cannot be justified by any excuses.”

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said he’d been instructed to commence nationwide inspections and that the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and the National Police are already working.

“Any violations found must be properly recorded, and those responsible must be brought to justice,” he said on Facebook.

The numbers: After a month of regular night-time Russian attacks on Kyiv, the city’s authorities have disclosed that 92,000 people used the city’s metro stations as shelters in May. They said that 46 underground stations operate as shelters around the clock. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated US support for Ukraine and said Russia’s war in Ukraine has been a “strategic failure” that has diminished the country’s influence and interests “for years to come.” 

“Where Putin aimed to project strength, he’s revealed weakness,” Blinken said in Helsinki, Finland. 

Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he understands his country cannot become a member of NATO — as Finland recently has — while it is still at war.

If you are just joining us, here is the latest you need to know on Russia’s war in Ukraine:

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he understands that Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO while it is still at war.

“We understand we will not be a NATO member, while the war is waging. Not because we don’t want [that], but because it’s impossible,” he said at a news conference in Kyiv.

The alliance’s treaty includes Article 5, a collective defense provision that pledges members to come to the assistance of any state that is under attack.

“Give me an example of one NATO country which is in a state of war with Russia right now; or which NATO country has Russian troops on its territory,” Zelensky said.

Both Russia and Ukraine have reported casualties in the ongoing shelling in southern Ukraine.

Nine people were injured in shelling in the Russian-occupied port city of Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov on Friday, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed local official, who claimed that the strike was “carried out by the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] militants.”

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. It 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.

Separately, four civilians were injured and two women were killed in the settlement of Komyshuvakha, which is south-east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Yurii Malashko, head of Zaporizhzhia region military administration.

Zaporizhzhia region police say they have documented “189 hostile attacks” on civilian settlements in the last two days, adding that residential buildings and households were damaged.

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.”

“I would bet my life on the accuracy of that assertion,” Brigety added, triggering an independent inquiry by local authorities on the allegations.

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.

“Because of the need to fight the partisan movement, the detachment of the 322nd center of the Russian SOF ‘Senezh’ arrived on the territory of the Belgorod region,” the centre said.
“The Russians are so afraid of partisans that they urgently stopped all operations of this elite unit and instead placed it in the border settlements of the Belgorod region. The task of the unit is to conduct anti-sabotage activities on the Russian border,” they added.
CNN cannot independently verify this claim.

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.

“We’re hoping in the aggregate, this sort of communication we’re doing through this speech, the countermeasures, and any sort of potential follow up bilaterally is going to lead to the discussion,” a senior administration official told reporters.
“Of course, that takes two to tango.”

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.

“You are the ministry of defense. You didn’t do a damn thing to stamp this out. Why are you allowing these drones to fly to Moscow?”

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.

On the side of a building in Kyiv, the haggard face of a soldier stares into the distance. The mural, around five stories tall, is of captured Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Matsiyevsky, executed by Russian forces last year after he shouted the words “Glory to Ukraine.”

The mural is the work of French street artist Christian Guemy, known as C215, and is one of many works he has created to mark Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion.

Before he completed the mural, he met with Matsiyevsky’s widow and mother.

“I am proud and humbled by this mural. Facing a real giant, who refused proudly to betray Ukraine by saying ‘Glory to Ukraine’ …can just make you feel small.”

“I am just an artist, kind of a painting tool, and my commitment is to support Ukraine with my skills,” he added.

Based in Paris, Guemy has collaborated with British artist Banksy — who has also created works in Ukraine — in the past. But he says their styles are different. “Being French gives a proper sense of tragedy, not irony.”

Guemy now frequently visits Ukraine, but he has also brought the country’s struggle to the streets of the French capital.

See more of his work here.

Multiple explosions rocked the Russian-occupied port city of Berdiansk in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region on Friday, according to both Russian-appointed and Ukrainian local officials.

Ukrainian officials from the city military administration said on Telegram there have been “hits on the positions of the occupiers” in Berdiansk, adding:

They said they were awaiting details and confirmation from the Ukrainian military’s General Staff. “According to preliminary reports, ships that recently entered the port of Berdiansk to steal Ukrainian grain and scrap metal are escaping,” they added.

Meanwhile, Russian-appointed official Vladimir Rogov, who is a member of the council of the civil-military administration of Zaporizhzhia region, said the seaport was hit at around midday local time. He said the strike on “peaceful Berdiansk was carried out by the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] militants.”

“According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or damage,” he wrote on Telegram.

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.

Last week, Russian officials claimed that Ukrainian forces launched a “massive strike” on the city. Rogov speculated that the strike may have been with “British Storm Shadow missiles” – a long-range cruise missile with stealth capabilities that the United Kingdom recently provided to Ukraine.

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.

More explosions were heard in and around Berdiansk and Mariupol last weekend, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian authorities again claimed that two Storm Shadow missiles had been fired on the region.

Shelling in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, has 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.

“Shell fragments hit cars passing by. Two women were traveling in one of them. They died on the spot from their injuries,” Gladkov said.

He said two men travelling in a separate car were injured by shrapnel and were taken to hospital.

Meanwhile, anti-Putin Russian fighters from the Freedom for Russia Legion, who claim to be fighting in Belgorod, said Russian troops “destroyed a Renault car with civilians, mistaking it for one with our sabotage group” near the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, which is approximately a 20-minute drive from Maslova Pristan.

“At least two civilians were killed and this is a direct consequence of the unprofessionalism of Putin’s army,” the group said.

CNN cannot independently verify the claims.

The Freedom for Russia Legion also claimed Friday there is “active fighting on the outskirts of the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka.”

“Unfortunately, there are wounded legionaries, but freedom is gained through blood. All the wounded have already been taken to hospital,” it said.

Although the Freedom for Russia Legion is aligned with the Ukrainian defense forces, Kyiv has previously stated they act as “independent entities” when operating in Russia.

Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Thursday that Ukraine “does not have any responsibility” over the Russian dissident groups who have claimed to be fighting inside Russian territory.

Amid the intensified violence in the region, Gladkov said Thursday that evacuations were underway, and that 2,500 people have been moved to temporary accommodation.

Li Hui, China’s special representative on Eurasian affairs, said Friday that while he believes there are “a lot of difficulties” for Ukraine and Russia to sit down and negotiate, neither side has shut the door to talks. 

The crisis in Ukraine “may now face a lot of difficulties for the parties to sit down and negotiate, but we should also see that on the other hand, the parties are not completely without consensus,” Li said in a rare press conference in Beijing following his visit to Europe, which included stops in Kyiv and Moscow.  

“The Russian side, for example, has said that Russia has never opposed peace talks and has always supported a political solution… The Ukrainian side also said that it cherishes and desires peace, and I feel that the two sides have not shut the door to peace talks,” he added.

The Chinese envoy, who previously served as China’s ambassador to Russia, also said that the “risk of escalation” remains high and that while he was in Kyiv, he heard air raid sirens every day and the Ukrainian capital experienced two massive airstrikes.

“The conflict is in a stalemate and the battlefield is fraught with uncertainty. This situation is worrying,” Li said, stressing the importance of finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis. 

“If the war continues to go on there will only be more disasters and suffering as long as there is a glimmer of hope for peace we should work actively toward it, instead of allowing the conflict to continue and spread,” he said.

Li also reiterated China’s rejection of the Wall Street Journal report that said China called on European nations to accept a ceasefire that would leave Russia in possession of parts of Ukraine. 

“The report is not in line with the facts,” Li told reporters, adding “this practice of spreading false information by advocating confrontation for political self-interest is immoral and very dangerous.”

Li also stressed the importance of the Black Sea grain deal, calling it an initiative of “great significance” to ensuring global food security, and emphasized China’s position towards promoting peace talks and its 12-point proposal for a political settlement on the conflict.

Some context: China has repeatedly attempted to portray itself as a peacemaker in the grinding conflict, despite its close ties with Russia.

Li met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv in May. He was the highest ranking Chinese official to travel to Ukraine since the start of the war. He said at the time that “there is no panacea in resolving the crisis.”

“All parties need to start from themselves, accumulate mutual trust, and create conditions for ending the war and engaging in peace talks,” Li said.

However, some western analysts have questioned whether China’s efforts to promote peace are genuine – and whether its vision of how the conflict might end aligns with Kyiv’s.

During Li’s visit, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba stressed that peace negotiations must be “based on respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“Ukraine does not accept any proposals that would involve the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict,” Kuleba said.

NATO officials are in a race against time to avoid the embarrassment of seeing the alliance miss its own stated aim of admitting Sweden into its ranks by July 11.

Both Sweden and its neighbor Finland stated their intent to join NATO through its open-door policy in May last year, just weeks after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Finland was finally accepted in April of this year, doubling the alliance’s border with Russia, but Sweden’s accession is currently blocked.

It is generally accepted that Sweden’s armed forces are compatible with NATO. Sweden has a permanent delegation at NATO and is considered a close partner to the alliance, meaning joining should be relatively straightforward. 

So why can’t Sweden join? 

The problem is Turkey – a strategically important NATO member due to its geographical location in both the Middle East and Europe, and the alliance’s second-largest military power – which is blocking Sweden’s accession for a number of reasons.

First, Turkey claims that Sweden allows members of recognized Kurdish terror groups to operate in Sweden. Sweden changed its terrorism laws earlier this year, making it a crime to be part of these groups, though it’s still unclear if this is enough for Ankara.

Second, Turkey holds the Swedish government complicit in far-right protests where demonstrators burned copies of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

Finally, there are concerns at how willing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to describe himself as a friend of Putin’s. Shortly before his re-election last week, he told CNN that he and Putin share a “special relationship.”

NATO officials are becoming concerned that missing the July 11 deadline would send a dangerous message to the alliance’s adversaries.

Read the full analysis here.

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on the western Russian region of Kursk has damaged several buildings, Gov. Roman Starovoyt said Friday.

“The entrance of a high-rise building and several other private houses were damaged. We are completing calculations of the cost of damage — we will provide everyone with the fastest possible help. The main thing — there were no casualties,” he said. 

Earlier on Friday, Starovoyt had urged residents to stay calm, saying Russia’s air defense system had shot down several of Ukrainian drones.

The governor is one of a number of Russian officials to report attacks on their regions Friday as the war spills over from Ukraine’s borders into Russian territory.

China remains the “leading long-term challenge” to the existing international order and there is no evidence that Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine has changed Beijing’s thinking around “the timescale or methodology” for any potential attack on Taiwan, a top strategic think tank said ahead of a regional security summit in Singapore.

The grinding conflict in Europe may also accelerate trends in the Asia-Pacific region toward increased military spending and efforts to develop military capabilities, said a report released Friday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which hosts its annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this weekend.

The war and its reverberations in the Asia-Pacific region — as well as the growing contest between the United States and China — will be overarching themes at the security summit, the sidelines of which have long provided a platform for top security officials to meet face-to-face.

Attendees are expected to include US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

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Two people were injured by falling debris after Ukraine’s air defenses repelled a Russian aerial attack on Kyiv early Friday, according to officials.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said an 11-year-old child was wounded and a 68-year-old man was hospitalized.

Ukraine’s Air Force said a total of 36 weapons — 15 cruise missiles and 21 Shahed drones — were destroyed over Kyiv.

Officials earlier said 30 missiles and drones were shot down.

Falling debris damaged five houses, according to the head of the Kyiv region’s military administration, Ruslan Kravchenko.

A number of Russian governors reported attacks on their regions on Friday, as the war spills over from Ukraine’s borders into Russian territory.

Two drones attacked fuel and energy facilities in Smolensk, western Russia early Friday, the region’s acting governor said.

Gov. Vasily Anokhin wrote on Telegram that no casualties or “critical damage” were reported.

The two long-range drones struck around 3 a.m. in the villages of Peresna and Divasy, according to Anokhin.

Local officials in several Russian regions bordering Ukraine reported shelling, including in Bryansk, where Gov. Aleksandr Bogomaz directly blamed the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).

“The AFU shelled the village of Novaya Pogoshch, Suzemsky district. There were no casualties. A two-family house caught fire because of the shelling. Operational services are working on site,” he said.

A house also caught fire from shelling in the town of Lomakovka, he added.

Belgorod evacuations: The nearby border region of Belgorod has seen continued shelling, allegedly from Ukrainian forces, according to its governor.

Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said 2,500 people have been moved to temporary accommodation to shelter from the incoming fire.

“Of course, conditions are not easy. Not easy in that they are huge sports facilities where there are hundreds of beds where adults and little ones, the elderly and the young sleep,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

On Thursday, Gladkov said on Telegram that the region had seen dozens of strikes over the past day, with damage to roads, property and vehicles. Most of the attacks were from artillery and mortar, with reports of people wounded but nobody killed, he said at the time.

Belgorod has seen rising violence in recent days, following a raid by Russian dissident fighters last week. Ukrainian officials have denied direct involvement, saying the fighters were acting independently.

On Thursday, anti-Putin Russian nationals claimed they were again fighting inside Russian territory, which Moscow’s military denied.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 30 missiles and drones around Kyiv overnight into Friday, a senior military official said

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said in a Telegram post Friday that this was the sixth wave of attacks on the Ukrainian capital in the past six days.

The latest attack used both ballistic missiles and drones, Popko said. He praised Ukraine’s air defense system for repelling what he believed were air-to-surface missiles and Iran-made Shahed attack drones. 

No information is yet available on damage or casualties, Popko said. 

Earlier Friday, the city’s mayor reported explosions taking place in the city, with air raid alerts issued across the country.

Air raid sirens rang out across Ukraine early Friday as Kyiv’s mayor reported explosions in the capital.

Meanwhile, several Russian regions, including Kursk and Belgorod, are facing their own attacks, which Russian officials have blamed on Ukraine — though Kyiv denies direct involvement.

Here’s what to know:

The mayor of Kyiv reported explosions in the capital as air raid alerts were issued across Ukraine early Friday morning.

A live map on the website of the Ministry of Digital Transformation shows all areas of Ukraine currently under an air raid alert.

About 208,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the beginning of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has claimed.

Spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi noted this was more than the approximately 170,000 Russian forces he says were involved in the initial invasion in 2022.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm these numbers.

Estimates of Russian losses have varied across different sources, with the Biden administration saying in May that Russia had suffered more than 100,000 casualties — meaning both those killed and wounded — since December.

The Kremlin rejected that figure at the time, with a spokesperson saying the US “has absolutely no way to give any correct numbers.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense has not released updates on its casualties since last September, when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said fewer than 6,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. 

In eastern Ukraine: Russia shelled Ukraine’s position in Bakhmut at least 476 times on Thursday, according to Cherevatyi.

“We are doing everything to exhaust their logistics — we are hitting the accumulation of equipment and personnel, headquarters,” Cherevatyi said.

He added that Ukrainian forces destroyed several tanks and other military equipment in Bilohorivka and Stelmakhivka in Luhansk region.

Russia’s air defense system shot down several Ukrainian drones over the western Russian region of Kursk, according to Gov. Roman Starovoyt early Friday morning.

“We ask Kursk residents to remain calm, the city is under the reliable protection of our military,” Starovoyt said.

Kursk is located north of Belgorod, where dozens of strikes have occurred against border districts inside Russia over the past day, according to the governor.

Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the attacks on Belgorod comprised largely of artillery and mortar, and they damaged roads, property and vehicles.

Groups of Russian volunteers who oppose the Kremlin leadership have again claimed to have entered Russian territory in Belgorod. Moscow said they were repelled and did not violate the border.

Ukraine said it “does not have any responsibility” over the Russian dissident groups that have claimed to be fighting inside Russian territory and that they are “acting on their own.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is asking world leaders to provide more Patriot systems until fighter jets are delivered to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president, who is at the European Political Community Summit in Moldova, previously said he has heard “powerful support” from allies on providing fighter jets to Ukraine, as well as training Ukrainian pilots. But in the meantime, Zelensky called for a “patriot coalition” and more of the defense systems.

“We have a variety of different systems and I’m grateful to all the partners, but Patriots are Patriots,” he said.

In May, one of the two Patriot systems in Ukraine sustained minor damage during a Russian missile attack on Kyiv., according to United States officials.

NATO will continue to support Ukraine to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself once the war is over, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

“We all agree that in the middle of the war, we cannot make Ukraine a full member of NATO, but at the same time we need to prepare for what happens when the war ends because then we need to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself,” he said, adding that could look like Russian forces regrouping and attacking again.

The secretary-general said Russian President Vladimir Putin made a mistake by underestimating Ukraine and NATO — and the alliance continues to be committed to supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

“It will be a big tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins but it will also be dangerous for us because our message to him and all the alternative leaders including in Beijing, is that when they use force, they get what they want and that will make also us, NATO allies, United States, Europe, more vulnerable,” he said.

Three people, including a young girl, were killed in Kyiv on Thursday while desperately trying to take cover in a closed bomb shelter amid fresh Russian strikes, in an incident that sparked anger in the Ukrainian capital.

Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko condemned the incident as a “crime” in a statement shared by Ukraine’s National Police, adding that an investigation had been launched.

Russia launched a total of 10 missiles at Kyiv early on Thursday morning, all of which were shot down, the Ukraine Armed Forces said.

However, falling debris from the skies killed three people — a 9-year-old girl, her 34-year-old mother, and a 33-year-old woman — according to the national police. Fourteen others were injured.

The husband of one of the women told public broadcaster Suspilne that when they heard the air raid alarm, people ran to the shelter but found it locked. “People knocked… They knocked for a very long time… There were women, children. No one opened. My wife and child [were there]. The child is fine, but my wife died,” he said.

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