May 17, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

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

Explosions were heard in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions in the early hours of Thursday, as authorities reported a countrywide air attack.

The Kyiv city military administration said the capital’s air defenses were activated, resulting in falling debris in the Darnytskyi district, which caused a fire.

“Data on casualties and damage are currently being updated. Remain in your shelters until the air raid alert is over!” Serhiy Popko, the head of the city military administration, said on Telegram.

Nationwide air raid alert: Air defense forces in Vinnytsia, in west-central Ukraine, were activated to “countering airborne threats,” Serhiy Borzov, the head of the region’s military administration, said on Telegram.

Heavy fighting continues in the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian military official said. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar acknowledged that both Ukrainian and Russian troops have made advancements in the embattled city.

Here’s what else to know:

On the ground. Ukraine’s forces are holding on to substantial areas around Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back from Russian troops, according to Maliar. Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner private military company, said his fighters have advanced 260 meters [0.16 miles] in Bakhmut. Videos emerging from the city show intense shelling and heavy destruction in the western part of Bakhmut, the last area where Ukrainian forces have a presence.

Meanwhile, according to the General Staff, the Russians are continuing to try to improve their “tactical situation” in the Kharkiv region’s Kupyansk sector — where there had been unsuccessful offensives close to the Oskil River and heavy shelling of Ukrainian-held areas. The General Staff added that the situation had been quieter in another hotspot, around Avdiivka in Donetsk and that Russian forces in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia had continued to shell settlements in the area, striking more than 20 places over the last day.

Sanctions. A Hungarian official said Wednesday it would be very difficult for Hungary to join the European Union’s next round of sanctions against Russia after Ukraine blacklisted a Hungarian bank. A senior EU official said later Wednesday that it’s not for the EU “to decide what private banks do. But again, we have to deal with a question that is influencing and affecting decisively one of our main foreign policy objectives, which is to support Ukraine.” 

Damaged Patriot system components. Two components of a Patriot battery were damaged in a Russian attack Tuesday, but the system “was never offline,” according to a US official familiar with the matter. The Russian barrage damaged the Patriot battery’s generator and part of the system’s electronics. 

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, arrives during a funeral ceremony at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia on April 8, 2023.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner private military company, said his fighters have advanced in Bakhmut amid fierce fighting surrounded by the remaining buildings still controlled by Ukrainian troops.

Prigozhin added it wasn’t possible to surround remaining Ukrainian positions because of the recent withdrawal of Russian paratroopers.

Taking aim at Valery Gerasimov, the Russian General Staff chief, Prigozhin said “the instantaneous retreat of Gerasimov from the enemy today does not allow to close [Bakhmut] off. But we are advancing.”

Prigozhin has frequently been at odds with the Russian Defense Ministry on its tactics and leadership in the conflict.

U.S. Army MIM-104 Patriots, surface-to-air missile (SAM) system launchers, are pictured at Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Poland on March 24, 2022.

Two components of a Patriot battery were damaged in a Russian attack Tuesday, but the system “was never offline,” according to a US official familiar with the matter.

The Russian barrage —which consisted of hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, Kalibr cruise missiles and other munitions — damaged the Patriot battery’s generator and part of the system’s electronics.

The damage was minimal, according to three other US officials, with one describing it as “minor.” The system remained functional throughout the attack and remains online, an official said.

The US sent inspectors to examine the system on Tuesday, after being told by the Ukrainians that the system appeared to have been damaged, one of the officials said.

US officials are still assessing how exactly the Patriot components were damaged since it does not appear that any of the components sustained a direct hit from a Russian Kinzhal missile or other munition.

One possibility is that debris from a falling missile damaged the Patriot components, but officials are examining other options as well. 

Garbage collectors walk past a branch of OTP Bank in the city center on February 16, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary.

A Hungarian official says it would be very difficult for Hungary to join the European Union’s next round of sanctions against Russia after Ukraine blacklisted a Hungarian bank.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó described the move by the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAZK) to include Hungarian Bank OTP on its list of “international sponsors of war” as “outrageous.” 

He added “that as long as OTP stays on this list, it will be very difficult for us to even enter into negotiations on the eleventh sanctions package,” and “it will be very difficult for us to negotiate economic restrictions that require additional sacrifices.”

In a statement earlier this month, NAZK said the decision to classify OTP bank as an international sponsor of war was “due to the position of the bank’s management to continue operations in Russia” as well the bank’s “recognition of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics.’”

The Hungarian Foreign Minister refuted Kyiv’s claims on Monday, saying that as Hungary’s biggest bank, “OTP has not violated any international laws. Its operations fully comply with all kinds of expectations and legislation.”

Szijjártó also said placing the bank “on the list of international sponsors of war is unacceptable and scandalous.”

What the EU is saying: A senior EU official, briefing journalists in Brussels on Wednesday, said the EU’s priority “is to ensure that we can support Ukraine so that they can win,” and that “we’re going to talk to the Ukrainian side. We’ll talk to the Member States, talk to Hungary, of course.” 

The senior official said it’s not for the EU “to decide what private banks do. But again, we have to deal with a question that is influencing and affecting decisively one of our main foreign policy objectives, which is to support Ukraine.”  

“It’s affecting our decisions on military and financial support. We have to deal with that, we will be dealing with that and I can tell you that the High Representative [Josep Borrell] is already dealing with that,” the official added.

The official also said that EU Foreign Ministers will discuss the issue on Monday in Brussels at a scheduled meeting. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will also attend the meeting virtually.

A Ukrainian Army Grad multiple rocket launcher fires rockets at Russian positions at the front line near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 17.

The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces launched S-300 missiles at Bakhmut, adding that there were air strikes in several locations around the city.

Ivanivske is a village to the west of Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, videos emerging from Bakhmut show intense shelling and heavy destruction in the western part of the city, the last area where Ukrainian forces have a presence.

Video published by the Russian state agency RIA Novosti, as well as RIA FAN, showed Russian fighters moving through abandoned apartment buildings and across courtyards littered with debris.

Drone video of Bakhmut showed clouds of gray smoke rising from several neighborhoods — with an Orthodox church on the western outskirts of Bakhmut as one of very few buildings apparently unscathed. It’s not clear exactly when the videos were shot. 

Across the front lines, the General Staff said there were 32 airstrikes. That would be slightly lower than the recent average, according to Ukrainian estimates.

What the situation is like in other parts of Ukraine: In the northern region of Kharkiv, according to the General Staff, the Russians are continuing to try to improve their “tactical situation” in the Kupyansk sector — where there had been unsuccessful offensives close to the Oskil River and heavy shelling of Ukrainian-held areas.

The General Staff added that the situation had been quieter in another hotspot, around Avdiivka in Donetsk, where “the enemy did not conduct any offensive actions over the last day.”

The military officials said Russian forces in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia had continued to shell settlements in the area, striking more than 20 places over the last day.

Before-and-after satellite imagery below shows the damage done to the hard-hit eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut over the past year.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar provided Kyiv’s assessment Wednesday on the situation on the ground, saying Ukraine’s forces are holding on to substantial areas around Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back from Russian troops.

The official noted that “almost 20 square kilometers” of liberated areas in the suburbs have not been lost and that “fierce fighting” continues around the city, with Ukrainian troops advancing in some areas. She also acknowledged that Russian troops are “advancing somewhat” as well.

The images were provided first to CNN by Maxar Technologies.

Before:

School and apartment buildings seen on May 8, 2022.

After:

A damaged school and smoldering apartment buildings seen on May 15, 2023.

Before:

Overview of Bakhmut on May 8, 2022.

After:

Overview of Bakhmut on May 15, 2023.

Before:

University buildings and radio tower seen on May 8, 2022.

After:

Demolished university buildings and radio tower seen on May 15, 2023.

CNN’s Olga Voitovych and Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

A deal allowing grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea has been extended, just one day before it was set to expire. Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed at least three Ukrainian civilians and Ukraine is holding onto gains in the Bakhmut area.

Here are the latest developments:

Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba attends a meeting with China's special representative on Eurasian affairs Li Hui in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 16.

A senior Chinese official has finished a two-day visit to Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

The ministry said on its website that Li Hui, China’s special representative on Eurasian affairs, visited Ukraine from May 16 to 17.

“The trip was made pursuant to the agreements reached during a telephone conversation between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Xi Jinping on April 26,” it said.  

Li met with Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, according to the site, but the ministry did not say whether he had also met the Ukrainian president. 

It said Kuleba had talked about “restoring a sustainable and just peace based on respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“He emphasized that Ukraine does not accept any proposals that would involve the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict,” according to the ministry.

Kuleba stressed “the importance of China’s participation in the implementation of the President’s Peace Formula, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, nuclear safety and other important international efforts,” the ministry said.

Key context: China has attempted to cast itself as a peacebroker and deflect criticism that it has not acted to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, more than one year after Moscow invaded its western neighbor. Beijing has refused to condemn the invasion and instead bolstered its economic and diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Three civilians were killed in a village near the southern city of Kherson as Russian shelling of the Ukrainian-held part of Kherson region appears to have intensified, according to Ukrainian officials.

The three killed included a child, the prosecutor’s office of the Kherson region said.

On Wednesday afternoon local time, Russian forces had fired on a village in Kherson district, the office said. “One of the shells hit near a store where local residents were staying,” killing a five-year-old boy and two men. Another man and a boy were injured, it added.

Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, confirmed the death of a child during shelling of the village of Zelenivka.

Earlier on Wednesday, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, claimed Russia “made 79 attacks, launching 406 shells from heavy artillery, Grad MLRS [multiple launch rockets], tanks, UAVs and aircraft,” and added that the targets were residential areas.

Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejcinovic Buric speaks with the media at the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, on May 17.

The Council of Europe (COE) announced that it has established a “register of damage” to help hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, the organization announced on Wednesday at the conclusion of a two-day summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The register — officially the “Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine” — will document “damage, loss or injury caused by the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the COE said, in an initiative that will last for an initial period of three years.

The system is “vital” if Moscow is to be held liable for compensation to victims of the war, said Marija Pejčinović Burić, secretary general of the COE.

The COE has 46 member states. The gathering in Reykjavik is only the fourth summit since the council was established in 1949. The summit’s “top priority” was supporting Ukraine in Russia’s war, according to the COE’s website.

“The register is an important step towards accountability for crimes committed in Russia’s brutal war and a strong message of support to Ukraine,” Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the register is “an important milestone on the road to justice and reparations for Ukraine and the Ukrainians who have suffered so much from this war.”

Forty nations — including some, like the United States, who had observer status at the summit — have joined the register, with a further three having expressed an intention to join.

Nine countries who are either member or observer states of the council have not yet joined the agreement: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, The Holy See, Israel and Mexico.

Bulk carrier ARGO I is docked at the grain terminal of the port of Odessa, Ukraine, on April 10.

An agreement has been reached to extend the deal that allows grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, according to Turkish, Ukrainian and Russian officials.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was first to announce that the deal, which was scheduled to expire Thursday, will be extended for two months. 

The agreement, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, was originally signed last year and has since been extended. 

What Ukraine says: Oleksandr Kubrakov, the Ukrainian minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, has confirmed that the grain deal has been extended.

Russia had balked at extending the deal without better guarantees for its own exports.

“In mid-April, Russia began to unreasonably restrict the work of the Initiative, and in May it actually blocked it by refusing to register a new fleet and conduct inspections of the fleet that is being loaded at Ukrainian ports,” said Kubrakov.

“Almost 70 vessels are currently waiting in Turkish territorial waters, 90% of them are ready to deliver the products of our farmers to the world,” he claimed.

“We welcome the continuation of the Initiative, but emphasize that it must work effectively. For this purpose, it is necessary to eliminate the problems that Russia has been creating for several months now by sabotaging inspections and registration of the new fleet,” he added.

What Russia says: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has also confirmed the extension of the Black Sea Grain initiative.

However, Zakharova said that “distortions in the implementation of the grain deal should be corrected as quickly as possible.”

US praises extension: The US State Department praised the two-month extension Wednesday, with spokesperson Vedant Patel saying in a briefing that we “strongly support the UN’s and Turkey’s efforts on the deal, which keeps the global food and grain prices low.”

Patel also chastised Russia for the need to repeatedly extend the deal.

“We should not need to remind Moscow every few weeks to keep their promises and to stop using people’s hunger as a weapon in their war against Ukraine,” said Patel.

CNN’s Uliana Pavlova and Michael Conte contributed reporting to this post.

A view of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on September 19, 2021.

Senior Russian officials at the Kremlin and in the regions have been forbidden from leaving their posts, claims IStories, an independent Russian media outlet.

IStories is an online investigative news outlet based outside Russia and is run by a well-known journalist Roman Anin, who said his sources included acquaintances of high-ranking officials in the Presidential Administration.

Anin told CNN he did not know how many people had tried to quit but had not been allowed to. “However, I know of concrete examples of those who tried to quit. These are governors, [from the] security forces, and people from the presidential administration,” he said.

The journalist declined to provide names so as to protect his sources.

IStories said it had been told by a former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB) that he knew of “at least two cases when governors tried to leave their posts,” but the Internal Policy Department of the Presidential Administration had banned them from resigning and had hinted at criminal cases against them.

There is no way to verify the claims, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN on Tuesday that reports about high-ranking officials being banned from resigning for the duration of the “special military operation” — as Moscow refers to the war in Ukraine — were “another hoax.”

Anin said the policy was not formal and never conveyed in writing. “There can be no written refusals or recommendations, because the ban is illegal. It all happens informally. A governor of the region submits his resignation, he is summoned to the Department of Internal Policy, intimidated, called a traitor and threatened with a criminal case if he insists,” he noted.

According to a presidential decree, servicemen under contract (which would include the majority of FSB employees) cannot leave even after their contract expires.

The ban has two goals, Anin said. If many people leave, then public administration may become unmanageable, so the ban would “prevent the loss of control,” he said, adding that the other goal is to “show the people and subordinates that the authorities are united, that everyone is in place and no one is going to run away.”

Bank accounts of the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and General consulate in St. Petersburg have been frozen by the Russian government at the end of April, Finland’s Foreign Ministry in Helsinki told CNN Wednesday. 

“Finland has been in contact with the Russian authorities and demanded an investigation. Also, Finland has demanded Russia to secure Finland´s diplomatic missions’ local money and payment transactions,” the ministry said in a statement. 

Russian authorities have yet to explain their decision to the Finnish side to freeze the accounts, according to the Finnish Foreign Ministry. 

Some context: In April, Finland officially became the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), marking a major shift in the security landscape in northeastern Europe that added some 1,300 kilometers (830 miles) to the alliance’s frontier with Russia.

Finland’s acceptance into the US-led security alliance presented a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long sought to undermine NATO, and before invading Ukraine, demanded the bloc refrain from further expansion.

Earlier this year, Finland began construction of barrier fences on its eastern border with Russia. The project, which launched at the end of 2022, included plans to build a 130 to 260-kilometer (80 to 161 miles) fence along the country’s eastern border. 

CNN’s Tara John, Jessie Gretener and Sugam Pokharel contributed to this post.

The damage to a Patriot air defense system following a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday morning is minimal, three US officials tell CNN, with one official describing it as “minor” damage. 

The US sent inspectors to examine the system on Tuesday, after being told by the Ukrainians that the system appeared to have been damaged, one official said.

The system itself is still operational, the officials said, and the radar component of the Patriot, one of its most important elements, was not damaged. US officials do not believe the Patriot will need to be removed from the battlefield for repairs. 

A complete Patriot battery has six major components: generators, a radar set, a control station, antennas, a launcher station and interceptor missiles. The components operate together to fire a Patriot missile and successfully guide it to its target.

It is not clear what part of the Patriot was damaged or if it was damaged by an actual missile strike or falling debris. The Ukrainians said they successfully intercepted all six Russian Kinzhal missiles on Tuesday morning. 

Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force Command, has told Ukrainian TV that the US-made Patriot air defense system could not be destroyed by a Kinzhal missile. 

“Do not worry about the fate of the Patriot. From a technical point of view, Patriot is a … system,” he said, noting that it consisted of components that can be located at a distance from one another.

Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank on a road to the frontline town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 12.

Ukraine is holding on to the substantial areas around Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back from Russian troops, and Ukrainian forces are still advancing in certain areas, according to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar.

“Almost 20 square kilometers liberated in the suburbs in recent days have not been lost. We are moving on. We are advancing in some areas,” Maliar said on her Telegram account.

She said “fierce fighting” continues around the embattled eastern city, adding that Russian troops are also “advancing somewhat.”

Maliar’s statement cannot be verified, and many observers think Ukrainian progress has been more modest than claimed.

On Tuesday, Maliar said Ukrainian troops “liberated about 20 square kilometers (more than 7 square miles) of the Bakhmut suburbs in the north and south of the city.”

CNN’s Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

F-16 fighter jets during the NATO international air force exercise Frisian Flag, at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands, on March 28, 2022.

Britain and the Netherlands are working on an “international coalition” to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets that Kyiv says are vital to its defense as Russia ramps up its its aerial strikes, a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday.

The two NATO allies are trying to get the US-made warplanes to Ukraine as well as training Kyiv’s pilots to fly them, according to the Downing Street readout following a meeting between Sunak and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Council of Europe Summit in Iceland.

Ukraine, which has been saying the fighter jets are essential to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks, welcomed the announcement from the British and Dutch leaders.

Yermak said Belgium, another NATO ally, in particular, had “confirmed its readiness to train” Ukrainian pilots.

Britain does not have F-16s in its air force, but the Netherlands and Belgium do. The US Air Force has almost 800 F-16s in its fleet.

Read the full story here.

Nicholas Maimer, left, is pictured with Senator James Risch.

A retired US Army Special Forces soldier has been identified as the American citizen killed by Russian artillery in the embattled city of Bakhmut this week, according to a close friend and the founder of a non-profit group working in Ukraine.

Retired Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer was in a building in Bakhmut that collapsed after being hit by artillery fire, according to Retired Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn, founder of the non-profit AFGFree, with which Maimer was working in Ukraine.

Ukrainians who were with Maimer believed he was either trapped in the collapsed building or killed by a “barrage” of Russian artillery fire, Blackburn said.

Confirmation of Maimer’s death comes after the leader of Russian private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to show the body of an American in a video posted on the Wagner Telegram group on Tuesday. 

Read more here.

Rescuers work at the site of a shopping mall that was heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on May 17.

At least one person has died and several were injured in the latest Russian shelling to hit frontline regions in eastern and southern Ukraine. But in Kyiv, air defenses are looking virtually impenetrable – in defiance of the expectations of Western analysts and Russian military commanders.

Here are the latest developments: