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

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is seen on March 29.

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.”  

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.

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. 

Elina Svitolina, right, and Russia's Anna Blinkova after their third round match on Friday, June 2.

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.

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.

Firefighters work at a house on fire following a shelling in the village of Sobolevka, Belgorod region, Russia.

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. 

People grieve near the body of a person killed in a missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday.

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.

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 speask at the Helsinki City Hall in Helsinki, Finland, on Friday.

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:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 2.

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

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 attends a news conference in Bujumbura, Burundi, on May 30.

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:

A man sits next to the body of his granddaughter who was killed during a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 1.

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.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gives a speech at the Helsinki City Hall, in Helsinki, Finland, on June 2.

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.”