As the war enters its 461st day, we review key developments.
This is the state of affairs on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.
To fight
- Russia unleashed a nighttime missile and drone strike on Kiev, the 15th Russian airstrike on the capital this month. Officials said air defenses shot down the incoming missiles.
- Ukraine said work was underway to restore a runway and five aircraft had been taken out of service in the western Khmelnytskyi region without elaborating. Russia said the army has hit Ukrainian air bases in night raids.
- According to the region’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, two people were killed and eight injured when Russia shelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Toretsk in the Donetsk region.
- Serhiy Cherevatyi, the spokesman for the eastern group of Ukrainian troops, told Ukrainian television that Wagner mercenaries in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut were being replaced by Russian paratroopers and motorized units.
- Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, Russia, said Ukrainian troops shelled several “border settlements” in the region. Four people were injured, he said.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing elections to be held this year in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
- The prosecutor’s office of Ukraine said 483 children in Ukraine were killed and more than 986 injured as a result of Russia’s large-scale invasion of the country.
Diplomacy
- China’s foreign ministry said the war in Ukraine has reached a “critical moment” and that the Chinese government “will continue to contribute to a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”.
- Top European Union diplomat Josep Borrell said he did not think Russia would negotiate as it still tries to win the war in Ukraine, adding that he was “not optimistic” about what could happen in the coming months in the Ukraine. conflict could happen.
- Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said a demilitarized zone should be established within Russia along the border with Ukraine as part of a post-war settlement.
- Ukraine’s parliament has approved a new sanctions package against Iran accused of sending weapons to Russia.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Kenyan leaders on a surprise visit to Nairobi, as Moscow and Kiev both seek to bolster support from African countries.
- Russia’s Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for US Senator Lindsey Graham over comments in an edited video released after he visited Kiev and met Zelensky.
Weapons
- Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government will increase its military aid to Ukraine by $2.6 billion over the course of this year and in 2024.
- Finland began NATO air exercises involving more than a dozen countries and 150 aircraft weeks after joining the security alliance.