Washington is looking into reports that American vehicles were used by Ukraine inside Russia, the White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. He said the US has been clear with Kyiv that it does not support any such use of US-made equipment.
The Kremlin said the use of US-made military hardware by pro-Ukraine fighters who conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week was testament to the West’s growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked the Russian border region of Belgorod with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.
In Belgorod, nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and more than 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Russian region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Iranians on Wednesday to reconsider the supply of deadly drones to Russia. Iranian-made Shahed drones supplied to Moscow have played a major role in Russia’s attacks on cities and infrastructure. “The simple question is this: what is your interest in being an accomplice to Russian terror?” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “What is the benefit to Iran of such cynical killing?”
Ukraine will not be able to join Nato as long as the war is going on, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday. “I think that everyone realised that, to become a member in the midst of a war, is not on the agenda,” Reuters reports he said at an event organised by the German Marshall Fund of the US in Brussels. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”
The Russian private army Wagner lost 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, according to the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He said about 20% of the 50,000 Russian prisoners recruited to fight in the 15-month war had died in the eastern Ukrainian city, and a similar number of its regular troop. The figure was in stark contrast with claims from Moscow that it has lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979 and 1989.
The World Health Organization assembly passed a motion on Wednesday condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including attacks on healthcare facilities. The motion passed by 80 votes to nine, with 52 abstentions and 36 countries absent, Reuters reported.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development expects to spend €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in Ukraine next year in support of infrastructure and the economy, a senior source at the bank has said. It comes on top of €3bn already projected for 2022 and the remainder of 2023. The funds have helped the economy continue to function and ensure that there was no run on banks and that civil servants continued to be paid.
The European Union has discussed sending Ukraine the profits from €196.6bn of Russian assets that are stuck inside the plumbing of global financial markets, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, has accused Washington and London of thwarting efforts to reach a settlement over the conflict in Ukraine and of turning a blind eye to what he said was increasing “terrorism and violence” visited on civilians by Ukraine.
The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday. The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg’s city court on 1 June, the court said on its website.
The Netherlands wants to give Ukrainian pilots F-16 training as soon as possible, the Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, said on Wednesday in a letter to parliament. The training would be coordinated with Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and other countries could join, Ollongren added.
Russia has announced that a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don will try five foreign men, including three British nationals, accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Moscow. The trial will begin on 31 May on terrorism-linked allegations and other charges. The men are believed to face trial in absentia.
Ukraine’s main Orthodox church said on Wednesday it had decided to switch to a calendar in which Christmas is celebrated on 25 December, a move that distances it from Russia. Ukrainian Christians, a majority of whom are Orthodox, have traditionally celebrated Christmas on 7 January alongside other predominantly Orthodox Christian countries.
Germany will buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, a member of the parliamentary budget committee that approved the purchase on Wednesday told Reuters. The tanks order will come to €525.6m (£457m) while the howitzers have a price tag of €190.7m; all of them are to be delivered by 2026 at the latest, said the finance ministry documents meant for the parliament.
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