Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner head says forces to leave Bakhmut next week | Ukraine

• Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s Wagner group mercenary force, said in a sudden and dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would leave the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying to capture since last summer. Prigozhin said they would pull back on 10 May – ending their involvement in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies. He asked defence chiefs to insert regular army troops in their place.

• Earlier Prigozhin released a video showing him standing in a field of Russian corpses, personally blaming top defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s expletives were bleeped out in the video published by his press service, in which he yelled “We have a 70% shortage of ammunition. Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the ******* ammunition?”. The reference to defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov appeared to reignite the simmering feud between Prigozhin and the Russian establishment forces.

• Ukraine’s air force said it downed one of its own drones after it lost control over Kyiv on Thursday. Andriy Yermak, Ukraine presidential chief of staff, initially said an enemy drone that had been shot down. But the air force later clarified it was Ukrainian and had been destroyed to avoid “undesirable circumstances”. No casualties were reported.

• The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of Russia has been attacked by a drone or drones for the second consecutive day.

• Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said “any self-respecting country” would refrain from speaking to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy following the apparent drone attack on the Kremlin.

• The White House has dismissed as “ludicrous” claims by Russia that Washington orchestrated drone strikes on Moscow, saying the US was not involved in the incident and accusing Russia of lying. National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: “One thing I can tell you for certain is that the US did not have any involvement with this incident, contrary to [Vladimir Putin spokesman] Mr Peskov’s lies, and that’s just what they are: lies.” Earlier, Dmitry Peskov said: “Decisions about such terrorist attacks are taken in Washington” and that Kyiv “just implements these decisions”.

• Finnish power utility Fortum has formally notified the Kremlin that it strongly objects to what it said was Russia’s “unlawful” seizure of its subsidiary in the country. In his regular morning press conference, the Kremlin spokesperson, Peskov, responded by saying the seizure was in accordance with Russian legislation.

• Bill Clinton has said that he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 – three years before he took Crimea – that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said … ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”

• Video footage has emerged overnight of a scuffle between a Ukrainian delegate and a Russian delegate during a gathering of Black Sea countries in the Turkish capital Ankara. The footage shows the Russian delegations secretary, Valery Stavitsky, snatching a Ukrainian flag out of the hands of his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Marikovski, who unfurled the flag behind another Russian delegate who was mid-interview at the parliamentary assembly of the Black Sea economic cooperation group in Turkey.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s Wagner group mercenary force, said in a sudden and dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would leave the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying to capture since last summer.

Reuters reports Prigozhin said they would pull back on 10 May – ending their involvement in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war – because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies. He asked defence chiefs to insert regular army troops in their place.

“I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on 10 May 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds,” Prigozhin said in a statement.

“I’m pulling Wagner units out of Bakhmut because in the absence of ammunition they’re doomed to perish senselessly.”

Wagner has been spearheading Russia’s long and costly attempt to capture Bakhmut and Prigozhin said three weeks ago that his men controlled more than 80% of the city.

But Ukrainian defenders have held out, and Prigozhin has vented increasing anger at what he describes as lack of support from the Russian defence establishment.

Earlier today he issued a video in which he accused the leaders of Russia’s official forces of getting fat in their offices while Wagner troops lacked equipment.

The video that the Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin released earlier today showed him standing in a field of Russian corpses, personally blaming top defence chiefs for the losses suffered by his fighters in Ukraine.

Prigozhin’s expletives were bleeped out in the video published by his press service, in which he yelled “We have a 70% shortage of ammunition. Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the ******* ammunition?”

The reference to defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov appeared to reignite the simmering feud between Prigozhin and the Russian establishment forces.

Those responsible would go to hell, Reuters reports Prigozhin shouted, before saying that Wagner’s losses would be five times smaller if it was adequately supplied.

“These are Wagner lads who died today. The blood is still fresh,” Prigozhin said, pointing to the corpses around him. “They came here as volunteers and they’re dying so you can get fat in your offices.”

Russia’s foreign minister has said “any self-respecting country” would refrain from speaking to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy following the apparent drone attack on the Kremlin.

Speaking in India, Sergei Lavrov said:

As for the terrorist attack over the Kremlin and over the residence of the state leader, we have made our attitude clear. I think we shouldn’t wait for any more incidents and provocations.

Zelenskiy and his team are doing everything in the media space, and in their practical steps, to ensure that any self-respecting country would refrain from talking to them or communicating with them. This is a fact.

We have always been willing to deal with the consequences of the US attempts to pump Ukraine with weapons. We see there is a growing understanding that such problems cannot be settled on the on the contact line in Donbas.

I think everybody understands that what is going on is geopolitical. Without resolving the key geopolitical problem, which is the west’s desire to retain its hegemony and to dictate its will upon everyone, without resolving that, no crisis will be settled anywhere.

The FT this morning is carrying quotes from Bill Clinton in which he says that he knew in 2011 it was just “a matter of time” before Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine.

Citing an appearance by the former US president alongside his wife Hillary, Joshua Chaffin writes:

Bill Clinton said he realised in 2011 it was “just a matter of time” before Vladimir Putin would move on Ukraine after a chilling discussion with Russia’s president in Davos, Switzerland.

During that encounter, Clinton said, Putin rejected a US-brokered deal agreed by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to respect Ukraine’s territory in exchange for Kyiv relinquishing its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal.

“Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 — three years before he took Crimea — that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled. “He said . . . ‘I don’t agree with it. And I do not support it. And I am not bound by it.’ And I knew from that day forward it was just a matter of time.”

In the same piece, Hillary Clinton spoke of how the war might come to an end:

To end hostilities, Hillary Clinton argued, Ukraine must either defeat Russia or at least regain the territory lost in the east since Russia’s invasion last year. “They need leverage,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust him [Putin] at a negotiating table under any circumstances, unless Ukrainians – backed by us – have enough leverage.”