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Ukrainian agriculture minister Mykola Solsky confirmed on Wednesday that the transit of Ukrainian grain and food products will resume through Poland following an agreement reached in talks with Warsaw.
Russian drones struck Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight and caused a fire at an infrastructure facility, the head of the military command of the Odesa region, Yuri Kruk, said on Wednesday. No casualties have been reported and firefighters were working at the scene, he said.
Rodion Miroshnik, one of the Russian-imposed officials in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, has posted to Telegram to report that the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, on the left-bank of the River Dniepr in the Kherson region, is under fire from Ukrainian forces. Citing the city administration, he writes “The whole city is under fire. There are already wounded.”
A former Wagner mercenary has admitted to killing and torturing dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, in one of the most detailed first-person accounts of atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. Alexey Savichev, 49, a former Russian convict recruited by Wagner last September, told the Guardian in a telephone interview that he participated in summary executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war during his six months of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
South Korea might extend its support for Ukraine beyond humanitarian and economic aid if it comes under a large-scale civilian attack, President Yoon Suk Yeol said, signalling a shift in his stance against arming Ukraine for the first time.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” by Russia and again called for mediation to end the war, as he came under fire for his previous comments on the conflict. Speaking at a lunch on Tuesday with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Lula said a group of neutral nations must come together to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. Lula faced criticism from the US over comments he made over the weekend that they were prolonging the fighting by supplying arms to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited Ukrainian troops on Tuesday in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, his office have said. Zelenskiy listened to commanders’ reports on the battlefield situation and gave awards to soldiers, it said.
Zelenskiy and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy held a phone call on Tuesday in which they discussed Ukraine’s need for weapons as well as increasing sanctions pressure on Russia. On Twitter, Zelenskiy said he thanked McCarthy for bipartisan support in Congress for Ukraine.
A Moscow court Tuesday rejected an appeal from US journalist Evan Gershkovich to be freed from pre-trial detention, meaning he will stay in a former KGB prison until at least 29 May while a spying case against him is investigated. Gershkovich denies the espionage charges.
Vladimir Putin appeared to make a rare visit to a military headquarters in Russian-occupied Ukraine in an area where his troops are bracing themselves for an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks. Video put out by the Kremlin on Tuesday showed the Russian president stepping off a military helicopter and then being driven to a military headquarters in southern Ukraine.
The G7 has criticised Russia’s threat to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to intensify sanctions on Moscow for its war on neighbouring Ukraine. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Tuesday, the state-run Belta news agency reported.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the Ukraine Black Sea grain export deal with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York next week, just weeks before the pact could expire unless Russian demands regarding its own exports are met.
Poland nnounced plans to install thousands of cameras and motion sensors along its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave to prevent what Warsaw says are illegal migrant crossings orchestrated by Moscow. Polish interior minister Mariusz Kaminski said the system would join a barbed wire fence being built on the 200-kilometre frontier.
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The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media, Agence France-Presse reported.
Security concerns have prompted Russian authorities this year to cancel traditional nationwide victory day processions where people carry portraits of relatives who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
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