Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy vows retribution over deadly Russian bombardments
President says three days of strikes will not ‘go unpunished’ and points to Ukrainian attack on Russian oil refinery. What we know on day 1,543Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised retribution against Russia on Friday after laying red roses at the rubble of a Kyiv apartment building where a Russian missile strike killed 24 people, including three children. “Ukraine will not allow any of the aggressor’s strikes that take the lives of our people to go unpunished,” the president said after meeting top military and intelligence officials to discuss retaliatory long-range strikes. Zelenskyy said later in his nightly video address that retaliatory actions had already been approved, and pointed to an overnight attack on an oil refinery that the military said triggered a large fire in the central Russian city of Ryazan.The strike on Ryazan’s huge oil refinery was part of a large-scale Ukrainian long-range drone attack targeting several regions in Russia after Moscow’s forces pounded Ukraine with three days of massive strikes with missiles and drones, reports Peter Beaumont. The scale of the attacks appeared to put paid to claims of Donald Trump that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was close, after recent remarks by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the war might be approaching an end.Trump told reporters that the strikes on Kyiv – launched hours after a three-day US-brokered ceasefire expired – could disrupt efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the war.A Russian court has ordered Belgian financial group Euroclear to pay about $250bn in damages over the freezing of billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets in the EU since the Ukraine war. It was not clear how Russia intended to recover the funds, and Euroclear said it did not recognise the Russian court’s jurisdiction. The Moscow court said it upheld the Russian central bank’s claim, while Euroclear told Agence France-Presse the bank’s claims were “without merit”.Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, doubling the number of oil refineries targeted since the start of the year, according to information posted on social media by Russian officials. The strikes have reduced Russia’s oil output – the world’s third-largest after the US and Saudi Arabia – adding pressure to Moscow’s federal budget.Ukraine’s mental health crisis is palpable and growing amid the war, the World Health Organization said, warning the effects could be felt for generations. WHO’s latest data showed 71% of people “have episodes of anxiety, stress, sleepless nights”, said its representative in Ukraine, Jarno Habicht.Greek investigators believe a military sea drone found on a Greek island last week went off course due to a technical failure and may not have travelled far, Reuters quoted sources as saying on Friday. The explosives-laden drone – which Greece says is Ukrainian, a claim Kyiv has denied – was discovered on the shores of Lefkada on 7 May, triggering diplomatic tensions between Athens and Kyiv.A Russian attack struck a grain terminal at a Ukrainian port, injuring seven people and causing other damage, Ukraine’s development ministry said on X on Friday, without specifying the port.German prosecutors said a German judge had enforced an arrest warrant against a Ukrainian national suspected of spying for Russia. The defendant, identified only as Sergey N, had been detained in Spain at the end of March and extradited to Germany on Thursday, the prosecutors added. Continue reading...
Ukraine ‘entirely justified’ to plan strikes against Russian energy and military targets after Kyiv attacks, Zelenskyy says – as it happpened
This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story hereMeanwhile, the Latvian president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has begun political consultations aimed at finding a parliamentary majority capable of forming a new government after the collapse of prime minister Evika Siliņa’s administration.Rinkēvičs’s office posted a short video from the meeting on its social media. Continue reading...
