Russia-Ukraine war: Zelensky says Putin’s soldiers organising massacre in Donbas



President Zelensky meets US officials

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin apparently survived an assassination attempt at the start of his invasion of Ukraine, the head of Kyiv’s military intelligence service has claimed.

“There was an attempt to assassinate Putin… He was even attacked, it is said, by representatives of the Caucasus, not so long ago. This is non-public information. [It was an] Absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really happened… It was about 2 months ago,” Kyrylo Budanov claimed in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.

Meanwhile, in an address to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia’s ongoing invasion will determine whether “brute force will rule the world”, as he pleaded for further economic support in the war.

“This is the moment when it is decided whether brute force will rule the world,” Mr Zelensky said before calling on nations to enforce further and stronger sanctions on Russia including an embargo on Russian oil, no trade with the Kremlin and a banning of Moscow’s banks from global systems.

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Russia facing Ukrainian resistance in Donbas, says British MoD

The British defence ministry has said Russia is amping up its operations in Donbas — its targeted region in Ukraine for capturing more territory — and has met staunch resistance from defending Ukrainian soldiers.

“Russia has increased the intensity of its operations in the Donbas as it seeks to encircle Severodonetsk, Lyschansk, and Rubizhne. At present the northern and southern axes of this operation are separated by approximately 25 km of Ukrainian-held territory,” the ministry said in its latest update on Tuesday.

It added: “There has been strong Ukrainian resistance with forces occupying well dug-in defensive positions. Ukraine’s long-established Joint Force Operation likely retains effective command and control of this front.”

Russia has, however, achieved some localised successes, due in part to concentrating artillery units, the ministry added.

“Russia’s capture of the Severodonetsk pocket would see the whole of Luhansk Oblast placed under Russian occupation. While currently Russia’s main effort, this operation is only one part of Russia’s campaign to seize the Donbas,” the defence ministry said.

If the Donbas front line moves further west, this will extend Russian lines of communication and likely see its forces face further logistic resupply difficulties, it added.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 06:32

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Russian soldiers demanding bribes from Ukrainians leaving Melitopol

Civilians leaving Melitopol have been asked to pay bribes by the Russian soldiers occupying the territory, officials in the region said.

Russian soldiers have asked residents who are trying to leave the city marred by conflict to pay Hr 3,000 to Hr 5,000 (£80-£134), Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration said on Monday, reported The Kyiv Independent.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 06:21

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On war prisoner swap, Zelensky calls for political pressure: ‘Ready even tomorrow’

Ukraine is ready for an exchange of prisoners with Russia “even tomorrow”, president Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Monday after Moscow captured hundreds of trapped soldiers at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

“The exchange of people – this is a humanitarian matter today and a very political decision that depends on the support of many states,” Mr Zelensky said in a round of audience questions at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Asking for assistance from his allies, he said: “It is important … to pressure politically on any level, through powerful business, through the closure of businesses, oil embargo … and through these threats actively intensify the exchange of our people for Russian servicemen.”

“We do not need the Russian servicemen, we only need ours,” Zelensky said. “We are ready for an exchange even tomorrow.”

He added that several allies like the United Nations, Switzerland, Israel and “many, many countries” have been involved but the process was very complicated.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 05:44

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Zelensky warns war will be difficult in coming weeks

Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian troops are pushing through in Kharkiv and will not give up on the region, which could result in difficult weeks to come in the war.

“The Russian occupiers are trying very hard to show that they allegedly will not give up the occupied areas of the Kharkiv region, the Kherson region, the occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region and Donbas,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that Russian fighters are going on the offensive in some areas.

“Reserves are being accumulated in some areas. Somewhere they are trying to reinforce their positions,” he said.

“The coming weeks of the war will be difficult. And we must be aware of that. Yet we have no alternative but to fight. Fight and win. Free our land and our people. Because the occupiers want to take away from us not just something, but everything we have. Including the right to life for Ukrainians,” Mr Zelensky said in a nightly address.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 05:07

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Russia could use Kherson as military base, claims official

Russia will likely set up a military base in Ukraine’s Kherson as officials from the Russia-appointed administration there will ask the Kremlin for the move, a local government official was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency on Tuesday.

“There should be a Russian military base in the Kherson region,” said Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russia-anointed “civil-military regional administration” of Kherson.

He added: “We will ask for this and this is what the whole population wants. This is essential and will be a guarantor of security for the region and its inhabitants.”

The southern city of Kherson, roughly 400 miles from the capital Kyiv, fell to Russia shortly after the invasion began.

Russia has now appointed a new administration in the region and replaced the Ukrainian currency with the Russian ruble.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 04:56

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Russia organising massacre in Donbas, says Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of organising a massacre in Ukraine’s Donbas and destroying “everything living there”.

“The most difficult fighting situation today is in Donbas. Bakhmut, Popasna, Severodonetsk – in this direction the occupiers have concentrated the greatest activity so far,” Mr Zelensky said.

He added: “They organised a massacre there and are trying to destroy everything living there. Literally. Nobody destroyed Donbas as much as the Russian army does now.”

Mr Zelensky said he is grateful to all the warriors fighting on behalf of Ukraine “who are holding their positions and have the courage to counterattack.”

He said that Russia has launched a total of 1,474 missile strikes using 2,275 different missiles in Ukraine since the beginning of invasion on 24 February.

“The vast majority was aimed at civilian objects. In less than three months, there have been more than 3,000 air strikes by Russian aircraft and helicopters. What other country has withstood such a scale of strikes?” he asked in his nightly address.

Arpan Rai24 May 2022 04:40

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Ukrainian refugees in Germany to be allowed to exchange limited amount of currency into euros

Germany’s banks have said that refugees from Ukraine will be allowed to exchange a limited amount of Ukrainian currency into euros from Tuesday.

In a statement on Monday, the banks said they had signed an agreement with the German Finance Ministry and the national banks of Germany and Ukraine to allow a total of 1.5bn hryvnia (£40.4m) to be converted.

Every adult Ukrainian refugee with an account at a major German bank will be allowed to exchange up to 10,000 hryvnia, or about 317 euros (£269).

Andy Gregory24 May 2022 02:58

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Dispatch from Vilkhivka: Death lingers in Ukraine village liberated from Russian forces

Our defence and security editor Kim Sengupta has this latest dispatch from Ukraine:

As fighting erupted, Lubov Novikova panicked and began to rush home. She almost made it to her front door when the Russian tank opened fire. The first shell landed ahead on the road, flinging her to the ground; the second killed her instantly.

The 78-year-old, born in the Russian city of Kursk, was left lying on the on the road for six hours, the intensity of the bombing making it impossible to retrieve the body. Eventually her son, Gennady, and his two friends, Evgeny Sholomiy and Slava Ivanov, carried her to one of the few houses still standing in their street.

The three men also took her to the village cemetery the next morning. A missile struck the graveyard while the hasty burial was taking place. Evgeny was killed. Slava was taken home, bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds; he died that evening.

Much of this village of Vilkhivka, near Kharkiv, has been flattened in the fierce months-long combat as it changed hands between Russian and Ukrainian forces. In many streets, every house has been hit. The school and the medical clinic have been destroyed. Explosions continue with ongoing skirmishes in surrounding areas as the Russians attempt to reclaim ground they have recently lost.

A lot of the damage, say the villagers, took place as the Russian and DNR forces were forced to withdraw. “It was spite, just spite, they were losing, having to leave and just opened fire at people, houses, that’s how Lubov was killed,” says Yuri Petrenko, 46, one of her neighbours. “One tank stopped at the bottom of this street, saw the name of the street was in Ukrainian, and fired a shell. It destroyed the sign and the house the sign was attached to.”

You can read the full report here:

Andy Gregory24 May 2022 01:51

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Russian ambassador hits out at west’s ‘cyber-totalitarianism’ during UN spat

The UK and US are accusing Russia of spreading disinformation online and manipulating public opinion about the war in Ukraine and vehemently rejecting Russian claims that the West is aiming to control all information flows and define what is true or not true.

Britain’s deputy ambassador James Roscoe told a UN Security Council meeting that Russia has conducted cyber-attacks and used “an online troll factory to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion about their war”.

And US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the Russian government “continues to shut down, restrict and degrade internet connectivity, censor content, spread disinformation online, and intimidate and arrest journalists for reporting the truth about its invasion”.

But Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused countries that call themselves a “community of democracies” of building “a cyber-totalitarianism” and along with technology giants like Meta of shutting down Russian TV channels, expelling Russian journalists and blocking access to Russian websites.

Mr Nebenzia said that truth about Ukraine is being ousted by “an intense flow of ideologically charged infospam”, again accusing Western governments and media of fabricating the story of the Russian military killing civilians in Bucha near Kyiv, instead seeking to blame Kyiv.

Andy Gregory24 May 2022 00:47

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Russia waging ‘total war’ on Ukraine, Zelensky says

Russia is waging “total war” on Ukraine, inflicting as many casualties and as much infrastructure destruction as possible, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

In his nightly video address, on the eve of the three-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Mr Zelensky said the Russian army had launched 1,474 missile strikes using 2,275 different missiles – the vast majority of which he said hit civilian targets.

“Indeed, there has not been such a war on the European continent for 77 years,” the Ukrainian president said.

Andy Gregory23 May 2022 23:40


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