Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine drone attack in Crimea cuts power supplies in Sevastopol | World news

Russian forces have advanced 10km into Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in one area, but the situation has been “stabilised” since Friday, Ukraine’s president Vladimir Zelensky said, quoted by the RBC-Ukraine media.

“Today our defense forces stabilized the Russians where they are now. The deepest point of their advance is 10 km,” Zelensky told journalists.

A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power outages in the city of Sevastopol and set fire to a refinery in the south RussiaRussian authorities said.

The drone attacks marked Kiev’s attempt to strike back during Moscow’s offensive in the country’s northeast. Ukrainewhich increased the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, who are awaiting delayed deliveries of crucial weapons and ammunition from Western partners.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, another 44 over Krasnodar Krai and six over Belgorod Oblast. It said Russian warplanes and patrol boats also destroyed six maritime drones in the Black Sea, AP reported.

Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, which is the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said the drone attack damaged the city’s power plant. He said it could take a day for power supplies to be fully restored and warned residents that power would be cut in parts of the city.

“The utilities are doing their best to restore the power system as quickly as possible,” he said in a statement.

Razvozhaev also announced that schools in the city will be temporarily closed.

Good morning and welcome to Ukraine live blog. We start with news that Ukrainian front-line artillery in Kharkiv faces greater threat than ever from Russia’s fleet of kamikaze drones Lancetaccording to a howitzer crew fighting there.

“One comes, then a second comes, after 10 minutes a third comes,” said Artist, the fresh-faced 21-year-old commander of an artillery battery from the 42nd Brigade that has been firing nonstop to repel Russia’s new offensive in the region over the past week.

The soldiers asked to be referred to only by their military callsigns to protect their identities, Reuters reported.

The drone, with X-shaped wings and carrying several kilograms of explosives, has already been one of the biggest threats to Ukrainian artillery and armored vehicles for more than a year.

However, the crew of the Soviet-era 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer that Reuters spoke to had never seen anything close to the number of Lancets flying in the skies over the Kharkiv region, although they had seen plenty of service in several of the most intense front-line operations. line.

Other news:

• Russia does not have enough forces on the ground to make a major breakthrough Ukraine after starting it offensive in the Kharkiv region, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli said Thursday. “More precisely they lack the skills and ability to do so” said the American general. “I have been in very close contact with our Ukrainian colleagues and I am confident that they will hold the line.

• Ukraine said on Thursday that it was trying to “stabilize” the front line in the Kharkiv region. Moscow seized 278 sq km (107 sq mi) of Ukrainian territory between May 9 and 15, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It represents the largest territorial gain in a single operation since mid-December 2022. Cavoli said that Ukraine’s forces “are currently being sent huge quantities of ammunition, huge quantities of short-range air defense systems and significant quantities of armored vehicles”.

• Dan Sabag writes that Russia’s rapid advance in Kharkiv raises serious questions about Kiev’s ability to defend itself. Russia had telegraphed the operation in advance and Ukraine had been warned by Western intelligence, Sabbagh wrote – although military analysts stress that there explanations why Ukraine was forced to return. “It is suicidal for Ukraine to have its main line of defense on the border where The Russians can hit you with artillery and planning bombs and the Ukrainians do not have available weapons such as the Himars missile artillery to retaliate because of US restrictions,” said George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. As a result, Russian forces were able to cross the border into a relatively safe space are mobilizing in a sparsely populated “grey zone” of Ukraine.

• Ukraine accused Russia of capture and kill civilians in the border town of Vovchansk and keeping about 35 to 40 people as “human shields”. “According to operational information, the Russian military, trying to gain a foothold in the city, did not allow local residents to evacuate,” Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said. “They started kidnapping people and taking them to basements.” Sergey Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the police in the Kharkiv region: “The Russians keep them in one place and actually use them as a human shield, as their command headquarters is nearby. There was no immediate response from Moscow to the allegations.

• Volodymyr Zelensky met with military leaders in the city of Kharkiv and said: “The situation in the Kharkiv region is generally under control and our soldiers are inflicting significant losses on the occupier. However, the area remains extremely difficult. We reinforce our parts.”

• Prolonged air raid alert in most of Kharkiv area was picked up early Friday. Regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said at least five drones had struck Kharkiv. Public broadcaster Suspilne said an air alert was in effect for more than 16 and a half hours in the city of Kharkiv, the longest on record since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

• Ukrainian attacks have destroyed one or more Russian warplanes and infrastructure at Belbek Air Base in occupied Crimea, according to reports based on satellite imagery and other resources. The pro-Ukrainian partisan unit Atesh said a warehouse in Belbek was hit, destroying ammunition for Russian warplanes. There are many fires in the Belbek complex detected by NASA’s fire tracking satellite, Firms, in recent days. The Ukrainian strikes using Atacms missiles were characterized by the occupation authorities as repulsed, in line with standard Russian official language that downplays Ukrainian operations.

• The US has announced sanctions to two Russian individuals and three Russian companies for facilitating the transfer of arms between Russia and North Koreaincluding ballistic missiles for use against Ukraine.

• Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un, has denied exchanging arms with Russia, state media KCNA reported. However, UN sanctions monitors found that debris from a the missile that fell in Kharkiv was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile. This was stated by the spokesman of the US State Department, Matthew Miller Russia has already used more than 40 North Korean-made ballistic missiles against Ukraineas well as ammunition, having imported them in violation of UN resolutions.

• The International Monetary Fund will begin a new mission to Ukraine in the coming weeks to assess its $15.6 billion loan program and recent economic developments, IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozak said. The loan review mission will also review the IMF’s analysis of Ukraine’s debt sustainability. “The Ukrainian economy has shown remarkable resilience. Although the outlook remains subject to extremely high war-related uncertainty.