This is the situation on Thursday, May 25, 2023.
Fight
- Moscow says its forces have killed 70 members of Russian anti-Kremlin groups that tried to attack Russia’s Belgorod region from Ukraine.
- Ilya Ponomarev, a representative of the Liberty of Russia Legion accused of being part of the Belgorod attacks, told Al Jazeera that its fighters received support from the Ukrainian armed forces.
- About 20,000 fighters of the Wagner Group died in the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut in Ukraine, according to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Russian mercenary force.
- The United Kingdom’s defense ministry said the Russian military “struggled to enforce discipline in its ranks throughout its operations in Ukraine, but its issues are likely to worsen following the forced mobilization of reservists since October 2022”.
- Russia said it scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent state border violations” by two United States Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea.
- The United Nations says the number of civilians killed in armed conflicts and their humanitarian aftershocks is rising, with nearly 17,000 deaths recorded in war zones last year – including nearly 8,000 people in Ukraine. only.
- The intelligence unit of Ukraine’s defense ministry said Russian troops were still using three units of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a military base.
Diplomacy
- The United States says it is “deeply concerned” by a meeting between a top UN official for children and Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights, which is being sought by the International Criminal Court .
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged African countries to abandon their stance of neutrality in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said “sensational pressure” from the West had brought Russia-China relations to an “unprecedented high” as officials from both countries signed the a set of trade and sports cooperation agreements.
- Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that while Tbilisi supports Ukraine, further Russian sanctions will destroy the economy and harm the interests of the people of his country.
- UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov.
- Ukraine cannot join NATO while the war continues, according to Jens Stoltenberg, leader of the world’s largest military alliance.
- A Russian court has extended the imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months, until August 30.
- The Orthodox Church in Ukraine says it will switch to the “revised” Julian calendar from September 1, in an effort to distance itself from the Russian Orthodox Church.
weapon
- Supplying Ukraine with F-16 fighter aircraft will deal a big blow to Russia and the faster the decision to implement the planes, the better, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the West was ready to support Ukraine “for many years”. His comments came after the US and other European Union countries pledged to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense system and train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets.
