Main events
Beijing and Moscow to cooperate at ‘new level’
Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday that China is willing to work with Russia to improve their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and take it to a “new level,” Reuters reports.
The pragmatic cooperation between China and Russia shows a “good” development trend, and the scale of investment between the two also continues to see an upgrade, Li told the Russian Prime Minister that Mikhail Mishustin in a meeting in Beijing.
Mishustin is the highest-ranking Russian official to visit the Chinese capital since Moscow sent thousands of its troops to Ukraine in February 2022.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.
Our top stories this morning: Premier Li Qiang of China said on Wednesday that China is willing to work with Russia to improve their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and bring it to a “new level “.
His comments come as Russia’s Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is visiting Moscow, where he is expected to sign a bilateral agreement with China.
And UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told a conference in London that Ukraine’s western allies are ready to support the country “for many years”, the FT reports. Sunak also said that Russia’s strategy of “waiting it out . . . for the people [in the west] to be tired, bored . . . won’t act” and that the UK is “leading a conversation with allies about what longer-term multilateral and bilateral security agreements we can put in place in Ukraine.”
We will have more about these stories soon.
Here are some other important new developments in the battle:
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Moscow claims to have repelled an attack led by Ukraine-aligned militias that led to a series of chaotic battles in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, over the past two days. The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said late Tuesday that steps were taken to stop terrorism after the crossborder attack was removed. It came just hours after Moscow admitted it had pushed the fighters back across the border. Gadkov said Russia’s defense ministry and security agencies were still engaged in a “mopping up” campaign.
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Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrived in China, Moscow’s foreign ministry said, for a visit where he will meet President Xi Jinping and seal a series of infrastructure and trade deals.
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Training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has started in Poland, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. He told a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels: “I am happy that finally the training of pilots for the F-16 has started in many countries. It will take time, but the sooner the better … For example, in Poland.
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Borrell also said that EU countries have provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles to Ukraine since March.. Member states discussed increasing the European military budget by another €3.5bn, €1bn allocated for Ukraine.
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The Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi has ceased operations because Russia does not allow ships to enter it, in effect cutting it out of a deal that allows safe Black Sea grain exports, a Ukrainian official said.
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A Moscow court has extended the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was jailed in Russia on espionage charges at the end of March. During a brief hearing, the court ordered that Gershkovich remain in prison until August 30, Russian news agencies reported. The US has called for Gershkovich’s immediate release.
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US president Joe Biden has chosen a new leader for the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, a joint position that oversees much of America’s cyber warfare and defense. If confirmed, the air force Lt. gen. Timothy Haugh will oversee highly influential U.S. efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s cybersecurity and share information with Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion.
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Ukrainian forces still control the southwestern edge of the town of Bakhmut and fighting in the town itself has decreased, deputy Ukrainian defense minister Hanna Maliar admitted on Tuesday. He wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Kyiv forces have made some progress “on the northern and southern sides of Bakhmut” and that Russian forces, which say they have captured the city itself, are continuing to clear the areas under their control.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the marines at the Vuhledar-Maryinka defense line in the Donetsk region, as part of the celebrations for the national day of the Ukrainian marine.
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Ukraine’s general staff said that on Monday Russia carried out 20 missile strikes against Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv oblasts, using cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and S-300 anti-aircraft missiles the previous day. It also claimed that Russia launched 48 airstrikes using Shahed drones, and targeted civilian and military targets with up to 90 strikes using multiple-launch rocket systems.
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A senior Russian official facing western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine visits Saudi Arabia and spoke to his counterpart in the kingdom. The visit of Russian interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev to Riyadh came a few days after Zelenskiy spoke at an Arab League summit held in Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
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Germany is looking for options to support a coalition of countries that plan to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, German defense minister Boris Pistorius said. He added that any potential German contribution would be minor, as Germany itself does not own any US-made jets.
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Ukraine is investigating Belarus’ alleged role in the forced transfer of children from Russian-occupied territories, the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office told Reuters. The announcement came in response to a report by the exiled opposition in Belarus that said 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on the territory of Belarus.
