Zelensky was received with military honors while visiting Germany
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Kiev’s forces had repulsed Russian attacks for a day on Thursday in the besieged city of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian official said.
As Russia increased its forces in the city and attacked suburbs to the north and south, Ukrainian forces advanced up to a kilometer, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on her Telegram channel.
“The enemy gathered most of its reserves in Bakhmut and significantly strengthened the group,” he said. “Today the enemy attacked Bakhmut all day. All attacks were repelled.”
It comes as explosions rocked Ukrainian cities overnight as millions were subject to air raid alerts ahead of a much-anticipated counter-offensive.
Airstrikes hit Kviv in the ninth Russian airstrike on the capital this month, with one person killed in the Odesa region after a Russian missile attack.
In other news, Russia has banned its senior officials from resigning to avoid “any impression of defeatism”, according to the UK.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said regional leaders, security officials and members of the powerful Presidential Administration are barred from resigning while the “Special Military Operation” continues.
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Ukraine’s deputy defense minister says Russia is on the offensive in Bakhmut
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said in a Telegram post that Kiev forces had repelled Russian attacks for a day on Wednesday in the besieged city of Bakhmut.
“The enemy gathered most of its reserves in Bakhmut and significantly strengthened the group,” he said. “Today the enemy attacked Bakhmut all day. All attacks were repelled.”
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut
(AP)
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 7:00 p.m
Crimea’s return to Ukraine “will happen for sure,” says Zelensky
President Volodymyr Zelensky has set up a reintegration council to advise on restoring Ukrainian rule over Crimea, saying the liberation of the peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, “will become certain”.
He was speaking at a gathering in Kiev to mark the anniversary of the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from the peninsula during the Soviet era in 1944.
Zelensky said that more and more countries realized that it would be impossible to “return peace to international relations and the full force of international law” without first returning Crimea.
(POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We continue our work to liberate Crimea. It will happen for sure: its full return to the Ukrainian state system,” Zelensky told Tatar community leaders and senior officials.
“We are preparing to reintegrate Crimea. I signed the decree on the advisory council on the reintegration and depopulation of our Crimea and the city (Crimean port) of Sevastopol.”
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 8:00 p.m
Ukrainian refugees living in EU being forced to return for abortions, study warns
The research found that some Ukrainian women now living in Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia have to temporarily return home as it is “easier” to access reproductive health care there, despite the stress of travel back to the war-torn country.
The study, carried out by the Center for Reproductive Rights and eight human rights organisations, warned that refugees are putting themselves “at risk” as they face issues such as legal restrictions and cost barriers when trying to access the ‘adequate attention.
Our women’s correspondent Maya Oppenheim reports:
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 7:30 p.m
Stoltenberg expects a new defense investment commitment at the Vilnius summit
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said he expected the allies to agree on a new investment pledge to spend 2% of their GDP on defense at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
NATO members needed to “commit more,” Stoltenberg said at a joint news conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa in Lisbon.
(AFP via Getty Images)
The head of NATO has repeatedly urged allies to speed up defense spending increases as the world had “become more dangerous” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Seven of the alliance’s 30 countries met the current target of spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2022 – one less than in 2021, before the Ukraine war – according to estimates in the annual report of NATO Secretary General, published in March.
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 6:30 p.m
Revealed: Boris Johnson’s first words to Zelensky on the night of the attack in Russia
Those were one of the first words the pair shared during an interaction at 4 a.m. on the night of the February 2022 advance, said Guto Harri, who described it as a “man thing to man” between the Prime Minister and the Ukrainian President.
Former GB News presenter Harri told his unprecedented podcast on Thursday that the two leaders were on the phone within minutes of Johnson waking up to the news.
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 6:00 p.m
Norway giving F-16 planes to Ukraine “is not on the agenda” now – Defense Minister
Norway giving Ukraine F-16 fighter jets is not on the agenda at the moment, said the country’s Defense Minister Bjoern Arild Gram.
(PA)
“When it comes to F-16 … it’s not on the agenda now and I really don’t want to speculate on possible future donations,” he said during a press conference with his British counterpart Ben Wallace, when asked by a reporter . if Norway would give F-16 to Ukraine.
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 5:30 p.m
Pentagon accounting error ‘overstated Ukraine aid by $3 billion’
The Pentagon overestimated the U.S. equipment it sent to Ukraine by about $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said Thursday, a mistake that opens the door to more weapons being sent to Kiev to in its defense against the Russian forces.
The error was the result of assigning a higher-than-guaranteed value to weaponry that was removed from US stockpiles and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defense officials said Thursday.
“We have discovered inconsistencies in how we value the equipment we have given” to Ukraine, one senior defense official told Reuters. The Senate officials and counsel spoke on condition of anonymity. Congress is being briefed on the accounting adjustment on Thursday, the sources said.
The defense official said it’s possible the amount of overvalued weapons could grow as the Pentagon examines the situation more closely, increasing the $3 billion.
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 5:05 p.m
Storm Shadow missiles have been used in Ukraine
Long-range Storm Shadow missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain have been used, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday.
(Getty Images)
“All I can say is that it is my understanding that it has been used since we announced its deployment in Ukraine, but I will not go into further details,” Wallace told a news conference.
Emily AtkinsonMay 18, 2023 4:20 p.m
Black Sea grain corridor has not yet resumed operations – Ukrainian official
The Black Sea grain corridor designed to ensure the safe supply of Ukrainian food to world markets has not yet resumed operations despite statements by Turkey and Russia about expanding the deal, a senior Ukrainian official said on Thursday .
The deal has been extended for another two months, in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed as “good news for the world” on Wednesday, a day before Russia pulled out of the pact over obstacles to its exports of cereals and fertilizers.
“This was announced yesterday, but so far these statements have not led to the resumption of work and the joint center in Istanbul did not inspect the ships to enter yesterday or today,” Yuriy Vaskov, Deputy Minister of Restoration of ‘Ukraine.
“We expected it to be yesterday immediately after the statements of our partners. We await the position of the partners today and we believe they will be able to resolve this issue,” he said in an interview.
He said 62 ships are ready for inspection and some of them are on standby for several months.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced the extension in a televised address on Wednesday and was later confirmed by Russia, Ukraine and the United Nations.
The United Nations and Turkey negotiated the deal for an initial 120 days in July last year to help deal with a global food crisis that has been exacerbated by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the main exporters of cereals in the world.
Martha MchardyMay 18, 2023 3:52 p.m
The Pope hopes to send peace envoys to Kiev and Moscow
Pope Francis hopes to send personal peace envoys to the presidents of Ukraine and Russia to try to negotiate a ceasefire in the war, a Catholic website reported Thursday.
Il Sismografo, which specializes in Vatican news, said this is the “mission” Francis spoke cryptically about when returning from Hungary last month.
According to the website, the plan was for Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna to go to Kiev for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and for Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, head of the Vatican’s Eastern Churches department, to go to Moscow to meet -se with President Vladimir. To put.
Pope Francis and President Zelensky
He said both presidents had agreed to meet with papal envoys, without citing sources or giving details.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said he had no comment on the report, but pointed a reporter to recent comments by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin that “now is the time to take the initiative to create a just peace in Ukraine.”
Zuppi and Gugerotti could not be reached for comment and a key diplomatic source said nothing was “concrete” yet.
If the envoys are sent, it would be identical to a gesture by the late Pope John Paul II, who in 2003 sent high-level representatives to Washington and Baghdad in an unsuccessful attempt to thwart the start of the Iraq war.
President Zelensky met with Pope Francis at the Vatican last Saturday, but in subsequent comments appeared to downplay the possibility of papal mediation.
“With all due respect to His Holiness, we don’t need mediators, we need a just peace… Putin just kills. We don’t need mediation with him,” President Zelensky said on Italian television.
Martha MchardyMay 18, 2023 3:48 p.m
