Blog

May 27, 2023

Capture of Robotyne 'opens the way' south towards Crimea, says Ukraine FM

The capture this week of Robotyne village in the Zaporizhzhia region will enable the Ukrainian offensive to more easily push further south towards Crimea, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba

The capture this week of Robotyne village in the Zaporizhzhia region will enable the Ukrainian offensive to more easily push further south towards Crimea, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday. His statement came after two people were killed and two others wounded in a Russian attack on Kyiv. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

Issued on: 30/08/2023 - 03:20Modified: 30/08/2023 - 22:55

This live page is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here

The White House on Wednesday said that it has new intelligence that shows Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have swapped letters as Russia looks to North Korea for munitions for the war in Ukraine.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby detailed the latest finding just weeks after the White House said that it had determined that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a recent visit to Pyongyang called on North Korean officials to increase the sale if munitions to Moscow for its Ukraine war.

Kirby said that Russia is looking for additional artillery shells and other basic materiel to shore up its defense industrial base.

He added that the letters were "more at the surface level” but that Russian and North Korean talks on a weapons sale were advancing. The leaders exchanged the letters following Shoigu's visit, he said.

The chief official in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, said anti-aircraft units had downed a cruise missile fired at the peninsula on Wednesday.

"Anti-aircraft forces in eastern Crimea have downed a cruise missile," Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram, and asked residents to remain calm.

Anti-aircraft units downed two Ukrainian drones on Wednesday over Bryansk region in southern Russia, with no casualties or damage reported, the region's governor said.

"The Russian Defence Ministry's anti-aircraft forces have thwarted an attack by Ukrainian terrorists," the governor, Alexander Bogomaz, wrote on Telegram. "Two drones have been downed over Bransk district. There are no casualties or damage."

An accident involving two Ukrainian helicopters has killed six servicemen aboard the aircraft, Ukrainian media reported on Wednesday.

The news site Ukrainska Pravda said the incident on Tuesday involved widely used Mi-8 military helicopters and occurred near the town of Kramatorsk in Donetsk region, near the front line, but gave no indication how it occurred.

An air force spokesperson identified as Yevhen Rakita confirmed the deaths to public broadcaster Suspilne, but gave no details on the circumstances.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged member countries on Wednesday to order more ammunition for Ukraine, as figures showed the bloc is a long way from a March target of giving Kyiv a million artillery shells within 12 months.

Borrell said over-arching agreements, known as framework contracts, had been signed with arms firms to allow EU member countries to place joint orders for 155 millimetre rounds, urgently needed by Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

"Now it's (up) to the member states to pass concrete orders inside these framework agreements with the industry," Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU defence ministers in the Spanish city of Toledo.

In a landmark step, EU countries agreed in March on a plan worth some 2 billion euros ($2.18 billion) to provide 1 million artillery shells or missiles to Ukraine within 12 months.

The Kremlin has said Russian investigators are probing all possible scenarios surrounding the death last week of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, including premeditated murder.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday told reporters that officials probing the incident have not ruled out any cause for the crash including foul play.

"Obviously there are different versions, including the version – you know what we are talking about, let's say a deliberate crime – and so on," Peskov said.

Peskov said there can't be an international investigation into why the Prighozin's plane plummeted from the sky last week and he urged reporters to wait for the Russian Investigative Committee to complete its review. The committee said last week that it opened a criminal case to look into possible flight safety violations, a standard procedure in Russia when there is no immediate reason to suspect foul play.

The US and Romania are working to increase Ukraine's grain exports via the Danube river as it explores alternative routes the exports after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to a senior US State Department official.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said US and Romanian officials had been working to "potentially trying to double" the exports that go via the Danube route.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will host his Turkish counterpart for a two-day visit beginning Thursday, Moscow has announced, after Ankara's top diplomat held talks with Ukrainian officials last week.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also due to visit Russia soon for talks with President Vladimir Putin on reviving a deal allowing safe grain shipments across the Black Sea.

Maria Zakharova, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters that Lavrov and Hakan Fidan would discuss "the situation in the region, particularly in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Transcaucasia".

Erdogan has used his good relations with Moscow and Kyiv to try to bring the two sides into formal peace talks.

NATO member Turkey helped negotiate the only major agreement signed by the warring sides since the start of the conflict last year – a deal to ship grain from three Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the capture of Robotyne by Kyiv's forces this week will allow them to more easily push further south towards Crimea, according to an address published Wednesday.

"Having entrenched on the flanks of Robotyne, we are opening the way to Tokmak and, eventually, Melitopol and the administrative border with Crimea," Kuleba said during an official visit to Paris.

Kuleba met with French President Emmanuel Macron while in Paris and "discussed further military support, expanding the Peace Formula coalition and our grain exports to countries in Africa and beyond", said the Ukrainian foreign minister in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

I was honored to be received by @EmmanuelMacron following his contacts with @ZelenskyyUa. Discussed further military support, expanding the Peace Formula coalition and our grain exports to countries in Africa and beyond. I thanked him for reaffirming France’s continued support. pic.twitter.com/Xat5DE2VCg

Russia's defence ministry said on Wednesday that its forces had successfully struck a number of Ukrainian command and intelligence targets, state news agency RIA reported.

The statement came after the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was hit overnight in strikes that killed at least two people.

A Russian man was in court Wednesday after he criticised Moscow's war in Ukraine in an interview to a foreign media source as authorities take the crackdown on dissent to new heights.

Public criticism of the Kremlin's war has been outlawed, and a number of prominent and ordinary Russians have received long prison terms for openly denouncing the Russian army on social media and elsewhere.

In March, authorities launched a criminal probe against Yuri Kokhovets, who criticised the Ukraine war in a man-on-the-street interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outside a central Moscow metro station in July 2022, in a first such case after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into the neighbouring country a few months earlier.

"Our government is telling us that it wants to fight nationalists but it is bombing shopping malls," he told the foreign media outlet. He also said that the Russian army had killed "peaceful people" for "no reason" in Bucha, outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Kokhovets has been accused of spreading false information about the army and being motivated by "political hatred", and now faces up to 10 years in prison. His trial began in July.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said that the investigation into the plane crash that killed Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last week was a Russian effort, and that there could be no question of an international investigation.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry said that Russia's investigation took into account the possibility that the crash had been caused deliberately.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said that Russia is working out where Ukrainian drone attacks are launched from in order to prevent further strikes, after a wave of overnight attacks in six separate Russian regions.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin receives constant updates about such strikes.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will host his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan for a two-day visit beginning Thursday, Moscow has announced, after Ankara's top diplomat held talks with Ukrainian officials last week.

Maria Zakharova, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters that Lavrov and Fidan would discuss "the situation in the region, particularly in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Transcaucasia".

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also due to visit Russia soon for talks with President Vladimir Putin on reviving a deal that would allow safe grain shipments across the Black Sea.

Erdogan has used his good relations with Moscow and Kyiv to try to get the two sides to engage in formal peace talks. NATO member Turkey helped negotiate the grain deal, the only major agreement signed by the warring sides since the start of the conflict last year.

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory overnight "will not go unpunished".

In a media briefing, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the drones, some of which struck an airbase in Pskov, situated 600 kilometres from Ukraine, could not have covered such distances without having first received information from Western countries.

Ukrainian air defences shot down all 28 Russian missiles and 15 out of 16 drones launched overnight, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, said on Wednesday.

Ukrainian authorities have said at least two people were killed and two wounded in an attack on Kyiv on Wednesday morning. Several people were also injured in the Kyiv region.

Russia has thwarted another Ukrainian attack in the Bryansk region, destroying two drones that had tried to attack a TV tower, the local governor said on Wednesday.

No casualties or damage were reported.

At least two people were killed and two wounded in an attack on Kyiv on Wednesday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram, as debris from targets destroyed by air defences fell on several buildings in the Ukrainian capital.

The bodies of two people were found in a nonresidential building and one person was wounded by glass shards, Klitschko said, adding that debris fell in four places in the capital.

"Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring. The enemy launched a massive, combined attack using drones and missiles," Serhiy Popko, the head of the city's military administration said on Telegram.

He said that at the beginning several groups of drones were heading for Kyiv from different directions. Russia then launched missiles from Tu-95 strategic aircraft.

"All in all, the air defence forces destroyed more than 20 enemy targets," Popko said.

Kyiv authorities said several buildings were damaged by debris while officials in Kyiv region reported that several houses were damaged by missile fragments.

More than 20 drones and missiles were destroyed by air defences over Kyiv, the city's military administration said on Wednesday, describing the barrage as the "most powerful strike" on the capital since the spring.

"Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring ... In total, more than 20 enemy targets were destroyed by air defence forces," the Kyiv City Military Administration wrote on Telegram.

Explosions were heard in Kyiv in the early hours of Wednesday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app, and debris from targets destroyed by air defences damaged several buildings in the Ukrainian capital.

Klitschko said a store building and an administrative building were on fire and one person had been wounded by glass shards. He did not say whether the debris was from missiles or drones.

Russia accused Ukraine of launching what appeared to be the biggest drone attack on Russian soil since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine 18 months ago.

Drones hit an airport in the western Pskov region and started a massive fire there, the governor and local media reported. More drones were shot down over Oryol, Bryansk, Ryazan, Kaluga and the Moscow region surrounding the Russian capital, according to the defence ministry.

The strike in Pskov, which was first reported minutes before midnight, hit an airport in the region's namesake capital and damaged four Il-76 transport aircraft, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported, citing emergency officials.

Pskov regional Governor Mikhail Vedernikov ordered all flights to and from the airport cancelled Wednesday, so damage could be assessed during daylight.

Footage and images posted on social media showed smoke billowing over the city of Pskov and a large blaze.

Russia's military said via Telegram early on Wednesday that one of its aircraft had destroyed four rapid Ukrainian vessels carrying up to 50 paratroops in an operation on the Black Sea.

Russia's military, reporting on Telegram, said early on Wednesday it had downed three Ukrainian drones over the southern Bryansk region and one over the central Orlov region.

The airspace around Moscow's Vnukovo airport was briefly closed early on Wednesday, the state TASS news agency quoted Russian aviation officials as saying. The airport was later reopened to air traffic.

The closure was ordered after officials said the military was repelling a drone attack on an airport in the western city of Pskov.

TASS, quoting emergency services, said four Il-76 transport aircraft, long the workhorse of the Russian military, were damaged at the military airfield.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced a new package of military assistance for Ukraine.

The package includes additional mine-clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, ammunition for artillery and high bar systems, and over 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition, Blinken said in a statement.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met his French counterpart Catherine Colonna in Paris.

The funeral of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, was held privately at a cemetery on the outskirts of his hometown St Petersburg, his press service said on Tuesday.

Russia on Tuesday handed 11-year jail terms to two exiled journalists accused of spreading misinformation about the military, pursuing a historic crackdown on criticism of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine said Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, one day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.

Read yesterday's liveblog to see how the day's events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app

Wagner chief Prigozhin's death in plane crash confirmed by genetic tests, Russian inquiry says

Drones shot down near Moscow and over Belgorod, Russia says

Russian investigators recover flight recorders, 10 bodies from Wagner crash