Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine denies any involvement in drone attack Moscow says was Putin assassination attempt

Read More

There appears to be a developing row over the leaked news earlier that Volodymyr Zelenskiy intended to visit Berlin on 13 May. Reuters, citing German media outlet t-online, reported that sources close to the Ukrainian government said the announcement of Zelenskiy’s visit was “irresponsible”, and there is now doubt over whether the trip could still take place.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, citing the regional authority, reports that Russia has struck at a village in the Kherson region. It posted to its Telegram channel:

Russian aviation attacked Kizomys in the Kherson region. Released three guided aerial bombs over the village. Three residential buildings were completely destroyed and a gas pipeline was damaged. There are no dead or injured.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has responded strongly to Russia’s claim that “the Kremlin has assessed these actions as a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president” about the reported drone strike on the Kremlin.

In a tweet, Podolyak cautioned that the event was being used as a pretext for “a large-scale terrorist attack”. He wrote:

As for the drones over the Kremlin. It’s all predictable … Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack. That’s why it first detains a large allegedly subversive group in Crimea. And then it demonstrates “drones over the Kremlin”.

First of all, Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war and does not attack targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.

What for? This does not solve any military issue. But it gives the Russian Federation grounds to justify its attacks on civilians …

Secondly, we are watching with interest the growing number of mishaps and incidents that are taking place in different parts of the Russian Federation. The emergence of unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles at energy facilities or on Kremlin’s territory can only indicate the guerilla activities of local resistance forces.

As you know, drones can be bought at any military store …

The loss of power control over the country by Putin’s clan is obvious. But on the other hand, Russia has repeatedly talked about its total control over the air.

In a word, something is happening in Russian Federation, but definitely without Ukraine’s drones over the Kremlin.

For some context, when Podolyak refers to “The emergence of unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles at energy facilities or on Kremlin’s territory can only indicate the guerilla activities of local resistance forces”, in recent days explosives have derailed freight trains in Russia’s Bryansk oblast, an electricity pylon was toppled in Leningrad oblast, and an oil depot was set on fire in Krasnodar, near Crimea. A facility in Sevastopol has also been struck in recent days.

Podolyak states “Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war and does not attack targets on the territory of the Russian Federation”. However, governors of the Russian regions that border Ukraine have frequently reported shelling that crosses the border into Belgorod and Kursk regions.

The mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, has shared on Twitter the video clip doing the rounds on social media that purports to show a drone strike on the Kremlin in Moscow.

The Guardian has not independently verified the veracity of the footage, which is also being shared by Russian military bloggers on the Telegram messaging app.

The leader of Russia’s Wagner group mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said he believes Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun, after seeing more activity along the frontline.

In a statement published by his press service on Telegram, Prigozhin said that the “active phase” of the counteroffensive would begin in the coming days, Reuters reports.

The government in Kyiv has reacted to the Kremlin accusing Ukraine of launching an assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin’s life with two drones in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Reuters reports that a senior Ukrainian presidential official said Ukraine has “nothing to do with” the drone srike.

They added an attack on the Kremlin would “change nothing on the battlefield” and would probably “provoke Russia to take ‘more radical” actions.”

Here’s some Ukrainian reaction to the Kremlin claim that they tried to assassinate Vladimir Putin in the early hours of Wednesday with two drone attacks (see 12:51pm).

Iuliia Mendel, a former spokesperson for Volodymyr Zelenskiy who is now among the Ukrainian voices who are prolific on Twitter tweeted: “Another threat from the Kremlin. At the beginning of the war, it made several attempts to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskiy and kept silent about this. How much trust do we have in Russian information about alleged Ukrainian drone attacks on the Kremlin? After years of lies and provocations?”

An interesting report here, as Russia has claimed Ukraine used a drone to try to kill Vladimir Putin overnight.

Footage has circulated on social media of a small smoke cloud rising over the Kremlin in Moscow in the early hours of Wednesday.

The Kremlin said it considered the attack to be a “planned terrorist action”, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.

It said two drones had been used in the alleged attack, but had been disabled by Russian defences.

Putin was not injured, and there was no material damage to the Kremlin buildings, the Kremlin said.

“The Kremlin has assessed these actions as a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president on the eve of Victory Day, the 9 May Parade,” RIA said.

It said Putin had not changed his schedule and was working as normal in Novo Ogaryovo, outside Moscow.

“The Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,” it said.

Three Russian navy ships were observed in the Baltic Sea in the area of the Nord Stream pipeline blasts prior to the sabotage that halted Russian gas flows to Europe in September last year, an investigation by four Nordic broadcasters has found according to Reuters.

The Russian navy ships were traced using satellite images and intercepted radio communication from the Russian fleet, the four broadcasters, Denmark’s DR, Norway’s NRK, Sweden’s SVT and Finland’s Yle, said.

Authorities in Denmark, Sweden and Germany have said the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and newly built Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines that link Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea were deliberate. But they have yet to publish any findings of their respective investigations.

The Nordic broadcasters found that in June and September last year, the Russian ships sailed from navy bases in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad to the area northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm where three of the four pipeline leaks happened.

One of the vessels, a tugboat named SB-123 capable of launching mini-submarines, was located in the area on 21 and 22 of September they found.

Separately, the Danish Armed Forces confirmed to Reuters that a patrol vessel had taken 26 photos of a Russian submarine rescue vessel named SS-750 near the Nord Stream blast site on 22 September last year, just days before the explosions happened.

The incident took place seven months into Russia’s war on Ukraine. The Kremlin on Tuesday denied Russian ships had any involvement in the sabotage and called for results of the investigations to be published.

Moscow has, without providing evidence, blamed the explosions on western sabotage. Both the United States and Ukraine have denied having anything to do with the attacks as has Russia.

The Russian ships traced had all switched off their AIS signal, an automatic tracking system used on ship, they said.

The EU has unveiled a plan to boost its defence industry and speed up the supply of ammunition to Ukraine.

In March, EU foreign ministers agreed to supply Ukraine with EUR2bn worth of shells to replenish rapidly dwindling stocks and bolster its defences against Russia. Part of that plan relies on revitalising the European defence industry, which is not yet in “war industry mode”, the European commissioner for the EU internal market, Thierry Breton, told reporters on Wednesday.

Europe had a “substantial, diversified defence production capacity” with companies in eleven EU member states capable of producing shells, but lacked “the scale today to meet the security needs of Ukraine and our member states” he said.

Breton added he was confident the EU defence industry had the potential to scale up.

“I am confident that within 12 months we will be able to increase our production capacity to 1 million rounds of ammunition per year for Ukraine,” he said.

The European Commission has pledged EUR500m from the EU budget to fund grants for companies. Public funds could allow factories manufacturing shells and missiles to expand or modernise production capacity or train workers. Breton said the actual figure could be EUR1bn as member states could match the EU funds.

The French commissioner is also seeking rapid agreement on a regulation that would allow authorities in Brussels to instruct an arms manufacturer to prioritise defence-critical orders.

The set of measures is entitled the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (Asap) in an unusually snappy acronym for the EU.

Ukraine’s government has complained, however, that the EU has been slow in fulfilling a key promise on ammunition. A pledge to procure EUR1bn worth of ammunition through joint procurement for Ukraine remains bogged down between EU member states in discussions over technical details.

A curfew has been announced in Kherson for this weekend for “law enforcement” reasons.

Oleksandr Prokudin, Kherson’s head of the regional military administration, said on Telegram that it will come in to force at 8pm on Friday and last until 6am on Monday.

He said: “During these 58 hours, it is forbidden to move on the streets of the city. The city will also be closed for entry and exit.”

Prokudin urged residents to stock up in food and water.

He added: “Such temporary restrictions are necessary so that law enforcement officers can do their job and not put you in danger.”

Stringent curfews were regularly in place in cities across Ukraine from the early days of the war, with some remaining in a limited fashion overnight.

Agence France-Presse said that curfews have previously been used for troop and arms movements. The city was only retaken in November during Ukraine’s sweeping counteroffensive.

Germany’s NTV channel is reporting that Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is in Helsinki today on a rare trip outside Ukraine’s borders, will also visit Berlin next week on 13 May.

Rail deliveries to Russia’s Black Sea port of Taman will be restricted until further notice, Russian Railways said on its website, after Russian officials said a fuel depot had caught fire near a crucial bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea. Reuters reports the company did not provide the reason for the restrictions.

Russia launched a third nightly round of attacks on Kyiv in six days, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said on Wednesday, with a drone hitting a building in the Dnipropetrovsk region as Moscow steps up attacks on its neighbour. Ukraine’s air force Command said its forces destroyed 21 of the 26 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, while Kyiv officials said air defence systems eliminated those sent over the city, with no initial reports of casualties or destruction.

At least three people have been killed and five wounded in a Russian strike on a supermarket in Kherson.

A fuel storage facility near a key bridge in Russia’s southwestern region of Krasnodar was on fire in the early hours of Wednesday, the regional governor said, but there were no initial reports of casualties. Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency has reported that the fire at an oil facility in Volna was caused by “the fall of a drone”. Smoke from the fire can be seen from across the Kerch Strait in occupied Crimea.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the White House did not advise him about the leak of highly classified US intelligence documents that received widespread attention around the world last month. “I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” Zelenskiy was quoted as saying in an interview with the Washington Post published on Tuesday. “It is unprofitable for us,” he added. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”

Finnish media is reporting that Zelenskiy has arrived in Helsinki. Ukraine’s president is expected to give a joint press conference with President Sauli Niinist? later today, and also to have meetings with other leaders from the region.

A 20-year-old man from Mykolaiv has been detained under suspicion of aiding Russian forces by informing them about the bases of the Ukrainian defence forces in the region.

Russia’s security services claim to have foiled a plot to attack leaders of the Russian-imposed government in Crimea. Tass reports that the FSB named Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, as one of the architects of the plot, without providing evidence. The FSB said it had detained six citizens of Russia and Ukraine, as well as a citizen of Ukraine and Bulgaria, involved in the transport of explosives and components of explosive devices.

Here is an image which shows Volodymyr Zelenskiy‘s motorcade on the move in Helsinki, a rare visit outside Ukraine’s borders for the president.

Ukraine’s defence forces have issued a video in which a member of Ukrainian service personnel calling himself “Captain Himars” promises Russian soldiers that they avoid striking at barracks in sectors where people are leaking to the Ukrainians the coordinates of armoured vehicles and ammunition stores.

The video also claims that, contrary to what has been stated by Russian’s ministry of defence, no Himars systems on the Ukrainian side have been put out of action. It also shows the weapons being stored in what is described as a Soviet-era bunker built to withstand nuclear attacks.