Ukraine war live updates: Russia says it’ll react ‘extremely harshly’ to any further border attacks; Kyiv fights back in Bakhmut

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov thanked his British counterpart on Twitter for visiting Kyiv.

“We had a very meaningful discussion focused on priorities for increasing Ukraine’s defense capabilities, particularly providing long-range weapons such as Storm Shadow,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter, referencing the UK-made air-launched cruise missile.

Reznikov added that the two also discussed Ukraine’s ascension to the NATO military alliance.

— Amanda Macias

In the past five days, no ships have left Ukrainian ports under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to the latest figures provided by the U.N.-backed organization tracking the export activity.

The Black Sea grain deal, which reopened three Ukrainian ports and established a humanitarian sea corridor for agricultural exports was extended last week.

The last ship to sail under the agreement carried 6,800 metric tons of wheat and departed Ukraine’s port of Chornomorsk for Italy on May 19.

— Amanda Macias

Ukraine’s defense ministry said Russia is continuing to “militarize” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) occupied by Russian forces in southern Ukraine.

“Currently, the territory of power units No. 1, 2, 4 is actually used as a logistics and military base,” the defense ministry said in a statement Wednesday, repeating previous accusations that Ukraine has levelled at Russia, accusing it of using the nuclear plant as a military base. Russia has previously denied the claims.

The defense ministry said that firemen, armored vehicles and trucks are stationed at the nucler facility, Europe’s largest, permanently but that the number of vehicles and military personnel is constantly changing. 

“Five to 20 pieces of equipment can be near each power unit during one day. The rotation takes place covertly during the curfew (from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.). All trucks are tightly sealed. There is information that they may contain ammunition and explosives,” the ministry noted, without providing further detail.

The ZNPP has frequently found itself at the center of hostilities in the war and earlier this week, the plant suffered its seventh emergency power outage since the start of the invasion, forcing the plant to rely on diesel generators to power core cooling systems.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia will react “extremely harshly” to further attacks by fighters entering its territory from Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday.

The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked a Russian border region with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.

“We will continue to respond to such actions by Ukrainian militants promptly and extremely harshly,” Shoigu told Defense Ministry officials, in remarks published by the ministry.

— Reuters

China and Russia should further upgrade economic, trade and investment cooperation, and expand cooperation in energy, state media cited Chinese President Xi Jinping as saying on Wednesday.

China is willing to continue to support issues concerning core interests it shares with Russia, Xi said in a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Beijing, CCTV reported.

— Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov both blamed the West for creating global insecurity and instability.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, Putin said Wednesday that the world was becoming increasingly unstable and that “new centers of tension are emerging.”

Speaking at a high-level meeting in Russia on security issues, Putin said rising instability was due to individual countries and associations trying “to preserve, retain their dominance, impose their own rules, completely ignoring the sovereignty, national interests, traditions of other states.”

“All this is accompanied by a build-up of military potential, unceremonious interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” he said, “as well as attempts to extract unilateral advantages from the energy and food crises provoked by a number of Western states.”

Speaking at the same event, Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said the West wanted to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and claimed NATO weapons for Ukraine were being spread beyond the country’s borders.

“The collective West does not hide its intention to inflict a strategic defeat on us. The Kyiv regime is being used as an anti-Russian battering ram, which is being pumped up with NATO weapons. At the same time, part of the Western supplies — and an increasing part — are spreading uncontrollably around the world,” he said, news agency Tass reported.

Russia invaded Ukraine 15 months ago in a bid to overthrow the pro-Western government in Kyiv and regain its influence over the former Soviet republic. Western countries rallied round Ukraine to provide it with military and financial aid to help it defend itself against its neighbor.

— Holly Ellyatt

A pro-Russian official in the Donetsk region of Ukraine said Wednesday that the “peak of anxiety” had passed in Bakhmut, a town Russian mercenary forces claimed to have captured last weekend.

“The peak of anxiety, when there was the most active phase, the enemy tried to surround the guys on the flanks in Artemovsk itself, has passed,” said Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed acting leader of Donetsk, a region in eastern Ukraine that’s partially occupied by Russian forces, using the Soviet-era name for Bakhmut.

“I think that the risk is minimized but, of course, it exists, because the enemy can throw some more reserves,” Pushilin said, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenary fighters claimed to have fully captured Bakhmut last weekend after nine months of intense fighting with Ukrainian forces over the town. Ukraine denied the claim, however, saying it still occupied southwestern peripheral parts of the city and that its forces were advancing on the flanks of the city in a bid to encircle Russian forces there.

The battle for Bakhmut has become highly symbolic rather than strategic, with Kyiv reluctant to abandon the town. Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that Bakhmut continues to be at the epicenter of fighting in the wider Donetsk and that Russian forces had conducted unsuccessful operations to the west of the town.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s oil revenues rebounded in March and April to reach the highest level since November last year, according to a new report, bolstering President Vladimir Putin‘s ability to finance the Kremlin’s onslaught in Ukraine.

Analysis published Wednesday by the Centre for Research in Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, found that Russia’s revenues from oil exports have recovered from levels reached in January and February.

The findings show that Moscow has recently been able to successfully claw back earnings from fossil fuel exports despite the imposition late last year of import bans from the European Union and a broader G7 oil price cap.

It comes less than a week after G7 leaders said at the conclusion of the Hiroshima Summit in Japan that a price cap on Russian oil and petroleum products was working, Russian revenues were down and falling oil and gas prices were benefitting countries around the world.

— Sam Meredith

Russian President Vladimir Putin told an audience Tuesday that Russia was going through “difficult times” as its invasion of Ukraine continues, but said national pride was growing.

“Yes, Russia is going through difficult times now; things have never been easy, but, still, today we are seeing a moment of our common consolidation, with our national pride being sharpened,” Putin told an awards ceremony Tuesday, according to comments reported by state news agency Tass.

Putin said Russia was “striving at all costs to strengthen the foundations of our spirituality, to create the conditions in the economy, manufacturing, and education of our young people in order to ensure the unconditional future of our country.”

Putin said Russia had become more self-sufficient in recent years, although he did not cite international sanctions as a reason for this.

“We have become much more self-sufficient. Without self-sufficiency, there can be no sovereignty, and self-sufficiency is being achieved in all areas: in art, in science, in industry and, of course, in the military,” he said.

Russian officials have frequently tried to look on the bright side of a raft of international sanctions, imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as well as earlier misconduct, ranging from 2016 U.S. election interference to the nerve agent poisoning of a former spy in the U.K.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused mass destruction in the country and the deaths of thousands of civilians (the U.N. estimates the number at almost 9,000, although the real number is likely to be far higher) and possibly several hundred thousand deaths among soldiers from both sides.

— Holly Ellyatt

The Kremlin said Wednesday that it’s premature to talk about a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov saying the preconditions for an end to the conflict did not yet exist.

When asked by reporters which peace proposals were closest to Russia’s position, Peskov said:

“It is premature to talk about this as long as there are no prerequisites for a peaceful settlement. The special military operation continues,” he said in comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass.

Russia’s “special military operation,” as it calls its invasion of Ukraine, would be accomplished, Peskov added.

“Russia is taking under consideration only the completion of its special military operation: ensuring its interests, achieving Russia’s goals either through the special military operation, or by other available means.”

When asked to clarify whether the Kremlin was ready for negotiations with their counterparts in Kyiv, Peskov said, “It is unlikely that this can be discussed, because any negotiations with the Russian Federation are prohibited [in Ukraine].”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last year that Kyiv would not negotiate with Russia while Putin was in office.

Both Russia and Ukraine have “red lines” that they say they will not cross when it comes to any possible, future peace deal. Kyiv says Russia must remove all of its troops from occupied areas and says it wants all of its territory returned, including Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.

Moscow wants all Ukrainian regions it has annexed illegally to be recognized as Russian territory and wants guarantees Ukraine won’t join NATO. On this latter point, there may be room for compromise, Ukraine said, if it can receive security guarantees from its international allies.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia and China are in an “alignment of convenience” — not a deep alliance that will “last 10 or 20 years,” said Joseph Nye, Harvard University distinguished service professor emeritus.

Both countries see the U.S. as a “common irritant” rather than a “common enemy,” Nye told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

China has positioned itself as a peace broker for the war in Ukraine, sending representatives to Russia, Ukraine and other European countries last week in an attempt to set up negotiations. It released a 12-point peace plan in February calling for a de-escalation of the war.

The peace plan is not realistic because “the Chinese don’t want to irritate the Russians,” Nye said. But if Ukraine’s planned spring offensive achieves a degree of success, Putin may feel that a ceasefire makes sense and China might “press him to accept” something more serious, Nye explained.

Beijing wants to “pose as the peacemaker” to regain its position in Europe, the professor said. “China cares about its soft power, its attractiveness in Europe, and it’s lost a good deal through the strong support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

But to reduce its reputational damage, he added, China will have to “push Russia a little bit harder.”

— Audrey Wan

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on his official Telegram channel that Kyiv is working to remove Russian forces from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“We are working with all our partners to force Russia to leave the ZNPP and create a demilitarized zone around the plant,” according to an NBC News translation.

The nuclear facility, Europe’s largest, was seized by Russian forces in the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, has previously called on Russia and Ukraine to create a demilitarized zone around the facility in order to mitigate a nuclear disaster.

— Amanda Macias

The Kremlin placed blame on Western governments providing Ukraine with weapons, saying it’s contributing to global security instability.

“The more weapons are supplied, the more dangerous the world will be,” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chief of the Russian Security Council, told reporters, according to a TASS report.

“The more destructive these weapons are, the more likely the scenario of what is commonly called a nuclear apocalypse becomes,” he added.

Over the weekend, the Biden administration announced its 38th weapons package for Ukraine worth approximately $375 million.

— Amanda Macias

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow slammed a Russian court’s decision to extend the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months.

The embassy also called for regular consular access to Gershkovich, adding that so far there have been two attempts that were denied.

The most recent incident came last week.

“We reiterate that the claims against him are baseless and call for Mr. Gershkovich’s immediate release,” the U.S. Embassy in Moscow wrote in a statement.

— Amanda Macias

No ships have left Ukrainian ports for four days following an extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to the latest figures provided by the U.N.-backed organization tracking the export activity.

The last ship to leave under the agreement was carrying 6,800 metric tons of wheat and departed Ukraine’s port of Chornomorsk for Italy on May 19.

The deal, which reopened three Ukrainian ports and established a humanitarian sea corridor for agricultural exports, was extended last week, one day before it was set to expire.

— Amanda Macias

A Russian court decided to extend Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s detention by three months, according to a report from NBC News in Moscow.

Gershkovich, a reporter based in Moscow, was arrested in March by Russian authorities on espionage charges.

The decision from the Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow comes on the heels of a request by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, to keep Gershkovich detained.

The Biden administration and The Wall Street Journal deny Russian allegations that Gershkovich was operating as a spy in Russia.

— Amanda Macias

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke out against continued fighting in Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine itself cannot win the war and that the West needs to step in to end the conflict.

“Looking at the reality, looking at the figures, looking at the surroundings, looking at the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it’s obvious that there is no victory for poor Ukrainians on the battlefield,” Orban said during the Qatar Economic Forum.

“That’s my position … Escalation should be stopped and we should argue in favor of peace and negotiations.” He added that the war was the result of a “failure of diplomacy.”

The right-wing, populist Orban is on good terms with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has not directly condemned him for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has also openly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him an “opponent” and pushing back against sanctions on Russia and certain European Union aid packages to Ukraine.

“As a state, Ukraine is of course very important but in the longer term, strategically thinking, what is at stake is the future security of Europe,” Orban said at the forum.

“It is obvious that, without the United States, there is no security architecture for Europe. And this war cannot be stopped … unless the Russians can make an agreement with the United States. As a European, I am not happy with that. But it is the only way out.”

— Natasha Turak