- Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is in Beijing, where, ahead of signing bilateral agreements with China, he said: “Today, relations between Russia and china are at an unprecedented high level”. He said Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March was further evidence of the “special” nature of bilateral relations between the two countries. It is expected that Vladimir Putin will visit China later this year.
- Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and over 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion into Belgorod by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian region.
- Gladkov also announced two more incidents, stating a drone attack over Novaya Tavolzhanka failed when the explosive device dropped did not detonate, and that shelling in Terezovka has injured one person who has been hospitalised as a result.
- Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass is reporting some quotes from Denis Pushilin, Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, who has said that the situation for Russian forces on the flanks of Bakhmut has stabilised.
- The Russian-built Crimea Bridge linking the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian region of Krasnodar was reopened on Wednesday after being closed for several hours for “exercises”, an official from Crimea’s Russian-imposed administration said.
- Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that 2,000 people have been left without electricity in Putyvl in Sumy oblast. It cites the regional energy authority claiming it was due to Russian shelling.
- The chief executive of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy business, Rosatom, discussed security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi. Alexey Likhachev was attending a meeting in Beijing.
- Older people have suffered and died at a disproportionately high rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a UN report showed on Wednesday, with some perishing because they were barred from fetching medicines or leaving basements. The report compiled by UN human rights monitors showed that about a third of the civilians killed in the first year of the war were over 60. The UN found older people were hit exceptionally hard by power outages due to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure trapped many in their upstairs apartments. Others had to be evacuated in haste, sometimes in wheelbarrows because there was no time to fetch their mobility devices. Many were left behind.
- Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Wednesday his country is plannning to launch a submarine purchase programme this year.
- US popular support for Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Norc shows.
- UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has told a defence conference in London that Ukraine’s western allies are prepared to support the country in the war “for years”, the FT reports.
- The training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday. He told a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels: “I am happy that finally the training of the pilots for the F-16 has started in several countries. It will take time, but the sooner the better … For example, in Poland.”
- Borrell also said Tuesday EU countries had provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles to Ukraine since March. Member states are discussing raising Europe’s military budget by another €3.5bn, €1bn of which would be earmarked for Ukraine.
- A Moscow court extended the detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on espionage charges at the end of March. During a brief hearing, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported. The US called for Gershkovich’s immediate release.
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited marines on Tuesday on the Vuhledar-Marinka defence line in the Donetsk region, as part of celebrations for the national day of Ukrainian marines.
