The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine. It said the measure was taken in response to Washington’s failure to process visas for “representatives from the journalistic pool” of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday. Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May. Putin has ordered the Russian government to create museums dedicated to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, according to instructions published on the Kremlin website.Ī Moscow court on Thursday ordered the dissolution of a prominent research centre specialising in racism and xenophobia in Russia, in the latest move against critical voices since the start of the Ukraine conflict. The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Thursday he had been joking when he said his men would suspend artillery fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists. Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades. Stoltenberg said 98% of promised combat vehicles had been delivered to Ukraine, comprising 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, welcomed the discussion between China’s President Xi and Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy and repeated the possibility of the war ending at the “negotiating table”. The Kremlin said relations with European countries were at their “lowest possible level” amid more expulsions of diplomats. But Russia still needed to achieve the aims of its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia welcomed anything that could hasten the end of the Ukraine conflict when asked about Wednesday’s phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders. The sanctions are largely symbolic, since the organisation is already under sweeping existing sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration is sanctioning Russia’s Federal Security Service for wrongfully detaining Americans. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia will do “everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario … but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests”.

Russia said its patience should not be tested over nuclear weapons in another repeat of hardline rhetoric. The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is genocide.Īt least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraine’s presidential office said, including one person killed and 23 wounded when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments: In the early hours of Friday morning, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv and across Ukraine, with explosions reportedly heard in Dnipro and in the Potava region – the Guardian has not been able to verify the explosions yet. Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Raid alert britain