Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv was 9 May terror target, says SBU
Ukraine’s security service (SBU) prevented a terrorist attack that Russia had planned to carry out in Kyiv on 9 May, according to Ukrainian media reports. “The Security Service of Ukraine was proactive, the perpetrators of the terrorist attack were caught red-handed and arrested,” said Artem Dekhtiarenko, SBU spokesman, who was quoted by Ukrainska Pravda and the Kyiv Post, as well as the BBC Russian service. “We have also collected evidence that unequivocally confirms Russian involvement.” The SBU said it would provide further details later.
A drone attack from Ukraine set an oil refinery on fire in the Volgograd region of southern Russia, the regional governor said on Sunday. The Russian Telegram channel Baza, which is associated with Russia’s security services, posted footage of an industrial building in flames. The reports could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from oil producer Lukoil, which owns the refinery, or from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian defence force said its 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade shot down a Russian SU-25 warplane near Avdiivka. It is a jet that provides close air support to ground troops, similar to the American A10.
Fierce fighting has continued on the fringes of the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken the villages of Pletenivka, Ohirtseve, Borysivka, Pylna and Strilecha. Kharkiv’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, however, said on Saturday that active fighting continued in all five of the frontier villages-located within 3km to 5km of the border.
The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has visited the border with Belarus and stressed that Poland will do more to strengthen security along its entire eastern frontier. It is also the EU external border with the autocratic state. Tusk accused Belarus, Russia’s ally, of intensifying a “hybrid war” against the west by encouraging migrants to try to cross into the EU. “I know that there are more and more illegal crossings every day,” Tusk said, also citing “the growing threat resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the uncertain geopolitical situation”.
Five people were killed and nine wounded in three separate Ukrainian drone and artillery strikes on the Russian border provinces of Belgorod and Kursk, and the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, which Russia claims to have annexed, local officials said on Saturday. Denis Pushilin, the convicted Ukrainian traitor installed by Russia as head of east Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said in a statement posted on the Tele
gram messaging app that three civilians had been killed and eight more injured when a Ukrainian missile struck a restaurant in Donetsk city.
The governor in Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said one man was killed and another injured after a Ukrainian drone hit a parked truck in the border village of Novostroyevka-Pervaya. His counterpart in neighbouring Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said a civilian died in hospital after being wounded in a drone strike on the frontier town of Sudzha.
A Moscow-installed official in Ukraine’s Luhansk region said the death toll in a Ukrainian missile strike that caused a large fire with major damage at a fuel depot in the town of Rovenky had risen to four, with 11 injured.
In Ukraine’s Sumy oblast bordering Russia, officials said the Russians carried out 21 attacks with mortars, artillery, drones and missiles on communities including Sumy, Khotyn, Yunakiv, Myropil, Bilopol, Krasnopil, Velikopysariv, Esman, Shalygin and SeredinoBud. In Sumy a woman was killed by a rocket attack. At least 93 explosions were recorded.
Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave extra duties to two key government officials who oversee defence and energy. The Russian president proposed extra powers for Denis Manturov, 55, the only first deputy prime minister in the new government of prime minister Mikhail Mishustin. Putin’s energy tsar, Alexander Novak, 52, will remain as a deputy prime minister overseeing energy but will get additional duties for running the economy, according to the government.