Ukraine updates: Russian officials should be investigated -Wagner

An Iraqi citizen fighting with Russia’s Wagner mercenary force was killed in Ukraine in early April, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has told Reuters.

This is the first confirmed case of a Middle East native dying in the conflict.

Abbas Abuthar Witwit died on April 7, a day after arriving at a Wagner hospital in the Russian-controlled, eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, the RIA FAN news site earlier reported.

In video published by Russia’s news agency RIA FAN, a man identified as Witwit’s father is shown receiving awards posthumously given to his son, and saying that he had supported his decision to enlist in Wagner as a “volunteer”.

“Abbas always pursued his freedom and wanted to be a man who defends his freedom and himself, and he told me he found his freedom in Russia,” he is shown saying.

After 10 months of warfare, ground assaults have largely come to a halt and the guns have mostly fallen silent in the city of Bakhmut.

Instead of continuing the attritional ground battle for Bakhmut, Russia and Ukraine turned to a largely psychological war in the air.

Read more here.

The European Union is looking to broaden sanctions against Russia to target people involved in the abduction of children from Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said.

“The 11th package of sanctions we are working on includes the option to go after those responsible for child abductions,” Rutte said at a joint news conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in The Hague.

“That’s something we are working on. The other point of focus is sanction circumvention. Making it possible to go after the people responsible,” he said.

The International Criminal Court in March said children had been taken from orphanages and children’s homes to Russia, with many alleged to have been given up for adoption there. Moscow has repeatedly denied these accusations.

The administration of US President Joe Biden does not know who is responsible for a drone attack on an apartment building in Moscow on Tuesday, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby has said.

“And it’s not like we’re going to go out and investigate this,” he added. “That would not be appropriate for us to do.”

Ukraine has denied responsibility.

Kirby has said that “where and when, or even if” peace talks between Russia and Ukraine resume will be decided by Kyiv.

“[Zelenskyy] has to be ready to sit down and talk. And the conditions have to be amenable to him,” the US White House national security spokesman said.

He added that Washington would not put pressure on the ally to resume negotiations.

“Shouldn’t the Russians be at the table? Yeah, eventually, if there’s gonna be a negotiated peace. But again, President Zelenskyy gets to determine that and the Russians have shown no inclination of being interested in a negotiated settlement,” he said.

White House National Security spokesman John Kirby has said that while the United States does not have a say in Ukraine’s military decisions, it had been “clear” in saying that the 39th drawdown of equipment announced on Wednesday should not be used to strike Russian territory.

“We certainly have been clear publicly that we do not support attacks inside Russia. And we do not enable and we do not encourage attacks inside Russia,” Kirby said.

While Ukrainians “decide what they’re going to do with the equipment that has been provided to them … we certainly don’t want to see attacks inside Russia that … are conducted using our supplied equipment”, Kirby said, adding that the US had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s flat assurance that he would not use the F-16 to strike Russian territory.

The US defence department has announced an additional $300m aid package to help Ukraine “continue to defend its sovereign territory,” it said in a statement.

“It includes key capabilities to support Ukraine’s air defenders as they bravely protect Ukraine’s soldiers, civilians, and critical infrastructure amid Russia’s continuing air strikes killing civilians across Ukraine,” the statement said.

This included additional munitions for Patriot air defence systems, which are seen as critical as Ukraine tries to protect civilians and key infrastructure.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called on the West to offer Ukraine “tangible and credible” security guarantees as it battles Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine “is today protecting Europe”, Macron said at the GLOBSEC Bratislava Global Security Forum.

“We have to build something between the security provided to Israel and full-fledged membership,” he said, adding that Ukraine must be helped with “all means” possible.

Moscow has said Germany’s decision to reduce Russia’s diplomatic presence on its soil was an “ill-thought out” move and vowed a response.

“There should be no doubt in Berlin that these ill-thought out provocative actions will not remain without our proper reaction,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

NATO will not allow Russia to decide when Ukraine can join the Western alliance, Norway has said as it hosted NATO foreign ministers.

“It is for Ukraine and NATO allies to decide when Ukraine becomes a NATO member, it’s not up to Moscow to decide,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt told reporters on the eve of a two-day meeting with her NATO counterparts.

The alliance has not acceded to Ukraine’s request for fast-track membership. Last week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine would not be able to join while the war with Russia raged but said that would be different when the conflict was over.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has had a phone call with Pope Francis to discuss topics including the war in Ukraine, the Brazilian government has said in a statement.

Lula thanked the pope for his peace efforts but lamented that the conflict had escalated. Brazil and the Vatican both put forward proposals for a negotiated agreement to end the conflict.

The statement added that Lula invited Francis to visit Brazil, noting the Roman Catholic leader replied he would consider the invitation. The two are set to meet in person in Vatican in June or July.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has urged the European Union to grant her country EU candidate status, arguing it would help European security, boost the bloc’s regional influence and help democracy in Georgia.

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine applied in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the EU granted that status only to Ukraine and Moldova.

“European candidate status is not only about essential democratic recommendations but also about the future European security architecture,” Zourabichvili told the European Parliament. “It is about long-term stability.”

“Europe understands the importance of this region for the new world that is emerging,” she said, adding that her country would act as a “pro-European force in the region”.

The UN has proposed that Kyiv, Moscow and Ankara start preparatory work for the transit of Russian ammonia through Ukraine, Reuters has reported, citing a source close to the talks.

The UN wants parallel talks to be held on widening the Black Sea deal that was agreed last July to include more Ukrainian ports and other cargoes, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Ukraine and Turkey have agreed to the new proposal, intended to improve operations in the Black Sea grain export corridor, but Russia has not yet responded, they added.

The United Nations did not immediately comment on the Reuters report.

The German government’s spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit has told Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle that Ukraine has the right to attack Russian territory when it qualifies as “self defence”.

But he said that he does not think German weapons should be used for the attacks.

Russian shelling in the Vovchansk region of Ukraine’s Kharkiv has killed a 60-year-old man, according to the region’s military administration.

In a statement on Telegram, the administration also said that a 52-year-old woman has been hospitalised due to shrapnel wounds.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, says Russian shelling in the region has injured a child.

“A 3-year-old girl was injured by the shelling. The girl’s head was injured by shards of glass,” he said in a statement on Telegram and added that she has been hospitalised in Kherson.

Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office said that a 30-year-old man and a child of an unspecified age were also injured after the villages of Stanislav and Bilozerka in Kherson were shelled by Russia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says there is “clear progress” from Moldova’s efforts to become a member of the European Union.

“It is amazing to see that despite all the pressure, Moldova is advancing rapidly and with great quality,” von der Leyen said at a joint news conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

Moldova, which borders Ukraine, applied for EU membership last March, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu says the European Political Community summit hosted by her country sends a European message of commitment to peace and condemnation of Russia’s invasion.

At a joint news conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Sandu said Moldova belonged inside the European Union and stressed that the summit on Thursday was important for Chisinau and Europe.

When Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group mercenary company, bristled at Russia’s top brass, he did not mince his words.

“Scum”, “damn it” and “go to hell” were among the most quotable phrases from the video rant filled with homophobic slurs and prison slang that was released on Prigozhin’s Telegram channel on May 5.

But the problem with Prigozhin’s profanities – as well as the corrupting influence of “fenya” (jail jargon) and the overtly romanticised lifestyle of career criminals on Russia’s politics, culture and daily life – lies much deeper.

It was Prigozhin’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who started peppering his speech with salty phrases and fenya idioms at the dawn of his rule 23 years ago.

Read more.