Updated May 31, 2022 at 11: 30 p.m. EDT|Published
May 31, 2022 at 2: 00 a.m. EDT
The Biden administration on Tuesday confirmed it is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, responding to a top request from Ukrainian officials who say the weapons are necessary to curb the advance of Russian forces in the east.
“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” Biden said in an essay published Tuesday evening in the New York Times. A senior U.S. official stated that Ukrainian officials had given assurances they wouldn’t use weapons against Russian targets.
Russian forces now control most of Severodonetsk, one of the last major Ukrainian-held areas of the eastern Luhansk region, local officials said Tuesday evening. Russia had been pounding the city for several weeks, and the Kremlin would be celebrating a symbolic victory by capturing the area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow’s combat power is at “maximum” strength in its push to capture the wider Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk. “The situation in the Donbas direction is very difficult,” Zelensky said in his nightly address, adding that Severodonetsk is “at the epicenter of the confrontation.”
Here’s what else to know
- A Ukrainian court found two Russian soldiers guilty of shelling civilian sites during fighting in Kharkiv, the second verdict handed down in a war crimes trial in Ukraine since the conflict began.
- Fuel prices in the United States set a record Tuesday after the European Union agreed to a partial ban on Russian oil, the bloc’s most significant economic move yet to punish Moscow for the unprovoked invasion.
- Jailed Russian opposition leader and Ukraine war critic Alexei Navalny said Russian authorities are pursuing a new criminal case against him that could keep him in prison for 15 more years.
- Zelensky has denounced Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports, which has halted the export of 22 million tons of grain.
- The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel.
Russia is building a ‘fun and tasty’ McDonald’s replacement
Less than two weeks after McDonald’s struck a deal to sell hundreds of its Russian restaurants to a local buyer, a picture is starting to emerge of how the discarded burger joints will be run without American involvement.
“The only way,” “fun and tasty,” “the same one” and “free checkout” are among the phrases turning up in Russian trademark filings, which the state-owned newswire, RBC, described as a series of applications for a new name.
It’s unclear whether the filings reflect possible new restaurant names as opposed to marketing slogans. The filings were not commented on by representatives of the fast-food chain. Nor was it clear whether they were submitted by the Siberian-based buyer of 850 local stores or some other entity altogether.
As Luhansk falls to the Russians, civilians are desperate to evacuate
BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Larisa Strelnikova arrived in this once peaceful town in an armored bus last week, dodging Russian shells and death.
For the past three months, the 79-year-old had lived mostly underground, taking cover in her basement as Russian forces bombarded her beloved city of Severodonetsk. Her neighborhood market was destroyed one day and the bus station another. Her apartment was set ablaze when a Grad rocket crashed into it.
“People rescued me and sent me here,” she mumbled, still disoriented by the jarring turn of events in the winter of her life. After a pause, she said that “I gave birth there to my children.” The other is gone. One is dead. I can’t remember when I spoke to him last.”
Biden confirms U.S. is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine
President Biden on Tuesday confirmed that his administration is sending medium-range advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, responding to a top request from Ukrainian officials who say the weapons are necessary to curb the advance of Russian forces in the east.
Biden said the more advanced rocket systems and munitions will enable Ukraine “to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.” Ukrainian officials provided assurances they would not use the weapons to strike targets inside Russia, a senior U.S. official said. This could lead to an increase in conflict and possibly provoke Russian retaliation against U.S forces or its allies.
“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” Biden said in an essay published Tuesday evening in the New York Times. His essay stated that he did not want to see a conflict between NATO and Russia.
Russia now controls ‘most’ of Severodonetsk, a key eastern city, official says
Russian forces now control “most” of Severodonetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city that is key to Moscow’s strategy in the region, a local leader said Tuesday evening.
Severodonetsk, located in the Luhansk region, is one of the area’s last large cities that is still under partial Ukrainian control — for now, at least. After days of bombardment and ground attacks, Russian troops are making rapid progress towards the center.
Earlier Tuesday, Luhansk’s regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Russia controlled “around half” of the city. Hours later, he said “most of Severodonetsk” — perhaps as much as 70 percent — was under Russian rule.
“Almost 100 percent of the city’s critical infrastructure has been destroyed, 90 percent of the housing stock has been damaged, 60% of which critically, i.e. it cannot be restored,” Haidai wrote in a post to Telegram.
The city has been cut off from central sources of water, gas and electricity, he said, and the near-constant rate of shelling has made evacuation and humanitarian aid impossible.
Haidai also said that Russia struck a nitric acid tank at a chemical plant, exposing residents to toxic fumes.
Russian troops have sought to surround the city and employ the same siege tactics they used to brutal effect in Mariupol, but Haidai said they have so far been unable to encircle Severodonetsk. He said that street fighting was continuing.
Moscow has long signaled it would try to capture the entire Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk, and the fall of Severodonetsk would allow Russian leaders to claim a badly needed symbolic and territorial victory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Severodonetsk is “at the epicenter of the confrontation.”
“The situation in the Donbas direction is very difficult,” the president said in his nightly address.
Some military analysts have argued that Russia’s focus on Severodonetsk is a tactical error and have said that Kyiv should avoid doubling down on its defense and instead concentrate finite military resources on more strategically important areas in the Kharkiv region. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Ukraine’s decision to apparently withdraw troops from Severodonetsk is “strategically sound, however painful.”
Zina Pozen contributed to this report.
U.N. official has ‘constructive discussions’ with Moscow on Russian grain exports, food crisis
A senior U.N. official had “constructive discussions” with Moscow over the export of Russian grain, a U.N. spokesperson said Tuesday, while millions more tons of wheat remained blocked at Ukraine’s war-torn ports — issues that are exacerbating an already critical global food crisis.
Rebeca Grynspan, head of the U.N. trade and development body, traveled to Moscow on Monday to meet with Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Andrei Belousov, to discuss “facilitating Russian grain and fertilizer to global markets,” a growing concern amid increasing food insecurity across the world, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a Tuesday briefing.
The Kremlin has claimed that the tide of sanctions from the United States, Europe and other countries has disrupted the flow of shipments. Linda Thomas-Greenfield (American ambassador to the United Nations), acknowledged Tuesday that Russian companies seeking to export grain to Russia are “a bit nervous” despite the fact that the United States does not sanction such products.
She said U.S. officials could provide shipping and insurance companies with “comfort letters” to ensure them that grain transport would not incur penalties.
“Russia is able to get its oil out, and that’s sanctioned,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “They should be able to get their grain out that’s not sanctioned.”
At the same time, Russian forces have blocked up to 25 million tons of grain from leaving Ukraine, the ambassador said.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grain and other staples, and Russia’s invasion is threatening the food supply of countries around the world.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine has made worse a global crisis,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Updates from key battlefields: Russia controls ‘most’ of Severodonetsk
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Chernihiv
Sumy
POLAND
Kharkiv
Kyiv
Lviv
Izyum
Lyman
UKRAINE
Separatist-
controlled
area
Dnipro
Russian-held
areas
and troop
movement
Mariupol
Mykolaiv
ROMANIA
Kherson
Odessa
Crimea
Annexed
by Russia
in 2014
Control areas as of May 29
100 MILES
Sources: Institute for the Study of War, AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Chernihiv
Sumy
Separatist-
controlled
area
POL.
Kharkiv
Kyiv
Lviv
Lyman
Mykolaiv
Mariupol
ROMANIA
Odessa
Kherson
Crimea
Annexed by
Russia in 2014
200 MILES
Control areas as of May 29
Sources: Institute for the Study of War,
AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
THE WASHINGTON POST
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Chernihiv
Sumy
POLAND
Kharkiv
Kyiv
Zhytomyr
Poltava
Lviv
Izyum
Lyman
Cherkasy
UKRAINE
Kramatorsk
Luhansk
Dnipro
Uman
Kropyvnytskyi
Donetsk
Separatist-
controlled
area
Zaporizhzhia
Mariupol
Russian-held
areas and troop movement
Mykolaiv
ROMANIA
Berdyansk
Kherson
Odessa
RUSSIA
Crimea
Annexed by
Russia in 2014
Control areas as of May 29
100 MILES
Sources: Institute for the Study of War, AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
Russian forces are attempting to seize Severodonetsk, one of the largest Ukrainian-controlled cities in the east. Russia would take almost all of Luhansk and the entire Donbas. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, stated that Moscow has “maximum” combat power in its attempt to seize this area.
Severodonetsk: “Most” of this besieged city is controlled by Russian forces, Serhiy Hadai, the head of the region’s military administration, said in an update on Telegram — up from around half previously — although he said the city is “not surrounded.” The city’s critical infrastructure has been destroyed, and the majority of its houses are damaged — around 60 percent of those irreparably, Hadai said. He said that it was impossible to obtain humanitarian aid or evacuate people due to Russian bombardment.
Donbas region: Russia must capture the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and a key road linking the cities of Dnipro and Donetsk to achieve its probable goal of seizing the entirety of the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update Tuesday. Severodonetsk is about 45 miles northeast of Kramatorsk.
Kharkiv region: Photos showed buses evacuating people on Monday from the town of Kupiansk, on the outskirts of Kharkiv. Reuters reports that the Russian forces had taken control of the city. According to the military administrator, the Kremlin has been unable to seize Ukraine’s second largest city. However, they still control about one third of Kharkiv Region.
Kherson region: Ukrainian and Russian forces are jostling for control of some parts of this southern area, where Ukraine is aiming to disrupt the Russian front line, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. However, the scope of Ukrainian counterattacks is limited and analysts at the Institute for the Study of War don’t believe they are in a position to take back Kherson. This city was under Russian occupation during the first days of war. A local separatist leader said the port city had started shipping grain to Moscow — amid a Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain exports elsewhere.
Amy Cheng, Andrew Jeong and Morgan Coates contributed to this report.
Zelensky says E.U. oil move will further isolate Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the European Union’s partial embargo on Russian oil, calling it an important step toward isolating Moscow economically and cutting off a key source of its funding.
“I am grateful to everyone who worked to reach this agreement,” Zelensky said during a Tuesday evening address. “The practical result is minus tens of billions of euros, which Russia will now be unable to use to finance terror.”
The E.U. deal, which required agreement from all of the bloc’s 27 members, ends the seaborne delivery of Russian oil in the coming months. The ban on pipeline deliveries is lifted, as a concession to countries that are heavily dependent upon oil from Russia, such as Hungary. This deal had been blocked for several weeks.
Zelensky framed the step as accelerating the global market’s transition to renewable resources, which would have a broad effect on Russia’s economy.
“With such an aggressive policy and a course of isolation from the civilized world, Russia simply will not be able to adapt,” he said. It will be economically defeated. Lose economically.”
The oil phaseout is part of the sixth package of E.U. The sixth package of the E.U. sanctions Russia. Zelensky promised to push for an eighth.
Oil prices surge, gas hits new high after E.U. cracks down on Russia
Americans filling their gas tanks are feeling intensifying economic reverberations from the war in Ukraine.
Fuel prices set a new record Tuesday and crude costs surged after the European Union agreed to a partial ban on Russian oil, the bloc’s most significant economic move yet to punish Moscow for the unprovoked invasion. Average U.S. gasoline price is now $4. 62, according to AAA; that’s 52 percent higher than last year and an inflationary pressure point that can choke consumer spending and flatten economic growth.
Drivers in seven states — including Illinois, Nevada and Oregon — are paying at least $5 for a gallon of gas, on average, while Californians are shelling out more than $6. The average price for motorists from every state is $4.
The European Union agreed Monday to curtail the use of Russian oil within months, an effort it said would cut roughly 90 percent of oil imports to the member nations. According to E.U., the bloc granted concessions and will allow for exemptions or extensions to ban pipeline delivery. Diplomats and officials.
Following the E.U. Following the E.U. announcement, oil prices soared for both international and U.S. benchmarks. Brent crude rose 2 percent, and West Texas Intermediate gained 3.5 percent. ExxonMobil shares rose 1.7 percent, 1.4%, and 0.8 percent respectively. Shell’s share price also rose.
Russian strike hits nitric acid tank in Severodonetsk, local official says
A Russian airstrike struck a nitric acid tank in Severodonetsk on Tuesday, posing yet another risk to residents seeking shelter as fierce fighting continues in one of the last big cities under Ukrainian control in the eastern region of Luhansk.
Serhiy Haidai, the region’s governor, urged residents in a Telegram post Tuesday not to leave bomb shelters or hideouts because nitric acid can be toxic if inhaled or swallowed. If they don’t have gas masks, he advised them to use them.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nitric acid is a highly corrosive “colorless liquid with yellow or red fumes with an acrid odor.” Nitric acid exposure in humans can cause irritation to eyes, skin and mucous membranes and cause delayed pulmonary edema — fluid buildup in the lungs — and other conditions such as pneumonitis and bronchitis.
It was not immediately clear whether any civilians were hurt or killed in the airstrike or from contact with the acid.
Photos show Ukrainians evacuating from town in Kharkiv region
Three months of war have upended the lives of millions of Ukrainians, many of whom have fled their homes.
Photos showed buses evacuating people on Monday from the town of Kupiansk, which Reuters reported was under the control of Russian troops. According to the news agency, the convoy was travelling in the greater Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine.
The buses’ final destination was not immediately clear, but the images showed one Ukrainian service member greeting a woman who got off a bus.
Tens of thousands of people have been shuttled out of their cities and towns near the front lines, or from areas that Russian forces captured, under evacuation deals between Kyiv and Moscow.
In Monday’s evacuation, the convoy appeared to transport men, women and children in at least three buses.
Russian forces have focused their fire on the Kharkiv region and made some gains in other parts of eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, pummeling towns and villages and forcing people to hide in basements. According to Ukrainian forces, their counterattacks managed to drive back Russian troops from Kharkiv (the country’s second largest).
Since late February, the war has forced more than 6.8 million people to flee Ukraine and displaced many more inside the country, according to the United Nations.
Ukrainian officials have also accused Moscow of forcibly relocating some refugees to Russia, a charge the Kremlin denies.
Jailed Kremlin foe Navalny says new case launched against him
By Mary Ilyushina11: 34 a.m.
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Tuesday that Russian authorities have opened a new criminal case against him that could extend his time behind bars by 15 years.
“It turns out that I created an extremist group to incite hatred toward officials and oligarchs,” reads a post on Navalny’s Instagram account written in Russian. And when I was imprisoned I dared be so dissatisfied (really? why would I?) and called for rallies.”
“For this, I am supposed to be thrown into jail for another 15 years,” he added.
The new charge came to light just a few days after a court upheld Navalny’s nine-year sentence in a separate fraud case. He was already serving a 2 1/2 -year sentence imposed upon his return to Russia in early 2021 after he received treatment in Germany for a poison attack blamed on Russian agents.
Navalny dismissed all the cases as politically motivated, saying the Kremlin views him as a challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power.
Last year, a court in Moscow banned political organizations linked to Navalny, classifying them as “extremist.”
Activists who worked for his Anti-Corruption Foundation and the regional headquarters of his political network risked prison if they continued their work or publicly supported Navalny. These groups were no longer legal entities and his allies in Navalny fled Russia.
In the Tuesday post, Navalny joked that Putin must “secretly love him” to put him in a remote high-security “bunker” for years as Russia wages war in Ukraine.
“My parents came for a visit, and they live in a military town. We joked that Putin will launch a nuclear war and they would get [hit with]. He wrote that he had vast areas of land all around him. “Who would want to bomb a swamp?”
War pushes euro-zone inflation to record 8.1%
Inflation in the euro area hit a record in May, Europe’s statistics agency reported Tuesday, as the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to push up energy and food prices.
Euro-area annual inflation is expected to be 8.1 percent in May 2022, up from 7.4 percent in April, according to an estimate from Eurostat.
Across the euro zone, energy is expected to have the highest annual rate in May, rising 39.2 percent, compared with 37.5 percent in April. The April increase in food, tobacco, and alcohol was 7.5%, compared to 6.3 percent in April.
On Monday, European Union countries agreed to phase out seaborne imports of oil from Russia, a move that is expected to hit most of what Russia sends to Europe — and send prices soaring further.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said earlier this month that she anticipated a rate rise in July. “Based on the current outlook, we are likely to be in a position to exit negative interest rates by the end of the third quarter,” she wrote.
Russian lawmaker proposes abducting Western defense minsters in Ukraine
A Russian lawmaker, Oleg Morozov, is floating the idea of kidnapping defense ministers from NATO countries amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Morozov criticized Western countries for sending weapons to Ukraine and said such actions pose a direct threat to Russia.
“You know, perhaps it is a fantastical plot that I have brewing … that in the near future, at some stage, a war minister of some NATO country will go by train to Kyiv to talk with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky,” Morozov told the “60 Minutes” talk show on Rossiya-1 state television late Monday, Reuters reported. He would never get there. Morozov stated that he would awaken somewhere in Moscow.
“You mean we abduct them?” TV host Olga Skabeyeva asked.
“Yes. And then we would sort out who gave which order for what, who is responsible for what exactly,” said Morozov, who was first elected to Russia’s parliament in 1993.
He said that his idea was “not such a mythical picture,” because “there are new rules in the world now.” He added: “Let all those war ministers gathering in Kyiv think a little about what it would be like to wake up in Moscow.”
Several heads of government and senior Western officials — including U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and several European Union officials — have visited Kyiv in recent weeks. The Kremlin has previously cited an expanding NATO presence on Russia’s borders as a rationale for its invasion of Ukraine.
Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia join war crimes investigation team
Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia will join an effort by several Eastern European countries and the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova announced at a news conference in The Hague on Tuesday.
The initiative by Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine will gather and share evidence and prosecute alleged war crimes committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine in their national courts.
“This is what is needed for crimes of the magnitude that we often see at the ICC — we need to build partnerships,” ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan told reporters, calling the team a “dynamic” and “imaginative” approach that will harness the skills of forensic and crime scene experts from a variety of nations.
The Joint Investigative Team was established March 25. To “deepen cooperation” and collaborate with all the countries involved, the ICC was added to the team the next month. This team is an effort to reduce conflict and strengthen massive efforts across states and jurisdictions to hold Russia responsible for war crimes.
Venediktova said her office sees 200 to 300 war crimes allegations each day, with close to 15,000 alleged war crimes cases in total. It has identified nearly 80 suspects and has begun prosecutions, with three Russian soldiers convicted of war crimes and sentenced to prison terms this month.
For the crime of aggression — meaning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — she said her office has identified 600 suspects, including high-level Russian politicians, military commanders and “propaganda agents.”
Eurojust, the European Union’s criminal justice agency, is helping to coordinate and fund the joint investigation team, with extra funds to be provided by the European Union, said Ladislav Hamran, president of Eurojust.
