Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Blinken discusses Ukraine military aid; Finland confirms NATO bid

Ukrainian troops appear to have forced a Russian withdrawal in Kharkiv and are launching counterattacks near the northeastern city with the aim of disrupting supply lines and making it harder for Moscow to encircle Kyiv’s forces and capture the entire Donbas region, analysts and local officials say. In the southeast, the two sides are effectively in a stalemate.

Here are updates from key battlegrounds:

Kharkiv: Ukrainian forces have mounted a counterattack in the area, pushing away Russian troops, officials say. Officials from Ukraine said that Moscow is trying to stop the Ukrainian forces’ advance toward Russia’s border.

Luhansk: Ukrainian forces blew up railway bridges between the cities of Rubizne and Severodonetsk to halt Russian advances in the area, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday.

Mariupol: The Ukrainian military on Sunday described “massive artillery and airstrikes” at a steel plant in this shattered city, where the last holdouts from the Ukrainian military have sheltered. Officials from Ukraine say that they have been in negotiations with Russians regarding the release of wounded soldiers.

Zaporizhzhia: In this southeastern region, the front lines have almost completely frozen — with both sides effectively in stalemate, a Pentagon intelligence official said last week. The small Russian and Ukrainian soldiers cannot see each other from their base in the area’s villages. They trade artillery fire to stop any advance.

Kyiv: A wartime curfew began an hour later starting Sunday, as the capital treads cautiously toward some semblance of normalcy. The new curfew is from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said in a Telegram post.

Lviv: A Russian missile struck military infrastructure in this city in western Ukraine early on Sunday, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said in a message on Telegram. He said that no injuries or deaths were reported immediately from the attack.

Hannah Knowles and Louisa Loveluck contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will address “leading American universities” Monday and speak to Stanford University this month.

The Association of American Universities (AAU) — which includes 63 schools in the United States and two in Canada — is hosting Zelensky for a talk Monday on the “Future of Ukrainian Higher Education.” Zelensky said in a video address Sunday that he also plans to speak with Ukrainian university students.

Ari Chasnoff, a spokesperson for Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, confirmed in an email that Zelensky is set to address “the Stanford community” by video May 27.

Moscow’s forces are trying to stave off Ukrainian troops’ advance toward the Russian border and continuing attacks elsewhere in the east, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday.

“In the Kharkiv direction, [the Russian] enemy focused its main efforts on maintaining the occupied positions and preventing the advance of our troops to the State Border of Ukraine,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, is an early target for Russia due to its proximity to the northeastern frontier.

The military also said Russian forces are attacking and seeking “full control” in Donetsk and Luhansk — two eastern regions with pro-Russian separatists — as well as the region around Kherson, the southern city that Russia captured early in its invasion.

The Ukrainian military also reported Russian shelling in the Kharkiv area, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address that Russian missiles hit the western Lviv region as well as cities in the east.

In the southern port city of Mariupol, Zelensky said, Ukrainians “continue very complicated and delicate negotiations to save our people.” Civilians were recently evacuated from a steel plant where Ukrainian soldiers remain isolated and under assault, officials say. On Sunday, the Ukrainian military described the attack at the facility as “massive artillery” and “airstrikes”.

When the hosts of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, Italy, announced the popular vote results for Ukraine, a crowd that had gathered at the Italian Embassy in Washington on Saturday for the European Union’s watch party erupted into cheers. After a technical problem, the stream was stopped. The guests gasped.

Just seconds after learning that the Ukrainian folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra would gain 439 points and topple every other country on the leader board, the live stream had cut out, leaving frontman Oleh Psiuk’s elated — and now pixelated — face frozen on the screen.

It was a strangely specific time for a technical glitch. Some might argue that this was too precise in the age of cyberwarfare.

While Ukraine moved from fourth to first after the public vote, final results for Sweden, Spain and the United Kingdom — which led the jury vote — had yet to be announced. Ukraine had not yet won a victory.

Leaders of NATO alliance countries broadcast their support Sunday for Sweden joining the Western defense group after the Nordic nation’s governing party said it would no longer oppose such a shift.

Melanie Joly, the Canadian minister of foreign affairs, said that “Sweden will undoubtedly be an asset to the Alliance” and added, “There is no time to waste.”

“Another welcome decision by a long-standing friend,” tweeted Liz Truss, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary.

Edgars Rinkevics, the minister of foreign affairs for Latvia, also hailed the “good news.” He said his country — a neighbor to Russia — “would be happy to be among the first ones to ratify Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the Alliance.”

Finnish leaders have also said they will seek NATO membership. U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken stated that he had heard “almost universal support” for Sweden’s and Finland’s inclusion to NATO at a meeting foreign ministers.

POLTAVKA, Ukraine — There was an air of levity on the firing range as Ukrainian Territorial Defense soldiers took their first breather from the war in weeks. As their comrades laughed, each soldier took to the ground and tested his rocket-propelled weapons. Some turned their backs to the sun, enjoying a brief moment of peace between blasts.

“You guys don’t have long before you get back out there,” a commander reminded the group. “Rest while you can.”

Almost three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s forces are stalled in eastern regions that President Vladimir Putin promised to “liberate.” In Donbas, which Russia no longer recognizes as part of Ukraine, Moscow’s gains have been limited. It has lost territory to the west, near Kharkiv. The frontlines have nearly frozen in the Zaporizhia region to the southeast.

Russian forces shelled a hospital Saturday in Sievierodonetsk, the second-most populous city in the eastern region of Luhansk, wounding nine civilians, according to Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk Oblast Regional Military Administration.

A video that Haidai shared on Telegram showed what appeared to be the damaged entrance and facade of the hospital, most of its windows shattered.

It was one of 11 other attacks that Russian forces carried out on Saturday in the city, damaging a chemical plant, a school and several residential apartment buildings, Haidai said.

Ukrainian officials said recently that during the 80 days of the invasion, Russia has targeted and caused widespread damage to Ukraine’s medical infrastructure, including partial or total destruction of 616 medical facilities.

The country’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, said Sunday on Telegram that from the more than 600 facilities damaged, 101 have been “completely destroyed.” She added that according to Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashk, 32 billion hryvnias, more than $1 billion, is needed to restore them.

In the Chernihiv region, which was occupied by Russian forces for weeks before coming back under complete Ukrainian control, Denisova accused Russia of completely destroying eight hospitals and damaging 37.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said Sunday that the decision to move forward in supporting an application for NATO membership came after weighing whether the Nordic nation’s long-standing nonalignment still serves its best interests.

“Our 200-year-long standing policy of military nonalignment has served Sweden well,” she said. “The issue at hand is whether military nonalignment will keep serving us well.”

Sweden’s Social Democratic Party concluded, she said, that Sweden should join NATO, and that it would support an application for NATO membership together with Finland — whose leaders confirmed earlier Sunday that the nation would seek its own membership.

Andersson said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which she described at a news briefing as “illegal and indefensible” also “undermines the European security order that Sweden builds its security on.”

She said the Kremlin has shown that “they are prepared to use violence to achieve their political objectives and that they don’t hesitate to take enormous risks.”

As a member of NATO, Andersson said, the country would be able to better ensure its own security and “also contribute to more security.”

“Within NATO, Sweden would be a security provider,” she said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday he expects the Senate to advance the approval of nearly $40 billion of additional aid to Ukraine on Monday, with a final vote taking place Wednesday, after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) single-handedly stalled the aid package last week.

On Saturday, McConnell and a Republican delegation made an unannounced visit to Kyiv, where they stressed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that there was broad bipartisan support for helping Ukraine.

“I think it’s important for the United States to help, important for the free world to help,” McConnell said in a call with reporters Sunday from Stockholm.

“It’s important to point out to our colleagues and the American people that it’s in our interest to do this. When asked his opinion on some Republicans’ concerns regarding spending in Ukraine, he said that this isn’t charity. This isn’t a handout. This is about a ruthless thug beginning a march through Europe.”

McConnell said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health and mental fitness was not discussed, nor did the GOP delegation cover specifics about continued efforts to evacuate civilians and wounded Ukrainian fighters from besieged Mariupol.

McConnell said he would support the United States designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, and he described Finland’s and Sweden’s expected formal applications to join NATO as “one of the good things that’s come out of this invasion.” McConnell plans to visit Helsinki on Monday.

McConnell said that providing U.S. rocket systems, tanks and other weapons to Ukraine remains “under consideration.” He said the terms for ending the war were for the Ukrainians to decide.

“Victory is whatever Zelensky and the Ukrainians conclude is satisfactory,” he said. “President Zelensky wants their country back, so territorial integrity is the goal.”

Sweden’s ruling party greenlights joining NATO

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Finland’s Niinisto says talks with Putin on NATO bid were ‘calm and cool’

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