Today at 12: 55 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 4: 12 p.m. EDT
RIGA — Bringing home 5 million refugees, restoring the borders to what they were prior to Feb. 24 and joining the European Union are among the ways Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would define a victory, he told a forum on Friday. He stated that Ukraine wanted to return disputed territory and join the European Union and didn’t care if Vladimir Putin lost.
Ahead of Russia’s Victory Day on Monday, leaders across Ukraine are urging caution to residents, warning the country of potential increased missile strikes. Cities were increasing patrols, instituting curfew and reminding citizens not to gather in large groups.
Meantime, heavy fighting continues at the besieged Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, where Russian forces are intensifying their attack, striking a car during a cease-fire, reportedly killing one and wounding six. Twenty-five civilians were evacuated on buses Friday.
On the battlefield, the governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine described the situation there as “continuous horror,” accusing Russian forces on Friday of damaging homes and infrastructure. According to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi of Ukraine, the top military officer, the Ukrainians have moved to the west to stop Russian forces from attacking Kharkiv or Izyum. There are ongoing clashes with the eastern side.
Here’s what else to know
- More than 500,000 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, Zelensky said. Zelensky stated that Ukrainians were deported to Russia because they had been forced to do so. They are all taken from their homes. Their documents are taken away, their means of communication are taken away.”
- First lady Jill Biden is visiting Romania and Slovakia this weekend, where she plans to spend Mother’s Day with Ukrainian women.
- European Union ambassadors are debating plans to ban Russian oil imports. However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that the proposals would amount to “dropping a nuclear bomb on the Hungarian economy.”
- The United States provided intelligence that helped the Ukrainian military sink the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship, U.S. officials told The Post, though they insisted Friday that they did not have any involvement in the decision to strike.
- The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel.
More civilians evacuated from Azovstal steel plant
More civilians were evacuated Friday from Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, both Ukrainian officials and Russian media said, although they provided different numbers.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that despite Russian cease-fire violations, 50 people were evacuated from the embattled steel plant where Ukrainian fighters are holding out.
“The evacuation was extremely slow. However, today we managed to extract 50 women, children and the elderly from Azovstal. “We will continue our evacuation operation tomorrow morning,” she stated in a statement.
Russian state media said that 25 Ukrainian civilians were evacuated Friday. RIA Novosti reported that 12 civilians, including four children, departed on one bus, while a second bus carried 13 civilians, one of whom was a child. The buses arrived at the Russian-controlled village of Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, according to Reuters, and were reportedly accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations. These groups were assisting in the organization of evacuations.
The Washington Post could not independently verify the numbers.
Earlier in the day, the Azov Battalion said Russian forces struck a car during a cease-fire near the territory of the besieged steel plant, killing one and wounding six. The Ukrainian regiment, which has been connected with a far-right ideology, wrote in a Telegram post that “a car was hit by Russians who used [an] anti-tank guided weapon.”
E.U. oil ban stalled by pushback, especially from Hungary
European Union ambassadors failed to reach a consensus Friday on a proposal to phase out Russian oil imports after strong pushback from member states, particularly Hungary.
The European Commission plan, which was announced Wednesday, would ban oil imports after six months and refined petroleum products by the end of the year. Two countries that remain heavily dependent on Russian oil — Hungary and Slovakia — were granted extensions through the end of 2023.
The proposal must be approved by all 27 member states. E.U. discussed it. It was discussed by the E.U. ambassadors on Thursday but there wasn’t a consensus. The commission has upped its offer, saying Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic could keep buying from Russia until 2024, according to two E.U. diplomats.
In an interview Friday morning, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban compared the potential oil deal to “dropping a nuclear bomb on the Hungarian economy,” according to Hungary Today, dampening hope for a breakthrough.
At talks later Friday, Hungary pushed for even more time and for money to upgrade its oil infrastructure, according to the diplomats, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Another sticking point is whether to ban E.U. shipping firms from moving Russian oil, the diplomats said.
E.U. Ambassadors will again meet Saturday in an effort to make a deal.
Biden to sign Ukraine aid bill on Russia’s ‘Victory Day’
President Biden will sign the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act on Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
The bill, which Congress passed at the end of April, speeds up the process by which the United States sends weapons and other types of aid to Ukraine.
Some Ukraine-Russia experts were quick to note that Biden will be signing this bill into law on May 9, the day Russians celebrate Victory Day.
While the celebration has historically marked the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, the holiday has become more significant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has used it as an occasion to parade tanks and missile trucks along city streets in a display of the country’s military prowess.
It is not clear whether the White House decided to schedule the signing of the lend-lease bill on such a significant day to send a message to Putin. Biden will sign this bill one day after signing it on Sunday at the Group of Seven.
Psaki said G-7 member countries will discuss the latest developments in Ukraine, show support for the country and demonstrate that the group remains strongly unified.
E.U.’s top diplomat is ‘very much worried’ Russia could invade Moldova
The European Union’s top diplomat for foreign affairs acknowledged Friday that the E.U. The European Union’s top diplomat for foreign affairs acknowledged Friday that Russia was threatening to invade Moldova, and extend the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s foreign affairs chief, was asked during a forum in Florence, whether he or the E.U. Concerned about Russia potentially entering Moldova, Joesp Borrell was asked during a forum in Florence.
“Yes, we’re very much worried about what can happen,” Borrell said, according to the Associated Press. “The temptation to expand the war and affect Moldova is a possibility.”
Russia has driven fears in recent weeks that its invasion of Ukraine could spill over into other countries. Rustam Minniev, the deputy commander of Russia’s Central Military District stated last month that Moscow is seeking to “fully control” eastern and southern Ukraine in order to allow it to have access to Moldova. Transnistria, a separatist region of Russia, has been strongly aligned with Moscow and houses a Russian military presence.
The remarks seemed to hint that the Kremlin — which has been stymied in its bid to take over the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv — still wants to conquer wide swaths of its neighbor’s land, and potentially threaten the nations that lie beyond. Minnekayev’s remarks drew swift condemnation from Moldova, where residents have worried since the beginning of the war they could be next in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.
At the forum Friday, Borrell said his concern over Moldova stemmed from reports of the presence of Russian troops as well as recent explosions in the country.
Zelensky says peace talks possible only when Russia is pushed back
RIGA — Ukraine will enter into serious peace negotiations with Russia only after its troops have been pushed back or retreated from all of the territory occupied since Feb. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a forum Friday.
At a time when Ukraine’s Western allies have been expressing the hope that the huge quantities of weaponry being rushed to Ukraine will help to not only secure Ukraine’s victory on the battlefield but also weaken Russia, Zelensky spelled out his own vision of what a Ukrainian victory might look like, at an online event organized by the Chatham House think tank.
He said he hoped diplomacy would ultimately resolve the conflict, with Russia retreating behind the lines it held before Feb. 24 being a “minimum step” before serious talks could begin.
“Despite the fact that they destroyed all our bridges, I think not all the bridges are yet destroyed, figuratively speaking,” he said.
Zelensky said he is not concerned with goals beyond Ukraine’s borders, such as weakening or defeating Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I do not care what happens to some leaders and where they end up. For me what matters is Ukraine’s victory, and by Ukraine’s victory I mean something that belongs to us.”
That would mean ensuring that all of the 5 million refugees who have fled the country return to Ukraine, that the economy is restored to its state before the invasion, that Ukraine is admitted to the European Union and that the Russian military leaders responsible for atrocities are held to account, he said.
He also made it clear that the ultimate goal was the return of all Ukrainian territory, including the areas of Donbas and Crimea that have been under Russian occupation since 2014.
“I was elected as president of Ukraine. He said, “I was elected as president of Ukraine.”
More than 500,000 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia, Zelensky says
More than 500,000 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
Speaking to the Parliament of Iceland via video conference, Zelensky challenged Icelandic leaders to reflect on the number of Ukrainians who have been deported to Russia since late February.
“More than 500,000 of our people have already been deported to Russia. They were forced to go there,” Zelensky said, according to Interfax. They are taken from everything. Their documents are taken away, their means of communication are taken away.”
The Ukrainian president told the Icelandic government that the figure was “more than the total population of your beautiful country.”
Zelensky echoed previous comments made by Mykyta Poturayev, the head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s humanitarian committee. Poturayev told European lawmakers last month how Russia had deported a half-million Ukrainians “without agreement,” Reuters reported.
The Washington Post is unable to independently verify the number of Ukrainians deported to Russia during the war. More than 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country since the start of the invasion, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Zelensky claimed that the many Ukrainians deported to Russia were part of a bigger effort to create “a silent labor force” and capitalize on favorable agricultural opportunities.
It was an honor to hear @ZelenskyyUa address the Icelandic Parliament. He is powerful and his words are inspiring. We stand with Ukrainians in this dangerous moment as they fight for their lives. pic.twitter.com/qRjIKYNmbX
— Katrin Jakobsdottir (@katrinjak) May 6, 2022
Biden, G-7 leaders to meet virtually with Zelensky on Sunday
President Biden and other G-7 leaders will meet virtually with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a G-7 forum Sunday, according to the German government.
The meeting, chaired by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “will cover current issues, particularly the situation in Ukraine,” German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann told reporters Friday.
“Ukrainian President Zelensky will take part and report on the current situation in his country,” she said.
The White House’s National Security Council confirmed the meeting, saying there will be discussions surrounding additional sanctions against Russia, which is already facing historic, wide-ranging sanctions enacted since the invasion began in late February.
Hoffmann noted that Sunday’s meeting will take place on the 77th anniversary of Germany’s surrender during World War II. She stated that the “cohesion of G-7” is crucial given what’s been happening in Ukraine over two months.
Ukrainian officials urge caution to residents ahead of Victory Day
Leaders from across Ukraine are urging caution to residents ahead of Russia’s Victory Day, warning the country of potential increased missile strikes on Monday’s Russian holiday.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post that while there won’t be a curfew in the region, there will be increased patrols around the capital.
“I appeal to Kyivites: Today is not the time for mass festivities or outdoor recreation with large companies,” Klitschko wrote. “Be careful and follow the rules of security in wartime.”
In Zaporizhzhia, acting Mayor Anatolii Kurtev announced a curfew in the city from 7 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Tuesday. Kurtev asked residents to stay home and to bring their documents.
“Follow the curfew!” Kurtev wrote on Telegram. “If you appear on the street at an unspecified time, you may be mistaken for a saboteur.”
Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, referenced an airstrike in Kramatorsk last month that killed dozens of people on railway platforms as they tried to flee the region, according to the Ukrainian news agency Unian.
“It is important that there are no mass events,” he said. “We all remember what happened at the train station in Kramatorsk.”
Victory Day is celebrated by Russians in remembrance of their country’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. However, this year there are fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin may use it to declare war on Ukraine. The Kremlin denies that it will.
Klitschko reiterated that Kyiv residents should “not ignore the air alarms and immediately follow to the shelter” if missile strikes escalate on Victory Day.
“In the coming days, there is a high probability of rocket fire in all regions of Ukraine,” he wrote. “Be aware and take care of your own safety!”
Jill Biden arrives in Romania on trip to boost U.S. allies
MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania — First lady Jill Biden arrived here Friday for the first stop on her four-day trip to Eastern Europe, where she will meet with national leaders, U.S. troops and refugees who have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded more than two months ago.
Biden began her visit Friday with a stop at a Romanian air base, where she greeted U.S. and NATO military officials and helped U.S. Army commanders serve macaroni and cheese and potatoes to American troops stationed here. As Russia’s war continues in Ukraine, Biden’s visit is intended to reinforce the U.S. support for its Eastern European partners.
One U.S. service member introduced himself to the first lady as hailing from Pennsylvania, where Biden was raised, adding that he attended the University of Delaware. Biden stated, “I’m also a Blue Hen!” referring to her PhD-winning university. “So is my husband.”
1 dead, 6 wounded after Russians strike during cease-fire, Azov Battalion says
Russian forces struck a car during a cease-fire near the territory of the besieged Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, killing one and wounding six on Friday, according to the Azov Battalion.
The Ukrainian regiment, which has been connected with a far-right ideology, wrote in a Telegram post that “a car was hit by Russians who used [an] anti-tank guided weapon.”
“This car was moving towards civilians in order to evacuate them from the plant,” according to the Azov Battalion.
Although fighting has intensified at the steel plant, a senior Ukrainian official said Friday that almost 500 civilians had been evacuated from the plant and its surroundings, adding that “the next stage is underway in rescuing our people” from the facility.
The battalion’s far-right nationalist ideology has raised concerns that it is attracting extremists, including white supremacist neo-Nazis, who could pose a future threat. Russian President Vladimir Putin described his attack on Ukraine as an attempt to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, and referred to partly the Azov Forces.
On Friday, the Azov Battalion accused Russia of not holding up its end of the cease-fire agreement in the territory near the plant.
“The enemy continues to violate all agreements and fail to adhere to security guarantees of civilians evacuation,” they wrote.
Sudarsan Raghavan, Loveday Morris and Claire Parker contributed to this report.
Russia wasn’t invited to Paris V-E Day celebration, ambassador says
Russia was not invited to an annual celebration in Paris that commemorates the end of World War II in Europe, Moscow’s ambassador to France, Alexei Meshkov, told Russian state news on Friday.
Meshkov, speaking to state news agency TASS as he laid flowers to a monument of the French resistance movement at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, said there was “no room on the podium” for Russian officials at the Victory in Europe (V-E) Day event on Sunday, even though representatives of Moscow “were always invited” since the days of the Soviet Union.
Meshkov complained that ambassadors from former Axis powers would be in attendance. Meshkov stated that ordinary French citizens “remember the ones who won the war,” referring to Soviet Union’s participation in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The French Foreign Ministry did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter and has not independently confirmed that Russian officials were not invited to the event, at which French President Emmanuel Macron will lead a ceremony on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
V-E Day is celebrated on May 8, while Moscow will host its own Victory Day commemorations on the following day, May 9.
Pentagon says it had no prior knowledge of strike on Russian warship
The United States provided intelligence to Kyiv about the Russian warship Moskva, which Ukrainian forces then used to inform their successful attack on the vessel in a defining moment of the conflict last month.
But the Pentagon is emphasizing — in a statement released after The Washington Post and other news outlets published stories Thursday about the U.S. intelligence that helped Ukraine sink the Moskva — that Washington did not have prior knowledge of the strike against the vessel, which sank as a result of the attack.
“We did not provide Ukraine with specific targeting information for the Moskva,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “We were not involved in the Ukrainians’ decision to strike the ship or in the operation they carried out.”
Kirby said that the United States “had no prior knowledge of Ukraine’s intent to target the ship” and underscored that Ukraine has its own capabilities to track and target Russian vessels.
Amnesty says it found ‘compelling evidence of Russian war crimes’ in Bucha
Amnesty International said Friday it had found “compelling evidence” of war crimes by Russian troops when they controlled Bucha in the suburbs of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, before their retreat last month.
It said researchers spoke to residents in Bucha, Borodyanka and other areas in the wider Kyiv region, collecting information about killings and airstrikes on residential buildings. The rights group said civilians faced “apparent extrajudicial executions … reckless shootings, and torture.” It said the investigation was based on dozens of interviews and a review of evidence such as bullet casings and documents left behind by Russian troops.
The report was the latest documentation of alleged atrocities in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, where gruesome imagery of bodies in the streets and signs of torture sparked global outrage and a new round of Western sanctions. Moscow denied the allegations.
“These are very much part of a pattern wherever Russian forces were in control of a town or a village,” Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser, was quoted as saying at a news conference. She said the information could be used “for holding the perpetrators to account, if not today, one day in the future.”
Nearly 25 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine, U.N. says
Nearly 25 million tons of grain is stuck in Ukraine because of the war, a U.N. food agency official said Friday.
“It’s an almost grotesque situation we see at the moment in Ukraine with nearly 25 million tons of grain that could be exported but that cannot leave the country simply because of lack of infrastructure, the blockade of the ports,” Josef Schmidhuber, deputy director of the markets and trade division at the Food and Agriculture Organization, told a Geneva press briefing, according to Reuters.
Mariupol, one of Ukraine’s largest ports, is under siege by Russian forces. Schmidhuber stated that the Russian invasion was likely to cause high global food prices. Ukraine is the largest country exporting grain.
Ukrainian officials have said Russian forces have taken vast stores of grain from Ukraine and exported them to Russia, potentially worsening a global food price problem.
In a statement this past weekend, Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food said farmers in territory occupied by Russian forces reported that the soldiers were “stealing their grain en masse.”
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that he did not have any information about grain theft and that it “looks like a fake [story], or rather, it is a fake.”
