US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in the first visit to Ukraine by a senior US official since Congress passed a long-delayed $61 billion military aid package in April. U.S. officials said Monday they were working on it speeding up the delivery of this aid to the frontline. The US State Department said Blinken would met with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyand Ukrainian officials “to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security commitments and more, and ongoing work to strengthen Ukraine’s economic recovery.”
Ukrainian officials said only a few hundred residents remained in the northeastern city Vovchansk outside Kharkiv amid fierce battles. Russia attacks new areas with small groups to try to expand the front and stretch Ukrainian forces, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Sinegubov. “The situation is difficult.”
Russian forces were moving towards Vovchansk, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Russian border, as well as Liptsi north of Kharkiv, said Sinegubov. Ukrainian troops were trying to establish themselves in a meat processing plant on the outskirts of Vovchansk. About 5,700 people were evacuated from and around Vovchansk, and the remaining 300 or so were ordered to leave.
The Ukrainian army recognized Russia was “achieving tactical success” after launching its ground attack on Kharkiv on Friday. The DeepState Telegram channel, which is close to the Ukrainian military, said Russia has taken about 100 square kilometers (39 square miles) of territory. Ukraine is conducting “constant fire”, including from drones, “but unfortunately this does not stop them”, the channel said.
This was said by the Chairman of the Security Council of Ukraine, Oleksandr Litvinenko Moscow had deployed tens of thousands of troops against the Kharkiv area. “There are many Russians, quite a few. About 50,000 were at the border. Now far more than 30,000 are coming.” On Monday evening, a rocket hit Korotich, a village near the city of Kharkiv, killed a 38-year-old man and injured three, the police said. Earlier attacks wounded a 71-year-old woman in Liptsi and a 69-year-old man in the town of Izum, the governor said.
Ukraine has carried out drone strikes against western Russia, a security source in Kiev told AFP. hits an oil terminal in the border region of Belgorod and an electrical substation in the Lipetsk region. The missiles hit the Russian-controlled region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, according to Moscow-appointed governor Leonid Pasechnik. The attack on an industrial area of the town of Sorokine, known as Krasnodon in Russian, killed three and wounded four, he said.
In the southern region of Kherson, two people were found dead after hitting a residential buildingsaid the head of the regional military administration Alexander Prokudin.
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said it foiled a Russian launch operation in Kiev bombs disguised as tea wrappers in construction markets and a car bomb in front of a cafe. There was also a defense enterprise in the western city of Lviv. Two Russian military agents were detained on suspicion of involvement and 19 explosive devices were seized, announced by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. The SBU said the four Kiev bombs were intended to detonate in the capital on May 9, when Russia was celebrating victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. The Lviv attack was supposed to take place in February, the SBU said.
In Spain, a pensioner who allegedly sent letter bombs to the Spanish prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in 2022 was arraigned Monday, facing up to 22 years behind bars if convicted. Pompeo González Pascual, a man in his mid-70s from northern Spain, was against the support of Spain and the USA for Ukraine after the Russian invasion and “attempted to change these positions and cause deep upheavals in Spanish society,” the indictment said.
The US State Department called it a sign of “desperation” after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, ousted its veteran defense minister, Sergei Shoigu and replaced him with senior economic official Andrey Belousov.
The British opposition The Labor Party has confirmed its “ironclad” commitment to Ukraine during a visit to Kiev on Monday by the party’s shadow foreign and defense ministers, David Lammy and John Healy. Britain’s Labor Party is well ahead of the ruling Conservatives in polls, with a national election due later this year.
