Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian rebels behind Belgorod attack say ‘you will see us again’; Kyiv repels drone strikes | Russia

Russia has denied a fire broke out at the ministry of defence in Moscow, after users on social media and reports in the local Tass news agency said emergency services had been called to the building.

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Tass initially reported on a fire at the ministry early on Thursday morning, saying: “The fire broke out in the building of the Ministry of Defense of Russia in the centre of Moscow.” They cited an unnamed government source and said “a fire broke out on one of the balconies.”

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Emergency services were on the scene, the source told Tass.

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Unknown smoke near the Defense Ministry building in Moscow

Earlier, Russian media reported a fire on a balcony at the Defense Ministry building. However, the Ministry of Emergency Situations later stated that there was no fire in the ministry building.

The cause of the unknown… pic.twitter.com/Sw9nrOiLVQ

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 24, 2023

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Almost an hour later, the news agency published a second story saying: “The Ministry of Emergency Situations did not detect a fire in the building of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation for Moscow told reporters on Thursday.”

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Both stories were still up on the website at 5am Thursday, Moscow time.

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Unverified video circulated on social media early on Thursday showing smoke emerging from the ministry building. In one video of the building seen by CNN, a woman could be heard saying: “The smell of burning is horrible.”

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The Russian commander of a militia that conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week said on Wednesday his group would soon launch more incursions into Russian territory.

Denis Kapustin, who described himself as the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, spoke to reporters on the Ukrainian side of the border with Russia a day after Moscow said it had repelled the raid on the Belgorod region.

Kyiv has said the attack was carried out by Russian citizens, casting it as homegrown, internal Russian strife. Two groups operating in Ukraine – the Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion – have claimed responsibility.

“I think you will see us again on that side,” said Kapustin, who introduced himself by his call-sign White Rex. “I cannot reveal those upcoming things, I cannot even reveal the direction. The … border is pretty long. Yet again there will be a spot where things will get hot.”

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Russian forces carried out overnight drone attacks on Kyiv, officials said Thursday, continuing a month-long campaign of air strikes against the Ukrainian capital.

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Via AFP: Military chiefs said Kyiv’s air defences destroyed all of the drones during the three-hour air attack, the twelfth this month.

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Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration, said in a message on Telegram that Russia “again attacked Kyiv from the air”.

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“The attack was massive,” the statement added. “The enemy continues to use attack tactics in several waves, with intervals between groups of attacking drones.”

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He added that “all detected air targets moving in the direction of Kyiv were destroyed” by Ukrainian air defence systems.

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The attacks were carried out using Iranian-made Shahed drones, the statement added, citing preliminary information.

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Air alerts were also reported in the cities of Kharkiv and Chernivtsi.

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Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.

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Our top stories this morning: The Russian commander of a militia that conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week said on Wednesday his group would soon launch more incursions into Russian territory.

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And Russian forces carried out overnight drone attacks on Kyiv, officials said Thursday, continuing a month-long campaign of airstrikes against the Ukrainian capital. Military chiefs said Kyiv’s air defences destroyed all of the drones during the three-hour air attack, the twelfth this month.

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Here are the other key developments:

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• Washington is looking into reports that American vehicles were used by Ukraine inside Russia, the White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. He said the US has been clear with Kyiv that it does not support any such use of US-made equipment.

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• The Kremlin said the use of US-made military hardware by pro-Ukraine fighters who conducted a raid on a Russian border region this week was testament to the West’s growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The Russian military said on Tuesday it had routed militants who attacked the Russian border region of Belgorod with armoured vehicles the previous day, killing more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and pushing the remainder back into Ukraine.

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• In Belgorod, nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and more than 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Russian region.

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• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Iranians on Wednesday to reconsider the supply of deadly drones to Russia. Iranian-made Shahed drones supplied to Moscow have played a major role in Russia’s attacks on cities and infrastructure. “The simple question is this: what is your interest in being an accomplice to Russian terror?” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “What is the benefit to Iran of such cynical killing?”

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• Ukraine will not be able to join Nato as long as the war is going on, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday. “I think that everyone realised that, to become a member in the midst of a war, is not on the agenda,” Reuters reports he said at an event organised by the German Marshall Fund of the US in Brussels. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”

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• The Russian private army Wagner lost 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, according to the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He said about 20% of the 50,000 Russian prisoners recruited to fight in the 15-month war had died in the eastern Ukrainian city, and a similar number of its regular troop. The figure was in stark contrast with claims from Moscow that it has lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979 and 1989.

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• The World Health Organization assembly passed a motion on Wednesday condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including attacks on healthcare facilities. The motion passed by 80 votes to nine, with 52 abstentions and 36 countries absent, Reuters reported.

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• The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development expects to spend €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in Ukraine next year in support of infrastructure and the economy, a senior source at the bank has said. It comes on top of €3bn already projected for 2022 and the remainder of 2023. The funds have helped the economy continue to function and ensure that there was no run on banks and that civil servants continued to be paid.

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• The European Union has discussed sending Ukraine the profits from €196.6bn of Russian assets that are stuck inside the plumbing of global financial markets, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

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• Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, has accused Washington and London of thwarting efforts to reach a settlement over the conflict in Ukraine and of turning a blind eye to what he said was increasing “terrorism and violence” visited on civilians by Ukraine.

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• The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday. The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg’s city court on 1 June, the court said on its website.

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• The Netherlands wants to give Ukrainian pilots F-16 training as soon as possible, the Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, said on Wednesday in a letter to parliament. The training would be coordinated with Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and other countries could join, Ollongren added.

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• Russia has announced that a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don will try five foreign men, including three British nationals, accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Moscow. The trial will begin on 31 May on terrorism-linked allegations and other charges. The men are believed to face trial in absentia.

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• Ukraine’s main Orthodox church said on Wednesday it had decided to switch to a calendar in which Christmas is celebrated on 25 December, a move that distances it from Russia. Ukrainian Christians, a majority of whom are Orthodox, have traditionally celebrated Christmas on 7 January alongside other predominantly Orthodox Christian countries.

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• Germany will buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, a member of the parliamentary budget committee that approved the purchase on Wednesday told Reuters. The tanks order will come to €525.6m (£457m) while the howitzers have a price tag of €190.7m; all of them are to be delivered by 2026 at the latest, said the finance ministry documents meant for the parliament.

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Key events

Overnight the New York Times has reported that US intelligence officials believe that Ukraine was responsible for the drone attack which slightly damaged the Kremlin, and which Russia labelled an assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian president not being in the building at the time.

It writes:

US officials said the drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month was likely orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units, the latest in a series of covert actions against Russian targets that have unnerved the Biden administration.

US intelligence agencies do not know which unit carried out the attack and it was unclear whether President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine or his top officials were aware of the operation.

The New York Times goes on to say:

US officials say their level of confidence that the Ukrainian government directly authorised the Kremlin drone attack is “low” but that is because intelligence agencies do not yet have specific evidence identifying which government officials, Ukrainian units or operatives were involved.

The attack appeared to be part of a series of operations that have made officials in the US – Ukraine’s biggest supplier of military equipment – uncomfortable. The Biden administration is concerned about the risk that Russia will blame US officials and retaliate by expanding the war beyond Ukraine.

American spy agencies see an emerging picture of a loose confederation of Ukrainian units able to conduct limited operations inside and outside Russia, either by using their own personnel or partners working under their direction. Some of these missions could have been conducted with little, if any, oversight from Zelenskiy, officials said.

At the time, Zelenskiy said “We didn’t attack Putin or Moscow”, as he addressed journalists during a visit to Helsinki.