Russian forces rehearse for Victory Day, Kremlin denies it will declare all-out war
Russian forces rehearsed for a Victory Day Parade set for 9 May in Moscow on Wednesday as the Kremlin denies it is preparing to declare all-out war in Ukraine.
Russia has dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense” amid speculation from western officials that President Vladimir Putin could use the 9 May Victory Parade to announce an escalation of military action.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no truth to the rumours “at all”.
Last week, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Moscow parade – an annual event that commemorates the defeat of the Nazis and end of World War Two – might be used to drum up support for a mass mobilisation of troops and renewed push into Ukraine.
“I would not be surprised, and I don’t have any information about this, that he is probably going to declare on this May Day that ‘we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people’,” he told LBC radio.
Ukraine regains control over settlements near Kherson, military says
Ukraine has regained control over several settlements surrounding Mykolayiv and Kherson in the country’s south, military officials have said.
Due to the successful actions of Ukrainian defenders, Russian forces “lost control over several settlements on the border of Mykolayiv and Kherson regions,” the latest intelligence report from Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces reads.
Russian forces have fought heavily in the southern region of Kherson, seeking to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula and the eastern Donbas region.
However, heavy fighting continues in Mariupol where Russian occupiers are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units stationed in the Azovstal steel works area, officials added.
With the support of aircraft, the enemy resumed the offensive in order to take control of the plant, the report continued.
Russia is also “provoking tensions” in the Transnistrian region of Moldova, Ukraine claimed.
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments until my colleague Martin Belam in London takes the reins a little later.
Ten weeks into a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities and driven millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes, Moscow is showing no signs of pulling back.
It is 8am in Ukraine. Here is everything you might have missed:
- Ukrainian forces are fighting “difficult bloody battles” against Russian troops inside the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Reuters reported, citing a Telegram video message from the commander of the Azov battalion. A Ukrainian official said on Wednesday that Russian forces entered the steelworks where the city’s last resistance has been holding out but contact remained with the defenders.
- Another 344 people have been rescued from the besieged city of Mariupol in a second evacuation operation, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has confirmed a national address.
- Russia has said it will implement a daytime ceasefire for three days from Thursday to allow more civilian evacuations from the Azovstal plant. “The Russian armed forces will from 8 am to 6 pm (Moscow time) on 5-7 May open a humanitarian corridor from the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant to evacuate civilians,” the defence ministry said.
- The UK is providing £45m in funding to help the most vulnerable in Ukraine and at its borders, the government has said. The money will go to UN agencies and charities delivering vital aid and supporting survivors of sexual violence in the war-torn nation, PA Media reports.
- Joe Biden said he would speak with other G7 leaders this week about potential additional sanctions against Russia. His treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the US was in constant discussions with its partners about this.
- The United States has provided intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces kill many of the Russian generals who have died in the Ukraine war, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing senior US officials. Washington has reportedly provided to Ukraine details on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location and other details about Russia’s mobile military headquarters.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed Ukraine would again see peace despite Russia’s war but warned that what happens in Ukraine will have important consequences for the rest of Europe. Addressing the people of Denmark on the 77th anniversary of their liberation from Nazi occupation, he said: “I do believe our day of liberation is coming close.”
- Russia has practised simulated nuclear-capable missile strikes in the western enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic coast. Forces rehearsed simulated “electronic launches” of nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile systems, the defence ministry said.
- Sweden has received assurances from the US that it would receive support during the period a potential application to join Nato is processed by the 30 nations in the alliance, the Swedish foreign minister, Ann Linde, said in Washington.
- Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said Zelenskiy and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bear equal responsibility for the war, putting the leftist candidate at odds with western powers.
- The bodies of 20 more civilians were found in the past 24 hours in the Kyiv region, according to Kyiv’s regional police chief, Andriy Nebytov. The latest discoveries, in the town of Borodianka and the surrounding villages, raise the total number of civilian bodies found in the region to 1,235.
- The European Union is proposing to ban all Russian oil imports in a sixth package of sanctions. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Putin had to pay a “high price for his brutal aggression” in Ukraine. Hungary’s international relations minister, Zoltán Kovács, said his country would veto the EU proposal.
- The head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, is reportedly on the draft blacklist of the EU’s next round of sanctions. An EU document claims Kirill has been “one of the most prominent supporters of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine” and a key player in amplifying Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric on Ukraine.
- Ukraine has accused Russia of planning to hold a Victory Day military parade in the captured city of Mariupol on 9 May to celebrate victory over the Nazis in the second world war. Ukraine’s military intelligence said an official from Russia’s presidential administration had arrived in Mariupol to oversee plans for the parade.
- The Kremlin dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense” amid speculation from western officials that President Vladimir Putin could use the 9 May Victory Parade to announce an escalation of military action. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no truth to the rumours “at all”.
