Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnkyy spoke defiantly on May 27 in two speeches about his country’s ultimate victory over Russian forces in both the most pressing battle in eastern Ukraine and the war, generally.
“Ukraine is a country that has destroyed the myth about the extraordinary power of the Russian army - an army that supposedly, in a few days, could conquer anyone it wants,” he told Stanford University students by video. “Now Russia is trying to occupy the entire state but we feel strong enough to think about the future of Ukraine, which will be open to the world.”
Meanwhile, Russia pressed its deadly offensive to capture key points in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, with more bombing of residential areas and pro-Moscow forces claiming the capture of a key town on the way to Kyiv-controlled territory.
Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.
Ukraine’s former President blocked from leaving the country
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was prevented from leaving Ukraine to take part in a meeting of a NATO body in Lithuania, his party’s parliamentary faction said on Saturday.
Poroshenko was stopped twice at a border crossing with Poland while he was on his way to the meeting of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, a consultative interparliamentary organisation, the statement said. - Reuters
Scholz, Macron ask Putin for ‘serious direct negotiations’ with Zelensky
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday asked Russia’s Vladimir Putin to hold “direct serious negotiations” with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
During an 80-minute conversation with the Russian president, the two EU leaders “insisted on an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops,” the German chancellor’s office said.
Macron and Scholz urged Putin to have “serious direct negotiations with the Ukrainian president and [find] a diplomatic solution to the conflict.” - AFP
Liverpool to play for Ukraine people in Champions League final: Klopp
With the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid taking place in Paris instead of St. Petersburg because of Russia invasion of Ukraine, coach Jurgen Klopp has said his team is playing for Ukraine.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp dedicated Saturday's Champions League final against Real Madrid in Paris to the people of Ukraine, expressing support for the country against Russia's invasion. - Reuters
Russia shows off Zircon hypersonic cruise missile in test-launch at sea
Russia successfully test-fired a hypersonic Zircon cruise missile over a distance of about 1,000 km (625 miles), the Defence Ministry said on May 28.
The missile was fired from the Barents Sea and hit a target in the White Sea, it said. Video released by the Ministry showed the missile being fired from a ship and blazing into the sky on a steep trajectory.
President Vladimir Putin has described the Zircon as part of a new generation of unrivalled arms systems. Hypersonic weapons can travel at nine times the speed of sound, and Russia has conducted previous test-launches of the Zircon from warships and submarines in the past year. - Reuters
Ukrainian negotiator says any agreement with Russia is worth a broken penny
Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Saturday that any agreement with Russia cannot be trusted and Moscow can only be stopped in its invasion by force.
“Any agreement with Russia isn’t worth a broken penny, Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Is it possible to negotiate with a country that always lies cynically and propagandistically?” - Reuters
Russia’s Gazprom continues shipping gas to Europe via Ukraine
Russian gas producer Gazprom said on May 28 its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point stood at 43.96 million cubic metres (mcm), slightly up from 43.6 mcm.
An application to supply gas via another major entry point, Sokhranovka, was rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said. - Reuters
Communist deputy demands Russian withdrawal
Breaking with the party line in a rare show of opposition to his country’s war in Ukraine, a Communist Party legislative deputy in Russia‘s Far East demanded an end to the military operation and withdrawal of Russian forces.
“We understand that if our country doesn’t stop the military operation, we’ll have more orphans in our country,” Leonid Vasyukevich said at a meeting of the Primorsk regional Legislative Assembly in the Pacific port of Vladivostok on Friday. - AP
Ukraine says everything being done to defend Donbas from Russian onslaught
Ukraine has pledged to do “everything” to defend Donbas, where an intensifying Russian offensive is prompting Kyiv’s forces to consider a strategic retreat from some key areas to avoid being surrounded.
Russia is waging an all-out war for the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions that make up Donbas - the country’s industrial heartland - where Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Moscow of carrying out a “genocide”. - AFP
Russia moves on key city amid Ukraine church schism
Russian troops were approaching the strategic city of Severodonetsk on Friday in a relentless offensive to control Ukraine‘s eastern Donbas region, as the war triggered a historic schism between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its Russian patriarchate.
Pro-Russian separatists said they had captured the town of Lyman between Severodonetsk and Kramatorsk, on the road leading to the key cities still under Kyiv’s control. - AFP
Ukraine fears repeat of Mariupol horrors elsewhere in Donbas
Moscow-backed separatists pounded eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region on Friday, claiming the capture of a railway hub as concerns grew that besieged cities in the region would undergo the same horrors experienced by the people of Mariupol in the weeks leading up to the port’s capture.
Ukrainian officials renewed their appeals for more sophisticated Western-supplied weaponry. Without it, they said, Ukrainian forces wouldn’t be able to stop Russia’s offensive. - AP
Ukraine says troops may retreat from eastern region as Russia advances
Ukraine said its forces may need to retreat from their last pocket of resistance in Luhansk to avoid being captured by Russian troops pressing an advance in the east that has shifted the momentum of the three-month-old war.
A withdrawal could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin closer to his goal of capturing Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions in full. His troops have gained ground in the two areas collectively known as the Donbas while blasting some towns to wastelands. - Reuters
