Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

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Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now
© Reuters. Ukrainian national flag is seen through the window of an apartment destroyed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the town of Borodianka, in Kyiv region, Ukraine May 13, 2022. REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko

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(Reuters) – Russia struck Kyiv with missiles for the first time in more than a month, and President Vladimir Putin said he would hit new targets in Ukraine if Western nations supplied the country with longer-range missiles.

FIGHTING

* Ukraine said the Kyiv strike on Sunday hit a rail car repair works, while Moscow said it had destroyed tanks sent by Eastern European countries to Ukraine. One person was hospitalised. There were no immediate reports of deaths.

* In Sievierodonetsk, the main battlefield where Russia has concentrated its forces recently, Ukraine officials said a counter-attack had retaken half of the city.

* Aside from the heavy fighting in Sievierodonetsk, Russian forces were pushing towards Sloviansk, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in a Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) update.

* Russian forces have fired on a bakery and several administrative and residential buildings in Lysychansk, the city across the river from Sievierodonetsk, Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, said.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he had travelled to Lysychansk and Soledar, two cities very close to some of the most intense fighting.

* A Russian state media journalist on Sunday said Russian Major General Roman Kutuzov had been killed in eastern Ukraine, adding to a string of high-ranking military casualties sustained by Moscow.

* The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region said the border village of Tyotkino had come under fire from Ukraine.

* Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said a Russian cruise missile flew “critically low” on Sunday morning over a major nuclear power plant.

* Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

WEAPONS AND DIPLOMACY

* Putin in an interview said Russia would strike new targets if the West supplied longer-range missiles to Ukraine.

* Britain said it would supply Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems that can strike targets up to 80 km (50 miles) away.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Serbia has been cancelled after countries around Serbia closed their airspace to his aircraft, a senior foreign ministry source told the Interfax news agency on Sunday.

ECONOMY

* Russian aluminium producer Rusal has filed a lawsuit against global miner Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), seeking to win back access to its 20% share of alumina produced at a jointly owned refiner in Queensland.

* Russia’s sanctions against Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) Germania and its subsidiaries could cost German taxpayers and gas users an extra 5 billion euros ($5.36 billion) a year to pay for replacement gas, the Welt am Sonntag weekly reported, citing industry representatives.

* Lavrov said on Saturday that Western sanctions would have no effect on the country’s oil exports, predicting a big jump in profit from energy shipments this year.

QUOTE

* “The terrible consequences of this war can be stopped at any moment … if one person in Moscow simply gives the order,” Zelenskiy said, in apparent reference to Putin.

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