Here’s where things stand on Saturday, May 31:
Fighting
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Eight people, including two teenagers, were injured in a Russian attack on the village of Vasyliv Khutir in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
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The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia launched 90 drones and two ballistic missiles against Ukraine that targeted the country’s Kharkiv, Odesa and Donetsk regions.
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The Kharkiv region’s main city came under Russian drone attack, which targeted a trolleybus depot and injured two people, the city’s Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. He said more than 30 nearby apartment buildings were damaged, while one trolleybus was completely destroyed, and 18 others sustained varying degrees of damage.
Ceasefire
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Ukraine has resisted US and Russian pressure to commit to attending another round of peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, saying it first needs to see Russian proposals for a ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results”.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the planned second round of talks between Ukraine and Russia will pave the way for peace in a phone call with Zelenskyy, according to a readout issued by the Turkish presidency. Erdogan said it is important that both parties join the talks with strong delegations.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also said Kyiv needed to see the Russian ceasefire proposals in advance for the talks to be “substantive and meaningful”, without spelling out what Kyiv would do if it did not receive the Russian document or a deadline for receiving it.
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Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky will again head Russia’s delegation in Istanbul for the second round of Russia-Ukraine talks and will bring a memorandum and other ceasefire proposals to the meeting.
- Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN Security Council that Moscow was ready to consider a ceasefire, provided Western states stopped arming Ukraine and Kyiv stopped mobilising troops.
- Influential US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on a visit to Kyiv that the Republican-led US Senate is expected to move ahead with a bill on sanctions against Russia next week. Graham, who met Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Friday, said he had talked with Donald Trump before his trip and the US president expects concrete actions now from Moscow.
- Trump told reporters that both Putin and Zelenskyy were stubborn and that he had been surprised and disappointed by the Russian bombing of Ukraine while he was trying to arrange a ceasefire.
- Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Russia’s concern over the eastward enlargement of NATO was fair and Washington did not want to see Ukraine in the US-led military alliance.
- Commenting on Kellogg’s statement, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was pleased, adding that a Russian delegation would be travelling to Istanbul and ready for talks with Ukraine on Monday morning.
- Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters in Kyiv that the next step after talks in Istanbul would be to try to host a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy.
Economy
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Ukraine’s finance ministry has announced that it would not be paying more than half a billion dollars due to holders of its GDP warrants – fixed income securities indexed to economic growth – marking the first payment default since it created the financial instruments in 2015. Ukraine owes $665m on June 2 to holders of the $3.2bn worth of warrants, based on 2023 economic performance.
