Russia-Ukraine updates: Moscow slams West for giving F-16 to Kyiv

In the past, the G7 countries could make the rules, and most others would fall in line. We ask if those days are gone.

Three months ago, United States President Joe Biden insisted that Ukraine does not need F-16 fighter jets, but last week in Japan, he joined the F-16 coalition.

The reason? Political risk analyst Ian Bremmer says the US and its allies are trying to put Ukraine in a stronger position for an eventual negotiated settlement with Russia, even if it means escalating the war over time.

In this episode, Steve Clemons asks Bremmer whether the G7 will soon matter less than BRICS, how the US and China will share global power, and why Biden cannot backtrack on many Trump-era trade wars.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hailed his country’s air defence forces and rescue services after the capital withstood the largest Russian drone attack since the beginning of the war.

“You look up to destroy enemy missiles, aircraft, helicopters and drones. Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved. … You are heroes!” Zelensky said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s powerful Wagner Group mercenary force, says he is convinced that senior Kremlin officials have banned reporting about him on state media, cautioning that such a misleading approach would lead to a backlash from the Russian people within months.

Prigozhin’s fighters took the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut this month, but his role in the victory was played down on state television. In a sign of just how far he is perceived to have breached the taboos of Putin’s Russia, state TV ignored the fall of Bakhmut for 20 hours and did not air Prigozhin’s victory speech.

“Wagner is not a piece of slippery soap which the bureaucrats have got used to shoving all over the place; Wagner is an awl, a stiletto that you cannot hide,” Prigozhin told the Reuters news agency. “I am absolutely convinced they have forbidden [coverage].”

“That high-level bureaucrats, those very towers of the Kremlin, are trying to shut the mouths of everyone so that they don’t speak about Wagner will only give another shove to the people.”

Russia’s top diplomat has warned that Western nations were “playing with fire” by agreeing to provide Ukraine with US-made F-16 fighter jets, calling it “an unacceptable escalation” of the conflict.

“It’s playing with fire, without a doubt,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an excerpt from a Russian TV interview posted on social media, denouncing an attempt to “weaken Russia” by “Washington, London and their satellites in the EU”.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency says in a statement.

The US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, said on May 11 that he was confident a Russian ship docked at a naval base in Simonstown in the Western Cape in December took on weapons from South Africa – an allegation South Africa has denied.

The allegations have caused a diplomatic row between the US, South Africa and Russia and called into question South Africa’s non-aligned position on the Ukraine conflict.

The panel has been asked to establish who was aware of the cargo ship’s arrival, the contents that were loaded and off-loaded, and “whether constitutional, legal or other obligations were complied with in relation to the cargo ship’s arrival”.

The president is expected to receive a final report within two weeks of the investigation concluding.

Hear US senator Lindsey Graham’s comments to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Kyiv.

Ukrainian authorities report artillery fire in the Sumy region on the border with Russia and the town of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Nikopol is on the north bank of the Dnipro River opposite Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located. The plant has been occupied by Russians since the beginning of the war.

Nikopol has been under fire on and off for months.

Russia’s air defence systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region near the Black Sea, local officials have said.

“Several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) tried to approach the territory of the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar Krai,” the region’s emergency officials said on the Telegram messaging channel. “All of them were neutralized, the infrastructure of the plant was not damaged.”

The officials did not say who launched the attack. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

On Saturday, Moscow said Ukraine had struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

The refinery has been attacked several times this month.

Ukraine’s defence ministry has warned that Russia plans to simulate a major accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which is under the control of Russian forces, in a bid to thwart the expected counteroffensive by Ukraine to retake its territory captured by Moscow.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, which lies in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, is Europe’s biggest nuclear power station and the area has been repeatedly hit by shelling with both sides blaming each other for the dangerous attacks.

Ahead of Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive, fears have increased that a nuclear disaster could occur amid rising military activity around Zaporizhzhia.

Read the full story here.

Russia has unleashed two waves of air attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, killing at least one person and wounding another, according to officials.

Kyiv’s air defence systems downed at least 40 drones moving towards the city in the early hours of Sunday, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, with falling debris killing a 41-year-old man and wounding a 35-year-old woman.

“Stay in shelters. The attack is massive!” the mayor said on Telegram.

The pre-dawn attacks came on the last Sunday of May when the capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of its official founding 1,541 years ago.

The day is typically marked by street fairs, live concerts and special museum exhibitions – plans which have been made for this year as well, but on a smaller scale.