Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Ukraine has rejected Russia’s claim to have taken control of the village of Novomykhailivka in the east of the country, saying its military still held the settlement and was still fighting.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Monday that its southern group of forces had seized Novomykhailivka, around 25 miles southwest of the city of Donetsk, in the east of the country.

But Yevhen Shmataliuk, commander of Ukraine’s 79th amphibious assault brigade, which has been fighting on the Donetsk front line, said his troops still hold 15% to 20% of the village and that the rest of it is under Ukraine’s “fire control.”

“We are not going to move anywhere but forward,” Shmataliuk said in an interview with Ukraine’s public broadcaster, in comments reported and translated by Reuters.

Eastern Ukraine is a hot spot of intense fighting as Russian forces look to advance and occupy the whole of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk. Russia claimed on Sunday that it had seized Bohdanivka, northeast of Chasiv Yar, another near-term target which, if taken, would give Russian forces a strategic boost to advance on other larger cities in the region.

CNBC was unable to verify either the Russian or Ukrainian claims. Ukraine received a vital boost last Saturday when a $61 billion aid package was approved by the House of Representatives. The Senate and U.S. President Joe Biden now have to greenlight the aid.

Ukraine has urged U.S. officials to act as fast as they can to send weapons and air defense systems to Ukraine, warning that it is outmanned and outgunned on parts of the front line as it stands.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the southern city of Odesa were the targets of Russian drone attacks overnight, regional officials said.

A drone attack on port city Odesa injured seven people, including two children, and Kyiv was also targeted with unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.

“Another air attack on the capital of Ukraine!” Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv regional military administration, said on Telegram.

“According to preliminary data, enemy drones were launched from the territory of the Kursk region [in Russia], flew through Sumy region, Cherkasy region and entered Kyiv from the southwest,” he said.

All the drones were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defense forces, he said, and no casualties were reported.

Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that 15 out of 16 drones launched by Russia overnight were destroyed. It said it repelled another attack in which two short-range Iskander ballistic missiles were fired from the Belgorod region in Russia. It did not say what happened to the missiles. CNBC was unable to immediately verify the reports.

— Holly Ellyatt

European ministers said on Monday they were looking urgently at how to provide more air defence to Ukraine but they stopped short of concrete pledges of the Patriot systems that Kyiv values most.

Meeting in Luxembourg, foreign and defence ministers from the European Union said the U.S. House of Representatives vote to approve a $60 billion Ukraine package at the weekend should not lead to any complacency on their part.

“We can be joyous for a day but we have to be prepared for the battle that is coming tomorrow. Therefore there can be no calming down,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters as he arrived at the meeting.

With Russia having stepped up air attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities, EU governments are under pressure to supply more protective systems to Kyiv. But countries that have U.S.-made Patriots – which Ukraine already uses and values highly for their ability to shoot down fast-moving ballistic missiles – were non-committal on Monday.

Since Kyiv began a push for more Patriots in recent weeks, Germany has been the only EU country to pledge an extra battery. Berlin is also leading a drive to get more air defence from other countries for Ukraine, through donations of equipment and financial contributions.

Other European countries including Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden also have Patriot systems.

— Reuters

Global military spending reached a record high of $2.44 trillion in 2023 after jumping 6.8% from 2022 amid a “global deterioration in peace and security,” the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report on Monday.

Ukraine and Russia topped the list for the countries that increased their military spending the most in 2023, by 51% and 24%, respectively. Russia’s actual military expenditure remained far above that of Ukraine at an estimated $109 billion.

This figure is likely an underestimation, the report noted, as Russia’s financials are highly opaque, and the budget allocated to military spending is supplemented by businesses, individuals and organizations.

Ukraine’s military spending meanwhile totaled around $64.8 billion — around 59% the amount of Russia’s spending, but 37% of Ukraine’s GDP, the report said. The figure does not include the tens of billions of military aid that Kyiv receives, which narrow the gap between its expenses and those of Russia.

Read the full story here.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Ukraine will face a difficult period on the front in the mid-May, early June period when Russia is expected to launch a new and wider offensive, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence told the BBC.

“A rather difficult situation awaits us in the near future. But it is not catastrophic, this must also be understood. Armageddon will not happen, as many are now beginning to say. But there will be problems from mid-May,” Kyrylo Budanov told the BBC Ukrainian service in an interview published Monday

Ukrainian officials have already warned that they expect Russian forces to launch a new offensive in early summer.

“The Russians will use a comprehensive approach. They conduct a complex operation … it will be a difficult period. Mid-May, early June,” Budanov told the BBC in an interview conducted on April 19, a day before the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine.

Budanov was confident Ukraine would win the war despite forthcoming challenges.

“The coming period, in our opinion, will be difficult. But difficult and catastrophic are different things. We’ve been through tough times several times, and we’ll get through this one, believe me. Nothing extraordinary will happen. We know all their plans in advance,” he said, without providing further details.

CNBC was unable to verify Budanov’s claims.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hinted last Friday that Russian forces would try to seize the city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine in a future significant Russian offensive operation. He’s the first senior Kremlin official to outright identify the city as a potential Russian operational objective in a summer offensive.

Russia wants to establish a demilitarized so-called “sanitary zone” in the border areas of Ukraine to protect Russia’s southwestern regions from attack.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia said on Monday its forces had taken control of the village of Novomykhailivka 40 km (25 miles) southwest of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the second advance it has announced in two days.

Reuters could not independently verify the Russian gain, reported by the defence ministry. Ukraine’s General Staff said in its regular morning report that Kyiv’s forces continued to hold back Russian attempts to advance near the village.

Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that its Southern group of forces had fully taken Novomykhailivka “and improved the tactical situation along the front line”.

On Sunday Russia said it had taken control of the settlement of Bohdanivka, further to the north. Bohdanivka lies northeast of Chasiv Yar, a strategic town located on high ground which, if captured, could open up the way for Russia to advance on several “fortress cities” in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian gains, if confirmed, underline the urgency for Ukraine of taking delivery of more than $60 billion in new U.S. military aid that the House of Representatives approved on Saturday. It is expected to be approved this week by the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Washington on Sunday to quickly turn the bill into law and proceed with the actual transfer of weapons, saying long-range arms and air defence systems were top priorities.

The Kremlin said on Monday that the new U.S. aid would not change the situation on the front lines. The influx of weapons should improve Kyiv’s chances of averting a major Russian breakthrough in the east, military analysts say, but Kyiv still faces manpower shortages on the battlefield.

— Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Monday that Russia and the West are on the brink of a potential nuclear confrontation.

“Westerners are dangerously balancing on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” the minister said in a video message to the participants of the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference, news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Lavrov was reported as stating that the support of nuclear powers France, the U.S. and U.K. for Ukraine posed a serious strategic risk for Russia.

“Of particular concern is the fact that it is the ‘troika’ of Western nuclear states that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kyiv regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger,” he said.

Russia repeatedly falsely describes Kyiv as a “criminal” regime in order to discredit and delegitimize the government. Ukraine’s international allies say they are helping Ukraine to fend off Russia’s unprovoked aggression and invasion that was launched over two years ago.

Lavrov said the world was experiencing a crisis in the system of arms control, disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation and that in order to prevent a further deterioration of a global crisis, joint efforts “were required to build an updated international security architecture based on the principles of multilateralism, equality and indivisibility,” RIA Novosti noted.

“Only in this way is it possible to reduce the level of interstate conflict and ensure real progress in the field of arms control,” Lavrov noted.

As relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated, the arena of arms control has become a frequent bone of contention and source of divergence, with several arms treaties between the U.S. and Russia abandoned or close to collapse.

— Holly Ellyatt