WAR IN UKRAINE: May 16, 2022
This photo released on May 10, 2022 by the Azov regiment shows an injured Ukrainian serviceman inside the Azovstal iron and steel works factory in eastern Mariupol, Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion. (Photo by Dmytro 'Orest' Kozatskyi)
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 82
Russia is rapidly retreating near Kharkiv, the second-biggest city in Ukraine. Ukrainian troops defending the city have reached the state border with Russia, the regional governor said on Monday. Now, a senior US defence official has given an assessment of the situation, saying Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops to within three to four kilometress (1.9-2.5 miles) of the Russian border, Reuters reported.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg says Ukraine could win the war as Russia's invasion is not going to plan. He adds that Russia's offensive in the eastern Donbas region has stalled, an assessment backed up by the UK's military - BBC
But President Zelensky, when asked about the issue of the besieged southern city of Mariupol, conceded that he didn’t have the military means to push the Russians out and to free that deadlock, as things stand.
Russian forces fired long-range missiles over the last 24 hours that appeared to be targeting the Yavoriv military training facility near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, a senior US defense official said Monday. The official said there was “minimal damage” as a result of the strikes. “I don't have perfect visibility on those strikes. They do appear to have been targeted at that training facility and again, what we what we can see from our perspective is minor damage to a few buildings,” the official said - CNN
Since Russian forces were pushed back from Kyiv at the end of March, the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been discovered in the Bucha region - many hastily buried in shallow graves. The BBC's Sarah Rainsford has been investigating what happened at a children's summer camp - now being treated as a crime scene. Full story here
Nine out of 10 people in Ukraine could be pushed into poverty or near poverty due to the war, putting almost 2 decades of development gains at risk, says the United Nations Development Programme.
