Here’s where things stand on Tuesday, May 27:
Fighting:
- Ukraine’s air force says Russia launched 60 drones overnight on Tuesday, fewer than the hundreds deployed over the weekend.
- Ukrainian defences neutralised 43 drones – 35 were shot down and eight diverted by electronic warfare, Ukraine’s air force said.
- Three people were injured in southern Ukraine after overnight attacks, according to local officials. Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak says two people were wounded in the region.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence says its air defences destroyed 99 Ukrainian drones, with 56 downed over Belgorod, the Russian city bordering Ukraine.
- Ukraine says Russia launched a record number of drones overnight on Monday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy describing the attacks as a sign that Moscow is “acting with impunity”.
- Ukrainian air defences downed most of the 355 drones, but several broke through defences, causing casualties, according to authorities. Two elderly women were killed in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional governor said.
- Russia, meanwhile, accused Ukraine of launching aerial attacks on its “social infrastructure”. The Defence Ministry said it shot down at least 48 Ukrainian drones on Monday.
- Russia’s state TASS news agency, citing the Defence Ministry, reported that Russian forces have taken over the villages of Volodymyrivka and Belovody in the northeastern region of Sumy.
- The governor of Sumy said Russian forces had captured four other villages as part of an attempt to create a “buffer zone” on Ukrainian territory. He identified them as Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka, and said residents had long been evacuated.
- The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said Russian attacks have killed 630 Ukrainian children and wounded 1,960 since the beginning of the war.
- Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy Rodion Miroshnik has accused the Ukrainian military of causing more than 400 civilian casualties in April, including with “inhumane methods of warfare”.
Military aid
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Ukraine’s key Western allies are no longer limiting the range of weapons they supply, a move the Kremlin said would be “dangerous”.
-
Ukraine says it has confirmed information that China is supplying a range of important products to Russian military plants, including tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder and components specifically to defence manufacturing industries.
-
China rejected allegations that it had supplied weapons to Russia. “China has never provided lethal weapons to any party in the Ukraine conflict,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning at a daily briefing on Tuesday. She added that Beijing strictly regulates dual-use exports and dismissed the reports as “baseless accusations and political manipulation”.
Politics and diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine, according to a source from Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The meeting took place during Fidan’s two-day trip to Moscow. He also met Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator in past talks with Ukraine. Fidan will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday.
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned on Tuesday that the war in Ukraine could drag on, citing Moscow’s unwillingness to negotiate. Speaking alongside Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Turku, Merz said: “Wars typically end because of economic or military exhaustion … and in this war we are obviously still far from reaching that.” He added that Europe must prepare for a protracted crisis.
- The Kremlin responded to United States President Donald Trump’s remark that Putin has gone “absolutely crazy” over the scale of Russian air attacks, suggesting the US leader may be experiencing “emotional overload”.
- It also said serious work on Russia’s proposal for a possible peace deal for the war in Ukraine was ongoing and a draft had not yet been submitted. “This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
- Russia is finalising a draft memorandum that could form the basis of a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. The document will outline the core principles of a political settlement and include proposals for a ceasefire, she said.
- Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 900 drones as well as missiles towards Ukraine over three nights, and again called for intensified pressure on Moscow. “There is no military sense in this, but it is an obvious political choice – a choice by Putin, a choice by Russia – a choice to continue the war and destroy lives,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly video address.
- French President Emmanuel Macron said he believes Trump is beginning to see that Putin “lied” to him about the war in Ukraine. He also called for the imposition of a deadline for Moscow to agree to a ceasefire, backed up by the threat of “massive sanctions”.
- Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also said Russia’s attacks on Ukraine over the weekend proved that Moscow is not interested in peace.
- Finland summoned Russia’s Helsinki ambassador to ask for an explanation regarding a suspected violation of Finnish airspace that took place last week. The NATO member said on Friday it believed two Russian military aircraft entered its airspace off the coast of Porvoo in the southern part of the country.
