May 16, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

French carmaker Renault has announced the sale of its assets in Russia as it formally leaves the country following the invasion of Ukraine. The assets are worth 2.195 billion euros ($2.29 billion), according to Renault.

The company’s directors unanimously agreed the sale of Renault Russia to the city of Moscow and its majority interest in Russia carmaker AVTOVAZ to NAMI (the Central Research and Development Automobile and Engine Institute), according to a statement Monday.

The sale of its stake in AVTOVAZ provides the option for Renault to buy back its interest within six years, per the statement.

Writing on his blog, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the city had decided to take over ownership of the plant and would “resume production of passenger cars under the historical Moskvich brand.”

“We will try to keep most of the team directly working at the plant and with its subcontractors,” Sobyanin wrote, promising a future move to the production of electric cars.

Moskvich was a Soviet-era carmaker of everyday passenger vehicles.

Russia was a key piece in Renault’s global empire before the war broke out.

With 482,264 cars sold in 2021, Russia was the second most important market for Renault, ranking only behind the carmaker’s home base France in terms of sales volumes, according to the group’s 2021 sales results.

The foreign ministers of Austria and Estonia have spoken about the prospect of an upcoming sixth EU sanctions package against Russia, with Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg “confident” that the package will be “done in the next days.”

The EU has been ratcheting up its economic action against Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. 

Speaking ahead of an EU-Canada Joint Ministerial Committee meeting in Brussels, Schallenberg said that the sixth sanctions package would be “very substantial,” but there was still “a certain need for discussion.” The whole Russian military complex would be targeted in the upcoming sanctions, he added. 

Liimets added that the EU “must continue to support Ukraine, we must continue to give to Ukraine humanitarian aid, also defensive military aid, but also to discuss with Ukrainians how we can support them to reconstruct their country.”

Finland and Sweden joining NATO would be a “mistake” with “far-reaching consequences” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday, according to state news agency TASS. 

On Sunday, Finland's government signaled its intention to join NATO, leaving behind decades of neutrality and ignoring Russian threats of retaliation, as the Nordic country attempts to strengthen its security amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Sweden's ruling party later said it will also support joining the alliance.

Finland’s accession to NATO — which will likely take months to finalize — would bring the US-military alliance to Russia’s doorstep, as the two nations share an 830-mile (1,335- kilometer) border. 

Ukraine has reported another missile strike against the Black Sea coastal region of Odesa, causing damage to infrastructure and resulting in a fire.

It said Russia continued to strike the already heavily damaged bridge across the Dniester estuary south of Odesa. Two people were injured.

Some context: Last week, a shopping mall and two hotels were hit by Russian military strikes on Odesa.

Three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were fired from a plane and and hit a "tourist infrastructure target" a Ukrainian official said.

In Luhansk and Donetsk regions, fighting continues along front lines that stretch for several hundred kilometers. The Ukrainians also report continued fighting in areas in the east, where Russian forces are trying to break through. 

The heaviest combat appears to be in two locations: around industrial towns in Luhansk, and in rural areas north of the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk. 

The Russians have reinforced their presence around Izium in an effort to push further south, and heavy fighting was reported in the area over the weekend.

The General Staff said that in three frontline areas — Lyman, Bakhmut and Kurakhiv —Russian forces continued to advance and fighting continued. But it also claimed that in another area, Avdiivka, Russian units had retreated.

Russian forces continue to bombard Severodonetsk, according to local officials.

Serhii Hayday, head of the military administration in Luhansk, said that two people in the city had been killed in the most recent shelling. He said there had been heavy bombardment of several towns and villages in the area but Russian forces had been forced to retreat near the town of Borivske to the south of Severodonetsk.

Speaking on Ukrainian television Monday, Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, said the key area in the Russians' offensive now was around Severodonetsk. 

CNN has geolocated satellite imagery showing that three bridges west of Russian supply lines to Izium have been destroyed in the past week.

Mariupol: In the south, the General Staff said Russia continues massive artillery and air strikes to block and destroy units trapped at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.

Several hundred wounded soldiers are trapped at the plant.

In his daily video message late Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the government continues "very complicated and delicate negotiations to save our people from Mariupol, from Azovstal."

A Ukrainian unit fighting north of Kharkiv says it has reached the Russian border, with the message: "Mr. President, we made it!”

Video released by the unit shows a small group carrying a blue and yellow stake to the border line.

Some context: Over the past few days, Ukrainian forces advanced toward the border in several places north and east of Kharkiv, the country's second largest city before the invasion began, as Russian forces have withdrawn.

Ukrainian officials said last week they were liberating villages on the outskirts of the city. Their advances threaten the symbolic embarrassment of expelling the Kremlin's forces back to their own border while posing the strategic threat of cutting Russia's supply lines into Ukraine and its forces further south in the Donbas region.

When masked Russian soldiers ransacked Nina’s home in northeastern Ukraine at 6 a.m. one day in late April, they were not searching for weapons. Instead, they were looking for her Ukrainian textbooks.

The troops held her husband and daughter at gunpoint, but the 48-year-old told CNN she knew it was her they’d come for. As a school principal, she believes they saw her as the enemy.

Nina is not alone. Ukrainian officials say educators in newly Russian-occupied areas of the country have reported increasing cases of intimidation, threats and pressure to adapt school programs to align with pro-Russian rhetoric.

As the war rips through Ukraine, education has become a victim of the conflict — and a potential battlefield in the fight for control of the country.

Before Russian troops invaded on February 24, around 4.23 million students were enrolled in schools across the country, according to data compiled by Ukraine’s Institute of Educational Analytics, a state agency. Now, millions of school-age children have been internally displaced or forced to flee abroad with their families.

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As fighting continues in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, Ukrainian forces say they are making headway in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Meanwhile, two Nordic nations may soon be applying to join NATO — ditching longstanding neutrality.

Here are the latest developments:

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Sunday “reiterated the unwavering US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and security assistance efforts” with the country’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, and provided an update of his call with their Russian counterpart, according to the US Department of Defense.

Austin spoke with Reznikov “to discuss the situation on the battlefield and Ukraine’s capability needs,” according to a department readout.

Austin relayed to Reznikov his correspondence with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday “in which (Austin) urged an immediate end to the conflict in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication.”