May 17, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner private military company, said his fighters have advanced in Bakhmut amid fierce fighting surrounded by the remaining buildings still controlled by Ukrainian troops.

Prigozhin added it wasn't possible to surround remaining Ukrainian positions because of the recent withdrawal of Russian paratroopers.

Taking aim at Valery Gerasimov, the Russian General Staff chief, Prigozhin said “the instantaneous retreat of Gerasimov from the enemy today does not allow to close [Bakhmut] off. But we are advancing.”

Prigozhin has frequently been at odds with the Russian Defense Ministry on its tactics and leadership in the conflict.

Two components of a Patriot battery were damaged in a Russian attack Tuesday, but the system “was never offline," according to a US official familiar with the matter.

The Russian barrage —which consisted of hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, Kalibr cruise missiles and other munitions — damaged the Patriot battery’s generator and part of the system’s electronics.

The damage was minimal, according to three other US officials, with one describing it as “minor.” The system remained functional throughout the attack and remains online, an official said.

The US sent inspectors to examine the system on Tuesday, after being told by the Ukrainians that the system appeared to have been damaged, one of the officials said.

US officials are still assessing how exactly the Patriot components were damaged since it does not appear that any of the components sustained a direct hit from a Russian Kinzhal missile or other munition.

One possibility is that debris from a falling missile damaged the Patriot components, but officials are examining other options as well. 

A Hungarian official says it would be very difficult for Hungary to join the European Union’s next round of sanctions against Russia after Ukraine blacklisted a Hungarian bank.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó described the move by the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAZK) to include Hungarian Bank OTP on its list of “international sponsors of war” as “outrageous.” 

He added “that as long as OTP stays on this list, it will be very difficult for us to even enter into negotiations on the eleventh sanctions package,” and “it will be very difficult for us to negotiate economic restrictions that require additional sacrifices.”

In a statement earlier this month, NAZK said the decision to classify OTP bank as an international sponsor of war was “due to the position of the bank’s management to continue operations in Russia” as well the bank’s “recognition of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics.’”

The Hungarian Foreign Minister refuted Kyiv’s claims on Monday, saying that as Hungary’s biggest bank, “OTP has not violated any international laws. Its operations fully comply with all kinds of expectations and legislation.”

Szijjártó also said placing the bank “on the list of international sponsors of war is unacceptable and scandalous.”

What the EU is saying: A senior EU official, briefing journalists in Brussels on Wednesday, said the EU’s priority “is to ensure that we can support Ukraine so that they can win,” and that “we're going to talk to the Ukrainian side. We'll talk to the Member States, talk to Hungary, of course.” 

The senior official said it’s not for the EU “to decide what private banks do. But again, we have to deal with a question that is influencing and affecting decisively one of our main foreign policy objectives, which is to support Ukraine.”  

“It's affecting our decisions on military and financial support. We have to deal with that, we will be dealing with that and I can tell you that the High Representative [Josep Borrell] is already dealing with that,” the official added.

The official also said that EU Foreign Ministers will discuss the issue on Monday in Brussels at a scheduled meeting. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will also attend the meeting virtually.

The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces launched S-300 missiles at Bakhmut, adding that there were air strikes in several locations around the city.

Ivanivske is a village to the west of Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, videos emerging from Bakhmut show intense shelling and heavy destruction in the western part of the city, the last area where Ukrainian forces have a presence.

Video published by the Russian state agency RIA Novosti, as well as RIA FAN, showed Russian fighters moving through abandoned apartment buildings and across courtyards littered with debris.

Drone video of Bakhmut showed clouds of gray smoke rising from several neighborhoods — with an Orthodox church on the western outskirts of Bakhmut as one of very few buildings apparently unscathed. It’s not clear exactly when the videos were shot. 

Across the front lines, the General Staff said there were 32 airstrikes. That would be slightly lower than the recent average, according to Ukrainian estimates.

What the situation is like in other parts of Ukraine: In the northern region of Kharkiv, according to the General Staff, the Russians are continuing to try to improve their “tactical situation” in the Kupyansk sector — where there had been unsuccessful offensives close to the Oskil River and heavy shelling of Ukrainian-held areas.

The General Staff added that the situation had been quieter in another hotspot, around Avdiivka in Donetsk, where “the enemy did not conduct any offensive actions over the last day.”

The military officials said Russian forces in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia had continued to shell settlements in the area, striking more than 20 places over the last day.

Before-and-after satellite imagery below shows the damage done to the hard-hit eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut over the past year.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar provided Kyiv's assessment Wednesday on the situation on the ground, saying Ukraine's forces are holding on to substantial areas around Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back from Russian troops.

The official noted that "almost 20 square kilometers" of liberated areas in the suburbs have not been lost and that "fierce fighting" continues around the city, with Ukrainian troops advancing in some areas. She also acknowledged that Russian troops are "advancing somewhat" as well.

The images were provided first to CNN by Maxar Technologies.

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CNN's Olga Voitovych and Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

A deal allowing grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea has been extended, just one day before it was set to expire. Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed at least three Ukrainian civilians and Ukraine is holding onto gains in the Bakhmut area.

Here are the latest developments:

A senior Chinese official has finished a two-day visit to Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

The ministry said on its website that Li Hui, China's special representative on Eurasian affairs, visited Ukraine from May 16 to 17.

"The trip was made pursuant to the agreements reached during a telephone conversation between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Xi Jinping on April 26," it said.  

Li met with Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, according to the site, but the ministry did not say whether he had also met the Ukrainian president. 

It said Kuleba had talked about "restoring a sustainable and just peace based on respect for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

"He emphasized that Ukraine does not accept any proposals that would involve the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict," according to the ministry.

Kuleba stressed "the importance of China's participation in the implementation of the President's Peace Formula, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, nuclear safety and other important international efforts," the ministry said.

Key context: China has attempted to cast itself as a peacebroker and deflect criticism that it has not acted to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, more than one year after Moscow invaded its western neighbor. Beijing has refused to condemn the invasion and instead bolstered its economic and diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Three civilians were killed in a village near the southern city of Kherson as Russian shelling of the Ukrainian-held part of Kherson region appears to have intensified, according to Ukrainian officials.

The three killed included a child, the prosecutor’s office of the Kherson region said.

On Wednesday afternoon local time, Russian forces had fired on a village in Kherson district, the office said. “One of the shells hit near a store where local residents were staying,” killing a five-year-old boy and two men. Another man and a boy were injured, it added.

Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, confirmed the death of a child during shelling of the village of Zelenivka.

Earlier on Wednesday, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, claimed Russia “made 79 attacks, launching 406 shells from heavy artillery, Grad MLRS [multiple launch rockets], tanks, UAVs and aircraft,” and added that the targets were residential areas.

The Council of Europe (COE) announced that it has established a "register of damage" to help hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, the organization announced on Wednesday at the conclusion of a two-day summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The register — officially the "Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine" — will document "damage, loss or injury caused by the Russian aggression against Ukraine," the COE said, in an initiative that will last for an initial period of three years.

The system is "vital" if Moscow is to be held liable for compensation to victims of the war, said Marija Pejčinović Burić, secretary general of the COE.

The COE has 46 member states. The gathering in Reykjavik is only the fourth summit since the council was established in 1949. The summit’s "top priority" was supporting Ukraine in Russia’s war, according to the COE’s website.

"The register is an important step towards accountability for crimes committed in Russia’s brutal war and a strong message of support to Ukraine," Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the register is "an important milestone on the road to justice and reparations for Ukraine and the Ukrainians who have suffered so much from this war."

Forty nations — including some, like the United States, who had observer status at the summit — have joined the register, with a further three having expressed an intention to join.

Nine countries who are either member or observer states of the council have not yet joined the agreement: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, The Holy See, Israel and Mexico.