UK Prime Minister to "redouble efforts" to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine: Downing Street
From CNN’s Cecelia Armstrong in London
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Paddington Station in London, England, on May 17. (Andrew Matthews/Pool/Getty Images)
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will "redouble efforts to provide vital food and humanitarian aid" to Ukraine, his office said Sunday.
During a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Johnson spoke about the "despicable" blockade of the key port city of Odesa, according to the statement. The Prime Minister will work to "ensure that the country is able to export to the rest of the world," according to a 10 Downing Street statement.
The leaders agreed on the need for the international community to remain united in its condemnation of Putin’s barbarism," Downing Street said.
In Johnson’s view, "every country has a duty to help Ukraine in their struggle for freedom, both now and in the long-term." He reiterated the British people are "1,000% behind the people of Ukraine."
Johnson also "expressed his profound hope that they would, along with all the people of Ukraine, be able to return to life as normal one day soon."
4:28 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
Russians shelled 3 settlements in Kryvyi Rih, regional official says
From CNN's Mariya Knight in Atlanta
Russian forces shelled three settlements in the Kryvyi Rih district, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council, Mykola Lukashuk, said Sunday.
Lukashuk said in a post on his Telegram page "ten shells flew into Maryanske village, and two more strikes hit Apostolove Community."
Infrastructure facilities were not affected, he added.
He also reported one Russian missile fell into the Samara River in Pavlograd district. According to Lukashuk, there were no casualties.
"Other districts of Dnipropetrovsk region were not attacked today. There are no Russian occupation troops in the region," he said.
9:03 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
At least 1 person killed in Russian missile attack on Zhytomyr, regional official says
From CNN's Mariya Knight in Atlanta
At least one person was killed in a Russian missile attack on Malyn, in the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian military official said Sunday.
"So far I can't say anything more specific, except that the information about one victim has already been confirmed. The blow to Malyn is very similar to the one on May 20. There was a fire at the scene, it was extinguished literally just now, closer to seven o'clock in the evening," said Vitaliy Bunechko, the head of Zhytomyr’s regional military administration.
His comments were reported in a Telegram post by Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.
9:04 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
It's 11 p.m. in Kyiv. Here's what you need to know
From CNN Staff
A downed bridge that connects the city of Lysychansk to the city of Severodonetsk, on Sunday. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)
Russian forces attacked Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine from several directions overnight but were repelled to previous positions, President Zelensky's office said on Sunday.
Seven houses in Severodonetsk and at least 27 houses in surrounding towns and villages were damaged, according to the statement from the office.
The attack on Severodonetsk was part of a broader assault along the line of contact between Russian and Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian military general staff said.
“The enemy forces are preparing to resume the offensive in the Sloviansk direction,” the Ukrainian general staff said, referring to another key city in the area.
Russian forces have also destroyed the Pavlograd bridge between Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the Luhansk region, says the Ukrainian head of the regional military administration.
Severodonetsk and Sloviansk are key to controlling Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Parts of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk have been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
Here are more of the latest headlines from the Russia-Ukraine war:
Ukrainian Air Command: Russia fired missiles into Zhytomyr region: Ukraine’s Air Command Center said Russian forces fired missiles at infrastructure facilities in the Zhytomyr region on Sunday. The Zhytomyr region was attacked from “the south-eastern direction” by “naval-based cruise missiles” according to Ukraine’s Air Command Center on Facebook. The center added, “four Russian cruise missiles were destroyed by the Center's air defense units.” Three missiles were destroyed by aircraft, and one by an anti-aircraft missile unit of the Ukrainian air force, they added. The Zhytomyr region sits to the west of Kyiv.
Venue usually used by Russia to promote itself in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House: The venue typically used by Russia to promote itself at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House. Russia House was used to host events at WEF by Russians for many years. A Ukrainian businessman, working with WEF, has turned the venue into an exhibition depicting the devastation and destruction of the war in Ukraine. Organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre, an international centre for contemporary art based in Kyiv, “the exhibition aims to inform about the main facts, share faces, names and dates and provide at least some of the victims a platform from which to tell their real story,” the foundation said in a press release.
EU membership for Ukraine would take “15 or 20 years,” French minister says: Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union would take at least “15 or 20 years" to complete, France’s European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said on Sunday, while promoting President Emmanuel Macron’s alternative proposal of creating a new “European political community” including Ukraine. “If we say that Ukraine will join the European Union in 6 months, one year, two years, we are lying. It is not true,” Beaune told Jewish community radio station Radio J. “It is probably maybe 15 or 20 years. No matter what, it’s very long,” he added.
Russians introduce new controls on Mariupol movement, mayor’s adviser says: The Russian forces that control Mariupol have started requiring permits for cars entering and exiting the occupied Ukrainian city, an adviser to the city’s Ukrainian mayor said Sunday. Petro Andrushchenko, the adviser, also warned that deportations of Ukrainians from the region were increasing. Under the restrictions introduced Saturday, cars and passengers entering the city need single-use passes issued by a Russian commandant in Manhush or Vynohradne, towns to the west and east of the occupied city, Andrushchenko said.
Lithuania cuts Russian energy imports: Lithuania will have completely cut imports of Russian energy supplies including oil, electricity and natural gas from Sunday. The country’s Ministry of Energy said in a statement on Friday that the pan-European power exchange Nord Pool had decided to stop trading Russian electricity with its only importer in the Baltic States, Russian utility Inter RAO – meaning the country would no longer be importing any Russian energy. "Not only it is an extremely important milestone for Lithuania in its journey towards energy independence, but it is also an expression of our solidarity with Ukraine,” Lithuanian Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys said. “We must stop financing Russian war machine.”
2:48 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
Russia fires missiles into Zhytomyr region, says Ukraine's Air Command Center
From CNN's Saskya Vandoorne and Mariya Knight
Ukraine’s Air Command Center said Russian forces fired missiles at infrastructure facilities in the Zhytomyr region on Sunday.
The Zhytomyr region was attacked from “the south-eastern direction” by “naval-based cruise missiles” according to Ukraine’s Air Command Center on Facebook.
The center added, “four Russian cruise missiles were destroyed by the Center's air defense units.”
Three missiles were destroyed by aircraft, and one by an anti-aircraft missile unit of the Ukrainian air force, they added.
The Zhytomyr region sits to the west of Kyiv.
5:00 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
Venue usually used by Russia to promote itself in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House
From CNN's Chris Liakos in Davos, Switzerland
A security personnel walks next to the entrance of Russia House, now rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House, in Davos, on Sunday. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
The venue typically used by Russia to promote itself at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos has been rebranded as the Russian War Crimes House.
Russia House was used to host events at WEF by Russians for many years. A Ukrainian businessman, working with WEF, has turned the venue into an exhibition depicting the devastation and destruction of the war in Ukraine.
Organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre, an international centre for contemporary art based in Kyiv, “the exhibition aims to inform about the main facts, share faces, names and dates and provide at least some of the victims a platform from which to tell their real story,” the foundation said in a press release.
Björn Geldhof, the exhibition's curator, told CNN that the process of collecting and verifying the images took about one-and-a-half weeks, collecting more than 4,600 images showing “overwhelming amount of evidence of war crimes.”
“An exhibition as this, is one of the steps to raise awareness for the absolute necessity of bringing war criminals to justice and this is not exclusively the task of Ukraine, this is a common task, this is a task for all countries in the world to say this cannot be,” Geldhof told CNN.
He added that this project is “about people” who have been attacked and killed. “And we need to honor them, we need to give them a voice and we need to give them a face,” he said.
Russian politicians and businessmen were not invited to this year’s World Economic Forum after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“As Russia is not here, we had the opportunity to speak about Russia but about a different reality of Russia, about the war crimes that Russia is committing in Ukraine,” Geldhof said adding that “it is incredibly important to show what Russia is really doing in Ukraine which is proactively and consciously targeting civilians, killing, raping civilians in a way to try to exterminate Ukraine as a nation.”
The initiative was supported by the City Council and the World Economic Forum.
11:20 a.m. ET, May 22, 2022
EU membership for Ukraine would take “15 or 20 years,” French minister says
From CNN’s Martin Goillandeau in London
France’s European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune speaks during a press conference in Paris on March 30. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)
Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union would take at least “15 or 20 years" to complete, France’s European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said on Sunday, while promoting President Emmanuel Macron’s alternative proposal of creating a new “European political community” including Ukraine.
“If we say that Ukraine will join the European Union in 6 months, one year, two years, we are lying. It is not true,” Beaune told Jewish community radio station Radio J. “It is probably maybe 15 or 20 years. No matter what, it’s very long,” he added.
“It takes a very long time and I don't want us to sell illusions and lies. If we tell Ukrainians ‘welcome to the European Union, but you didn’t fully read the contract, the footnote says: hey it will be in 15 years,’ then I think we are setting the ground for the disappointment of a whole generation of Ukrainians,” Beaune said.
The French minister went on to say that Macron’s recent proposal to create a new European political community outside the EU, including Ukraine, was “not an alternative” to any EU membership for Ukraine and “did not prevent its future EU membership.”
“It is a complementary project to the European Union, which can offer a concrete political project to countries that are not in the heart of the European Union but that want to get closer to the Union,” the minister said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech on Saturday that any alternative to Ukraine's bid to join the European Union would be a “compromise” with Russia, in response to the project proposed by Macron.
Beaune said that “any accession to the European Union, let's be honest, it takes time.” “And while waiting for this membership, we cannot simply say ‘it is this or nothing’,” he added.
“It is a quick and useful complement to protect Ukraine politically, economically and energetically and to tell Ukraine ‘you are already in a project and a European political family’,” Beaune told the radio.
3:37 p.m. ET, May 22, 2022
Russians introduce new controls on Mariupol movement, mayor’s adviser says
From CNN's Julia Presniakova in Lviv
A convoy of Russian armored vehicles drives along a road near Mariupol, Ukraine on May 20. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
The Russian forces that control Mariupol have started requiring permits for cars entering and exiting the occupied Ukrainian city, an adviser to the city’s Ukrainian mayor said Sunday.
Petro Andrushchenko, the adviser, also warned that deportations of Ukrainians from the region were increasing.
Under the restrictions introduced Saturday, cars and passengers entering the city need single-use passes issued by a Russian commandant in Manhush or Vynohradne, towns to the west and east of the occupied city, Andrushchenko said.
Passes to leave the city must be obtained from the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People’s Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs.
There is already a wait of several weeks for a pass, he said, and traveling within the district without entering the city also requires a pass.
“For those who are going to visit Mariupol, remember, for now, it's a one-way trip,” he warned.
A man pushes a stalled car past a damaged tram in Mariupol on May 21. (Alexei Alexandrov/AP)
Mariupol, a strategically important port city on the Azov sea, fell under complete Russian control last week with the surrender of the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of Ukrainians defending the city.
The Russians are also setting up more checkpoints to control travel in the district, Andrushchenko said.
“Today it is almost impossible to leave the city, even to Berdyansk,” another Russian-controlled city southwest of Mariupol. “As new checkpoints appear, all roads, both official and unofficial, are blocked. Today, it is impossible to bypass the filtration procedure or obtain a pass from the occupying authorities.”
Nearly 50,000 people have been deported from Mariupol by the Russians, he said, adding that Ukrainian authorities are trying to find out where they have been sent.
“The situation is very complicated,” he said. “Most people leave without documents at all…. But there are lucky cases. Not so long ago, 56 Mariupol residents were deported from Penza. And they are already in the Baltic countries.
A resident walks near a damaged building in Mariupol on May 20. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
“We hope that we will be able to get at least some of our people back to Ukraine or to free countries," Andrushchenko said.
He said that 313 people, including 55 children, were deported from Mariupol to the Bezimenne filtration camp on Saturday.
Some 175 people, including 17 children, were deported from Bezimenne to Russia on Saturday, he said, and 70 people, including 12 children, were deported from the filtration point in the village of Nikolske to Russia.
He said it was the first time Ukraine had seen direct deportations from Nikolske to Russia.
11:22 a.m. ET, May 22, 2022
Ukraine's parliament votes to extend martial law for 90 more days
From CNN's Yulia Kesaieva in Kyiv
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a parliament session in Kyiv, Ukraine on May 22. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout/Reuters)
Ukraine’s parliament voted Sunday to extend martial law in the country for another 90 days, until August 23, the legislature announced on Telegram.
There were 320 votes in favor of the measure, the Verkhovna Rada said. The body has 450 members.
President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to sign the measure into law.
