May 26, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Despite leading a new coalition to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter jet, the Dutch prime minister was guarded Friday on committing to actually sending the aircraft to Ukraine.

President Joe Biden informed G7 leaders last week that the US will support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth generation aircraft — a modern class of fighters that includes F-16s. The Biden administration has also signaled it would not block the planes' export, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.

The Netherlands is leading the joint training mission, together with Belgium and the United Kingdom, Rutte said. There are additional European countries who have told the Dutch government they are interested in helping, he added.

Rutte said starting the training mission was important, but the discussion on actually sending planes should happen separately. 

Rutte did acknowledge the Netherlands has a fleet of F-16s that it will no longer need, as it transitions to the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet. But when pressed by a journalist, he refused to comment on any Dutch desire to send those planes to Ukraine.

France condemned Russia's strikes on Ukraine, including on a Dnipro hospital Friday morning, calling them “war crimes” that “cannot go unpunished,” according to a statement from the French Foreign Ministry. 

The missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine “once again deliberately targeted civilian sites,” the ministry said, “in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

Where things stand: At least two people are dead and at least 30 people, including two children are among the injured, according to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region military administration. Rescuers are searching for survivors in the rubble of a clinic. Officials said authorities still can't reach three people who may have been at the facility at the time of the attack. 

CNN's Maria Kostenko in Kyiv contributed to this post.

The number of people injured in Friday's attack on the city of Dnipro has risen to 30 people, including two children, according to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region military administration.

The search for three people who could have been at the facility at the time of the attack is still ongoing, regional military administration head Serhii Lysak said in a Telegram post on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration confirmed that two people died in the rocket strike.

Meanwhile, Dnipro Mayor Boris Filatov told journalists that a change of shifts for doctors was ongoing when the attack occurred at the Dnipropetrovsk City Hospital No. 14 — meaning fewer people were working at the facility at the time.

A fire caused by the rocket has been extinguished, he added.

Any conflict would end with negotiations, but as long as the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in power, no talks would be possible, Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, said Friday during a visit to Vietnam, according to state news agency TASS. 

"As long as the current regime and clown Zelensky are in power in Kiev, talks will be impossible," Medvedev said, adding that at some point an agreement would have to be negotiated.

"Everything always ends in negotiations. This is inevitable, but as long as these people are in power, the situation for Russia will not change in terms of negotiations," Medvedev said.

Medvedev went on to say that it is worth weighing all proposals for peace in Ukraine offered by various countries.

"As for peace plans being proposed, all of them should be considered," Medvedev said, commenting on the peace plans proposed by China and other countries.

Some context: China's peace plan and claim for neutrality have been undermined by Beijing's refusal to acknowledge the nature of the conflict, as well as its diplomatic and economic support for Moscow. Its officials have repeatedly said that the “legitimate” security concerns of all countries must be taken into account and accused NATO and the US of fueling the conflict.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called on senior US diplomats on Friday to express "strong protest" over US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's remarks about Ukrainian strikes on Crimea, after he said the US has not placed limitations on Kyiv to hit its territory.

The ministry called Sullivan's remarks in an interview with CNN on Sunday "unacceptable."

Sullivan also said that Washington will not enable Ukraine with Western systems to attack Russian territory, which includes Crimea.

A statement by the ministry said: "It was emphasized that the assurances of American officials that the United States does not encourage such attacks on Russia are hypocritical and false, given the direct material evidence of the use of weapons and equipment supplied for the needs of the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] by the Pentagon to prepare and carry out terrorist acts by Ukrainian militants."

"The hostile actions of the United States, which has long been a party to the conflict, plunged Russian-American relations into a deep and dangerous crisis, fraught with unpredictable consequences," the ministry added. 

"It is time for Washington to learn that any form of aggression against Russia will continue to meet the strongest resistance."

Some context: Diplomatic relations between Western allies of Kyiv and the Kremlin further deteriorated after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) damaged buildings in Krasnodar on Friday, after local media reported that an explosion was heard in the southern Russian city.

The governor of Krasnodar Veniamin Kondratiev said no major infrastructure was impacted, and said there were no casualties following the incident.

On Friday morning, videos geo-located by CNN showed what appeared to be a UAV in the sky followed by the sound of an explosion. Other social media images show smoke rising from the building, and another image shows the building damaged.

State news agency TASS reported that the city's emergency call center was alerted to an explosion on Morskaya Street early Friday.

At least two people were killed and over a dozen more injured in Dnipro, after a shower of Russian strikes hit the central Ukrainian city on Friday.

Here are the latest developments:

At least two people have died and 23 people left injured following an attack on a medical facility in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday.

A 69-year-old man "was just passing by when the rocket struck the city" and the body of another man "was pulled out of the rubble," said Serhii Lysak, head of the regional military administration.

He said that 23 people were wounded in the bombardment, with 21 of them hospitalized and three in a critical condition.

At least four people are missing following the attack in Dnipro, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office.

The fire covered 1,000 square meters of the medical facility, where a three-story building was partially destroyed, Lysak added.

He added that rescue workers are searching for people under the rubble.

CNN geolocated the attack to Dnipropetrovsk City Hospital No. 14 and a veterinary clinic in an industrial district north of the Dnipro river in Dnipro. 

The Kremlin demanded that the United Kingdom and other countries unfreeze Russian foreign assets without any conditions, as Western allies of Ukraine load economic pressure onto Moscow over the conflict.

“Otherwise, they violate all the norms and rules of both their domestic legislation and international law," he added.

Some background: The United States and its allies have blocked or seized $58 billion worth of assets owned or controlled by sanctioned Russians in the past year, in an effort to crunch Russia's economy amid the war.

The Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force said in March that they will "redouble" their efforts to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates.

REPO is a joint effort between the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the UK and the European Commission. It was established last year in order to monitor sanctions evasion.

CNN's Sam Fossum contributed reporting.