May 31, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Tra Reade, a former staffer who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, has defected to Russia and spoke to Russian state media in a press conference that lasted several hours.

Reade drew headlines during the 2020 presidential race, when she accused then candidate Biden of sexually harassing and assaulting her when she worked in his Senate office in 1993.

Biden has strongly denied Reade’s allegations, and no ex-Biden staffer has come forward to say they ever witnessed or heard about any kind of sexual misconduct in his Senate office.

In an interview with MSNBC in 2020, Biden said he is “saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. It didn’t. It never happened.”

Reade later faced credibility questions of her own including about her education and other credentials.

After being out of the headlines for years, Reade turned up in Moscow on Tuesday, where she sat alongside convicted Kremlin spy Maria Butina and answered questions from Russian state media.

Butina was sentenced to 18 months in an American prison in 2019 for conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent, and now serves in the Russian Parliament in President Vladimir Putin’s party.

Reade said she decided to come to Russia following death threats she received this year after she reiterated her accusations regarding Biden and announced on Twitter that she was willing “to testify under oath in Congress if asked.”

CNN cannot verify Reade’s claims of receiving threats on her life.

Reade said that “this illusion of Russia as an enemy is propagated by a few Washington elites who are determined to cause problems.” 

During the conference, Butina promised to discuss the possibility of granting Russian citizenship to Reade and ask Putin “to fast track her citizenship request.” 

Russian President Vladimir Putin called a drone attack in the Moscow region a "clear sign of terrorist activity" while pointing the finger at Ukraine. Though Ukraine has denied that it was directly involved, it came the same day that at least one person was killed in an aerial assault on Kyiv early Tuesday.

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said the number of Ukrainian strikes has increased near the border with its highest number of reported attacks in the past 24 hours.

Here's what to know to get up to speed:

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a Telegram post Tuesday that he has received an order to redeploy his forces to the Moscow-backed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine.

According to Kadyrov, “combat units are being prepared for assault activities with the active support of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces.”

Kadyrov said “similar orders to start the offensive” were also received by other units of his Akhmat battalion, that are located on “alternative sections of the line of contact between the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.”

“Tactical training activities were also carried out there, the distribution of tasks between commanders and fighters, the study of the terrain and the disposition of enemy forces,” the Chechen leader added.

Some context: Kadyrov leads sizeable paramilitary forces that, while formally a part of Russian security structures, have personal loyalty to him. During a visit to the Kremlin in March, the Chechen leader told Putin his forces in Ukraine will help Russia "fight to the victorious end."

A fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar territory has been extinguished after a possible unmanned aerial vehicle attack, according to Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev. 

The fire was reported at the Afipsky Refinery in Seversky district and no casualties were reported, Kondratiev said on Telegram early Wednesday morning. One of the fuel oil distillation units had caught fire, he added. 

The governor said “fire brigades, MES, and emergency services” were working to extinguish the fire.

One person was injured in shelling of the town of Shebekino, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region.

It comes a day after Gladkov reported dozens of strikes in several areas of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, by Ukrainian mortar and artillery fire. One person was killed and two others were injured in an attack on a temporary accommodation center on Tuesday, he said.

One person was killed and two others were injured in a Ukrainian attack on a temporary accommodation center, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region.

In a Telegram post Tuesday, Gladkov said "the security guard of this institution died."

"Two more people were injured. They are in critical condition in intensive care," he added.

According to Gladkov, cannon artillery was used in the strike. 

Some context: There has been increased fighting along the Russia-Ukraine border, specifically in the Belgorod region, officials have reported.

Namely, last week, a group of anti-Putin Russian nationals — who are aligned with the Ukrainian army — claimed responsibility for an attack in Belgorod, leaving Moscow to say it was fighting the group of saboteurs.

In a Telegram post, groups calling themselves the Freedom for Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps said they had “liberated” a settlement in Belgorod.

The United States expects Sweden's accession to NATO to be completed “in the weeks ahead,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“We have no doubt that it can be, and it should be and we expect it to be,” said Blinken at a news conference in Luleå, Sweden, with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Key context: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted non-aligned Finland and Sweden to abandon their neutrality and seek protection within NATO. Finland officially became the 31st member of NATO on April 4.

US President Joe Biden said he spoke on Monday with newly reelected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and discussed the potential of approving the sale of new US fighter jets if Turkey drops its objections to Sweden joining NATO.

However, Blinken said the two issues are viewed as separate by the administration.

The secretary of state also said it was “appropriate” that every member have its say on the accession of new members into the alliance.

“Each member is making a solemn commitment to every other member that it will join in coming to their defense if they are the victims of aggression, and so it's important that every member have its say in this process,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the drone attack in the Moscow region on Tuesday, calling it a "clear sign of terrorist activity."

"Kyiv chose the path of intimidation of Russian citizens and attacks on residential buildings," he said, adding: "We are concerned about attempts to evoke a response from Russia. It seems that is what they [Ukraine] want ... Kyiv provokes us to mirror actions. We will see what to do about this."

The Russian president said the city's air defenses worked normally.

Putin suggested the drone attacks had been in response to recent Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure.

"The Russian Armed Forces strike exclusively with long-range high-precision weapons and only at military infrastructure facilities," he said. "Of course, some portion of these strikes is aimed at the military headquarters as well as headquarters of the Ukrainian military intelligence, which was hit two to three days ago."

In just the past few days, Russia has hit a medical facility in Dnipro and launched more than 50 drones at Kyiv.

Ukraine has not commented on any strike against the headquarters of its military intelligence.

It’s a familiar routine for Ukrainians: Explosions ring out in the city, then videos emerge of drones overhead. Air defenses spring into action, and the authorities put out preliminary statements confirming a strike.

But this time, the shattered glass and concrete is in the Russian capital, not Kyiv. Russia’s war on Ukraine, it seems, has come home to Moscow.

Here’s what we know so far. On Tuesday morning, a wave of drone strikes hit the Russian capital. According to state news agency RIA-Novosti, one unmanned aerial vehicle struck the upper floors of a residential high-rise in southwestern Moscow, damaging the facade of the building. Another hit a flat on the 14th floor of an apartment building on Leninsky Prospekt, one of the city’s main arteries.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin gave updates on Telegram, telling residents that emergency services were on the scene and that two people were injured, with none hospitalized. A few hours later, Sobyanin said residents evacuated from apartment buildings hit by drones were returning home.

But it’s unlikely that Moscow can return to its uneasy status quo of life during what the Kremlin euphemistically refers to as the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of last year, most of Russia has been spared the kinds of scenes that Ukrainians routinely endure.

In the months since, regions of Russia bordering Ukraine have come under fire, with local officials reporting occasional shelling by the Ukrainian side. The Kremlin accused Ukrainian helicopters of striking inside Russian territory Friday, claims Kyiv neither confirmed nor denied.

And earlier this month, drones penetrated the rings of security surrounding the Kremlin, the very seat of power in Russia.

Read the full analysis here.